Court upholds that no time limit applies in clergy abuse cases

ST. LOUIS -- Affirming a lower court's stance that no time limit applies to prosecuting someone for sodomy, Missouri's highest court Tuesday refused to hear the case of a Roman Catholic priest accused of child sex abuse during the 1970s.

The Missouri Supreme Court's ruling, without comment, upheld a September ruling by the Missouri Court of Appeals that reversed a St. Louis judge's determination that too much time had passed for the Rev. Thomas Graham to be charged with the clergy abuse.

In asking Missouri's high court to hear the case, Graham attorney Art Margulis labeled the matter "of profound significance," suggesting that a ruling unfavorable to his client might spur more prosecutions involving sexual abuse by clergy.

Margulis directed questions about Tuesday's ruling to his co-counsel Christian Goeke, who said "we expected this was an issue the [Supreme Court] would take up simply because of its widespread ramifications."

No other appeals are planned, Goeke said.

Messages left with Ed Postawko, an assistant St. Louis city prosecutor who heads the office's child sex abuse unit, were not returned.

When the appeals court first ruled against his client in July, Margulis asked that court to reconsider. On Sept. 28, that panel again ruled in the state's favor, declaring that no statute of limitations applied for prosecution of crimes -- including sodomy -- punishable under Missouri law by death or life imprisonment.

Graham, now 70, was indicted in December 2002 on a charge of performing oral sex on a teenage boy, allegedly between January 1975 and December 1978, in the rectory of the historic Old Cathedral in downtown St. Louis. He was released on bond.

Margulis has said it was unfair to charge a person in such cases so many years after an alleged event, given that potential witnesses die or move away and memories fade over time.

He called the Graham case "a classic example of why there are statutes of limitations" -- the rectory's housekeeper at the time of the alleged crimes now has dementia, and the bishop there during the period in question has died.

In its September ruling, the appeals court found that "we are mindful of the purposes of statutes of limitations, not the least of which are to protect individuals from having to defend themselves against charges where the passage of time may have obscured the facts and to minimize the threat of official punishment because of acts committed in the distant past."

But as some higher courts have found, that opinion continued, "the possible prejudice that is inherent in any delay may also serve to weaken the prosecution's case."

The appeals court dismissed a defense argument that focused on the meaning of a state law saying there is no limit for filing charges for crimes punishable "with death or by imprisonment in the penitentiary during life."

Defense attorneys argued that phrase means there is no time limit for crimes that strictly have a punishment of death or life in prison, and that does not apply to crimes such as sodomy that carry potentially shorter sentences.

The penalty for sodomy is "open-ended," carrying a term of up to life, and so has no limitation, the three-judge Missouri Court of Appeals panel said.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, an advocacy group, cheered Tuesday's development. "We applaud the high court's wisdom in keeping kids safer," SNAP's David Clohessy said.