Absolutely in favor of repealing the statute of limitations. In some cases, a victim is scared to come forward or take action because they fear retaliation for taking legal recourse.

Hell, just look at the liability case against David Brame. It took that fucker being dead for the victim to have the courage to step forward.

Nice piece. Worked with McBride a handful of times -- he's one of the good ones.

Seems like the only reason for limitations is to be able to remove cold cases from the files, but as fans of true crime know, many cases can be solved 20, 40 or more years after.

For example, over the past decade I've suffered a lot of personal invective from anonymous internet writers. I keep wondering if technology will appear one day that would make it possible to track down and identify these people.

@3

I'm sure the FBI's got their top agents on that.

Hey look, it did not even take an hour for Bailo to make this issue all about his bizarre persecution complex.

There must be a backlog of cold case files that need testing with the state of the art technology we have these days.

#7

Beginning of the 00s was the real sea change. Not only did low cost DNA testing become available, but juries were able to make judgements using circumstantial evidence. Intent and eyewitnesses because less of a necessity as forensics were accepted as enough to convict.

#4

I know they don't because when it got really bad around 2007 I contacted them directly (as well as the Postmaster general and other agencies).

However, a lot has changed since then, and will continue to evolve in the future.

A more useful thing would be to actually PROSECUTE the 90% of rape cases that are never brought to court.

Focus on that.

Just saying ...

@8: GOOD LUCK
I'M BEHIND SEVEN PROXIES
AND ALSO IN INCOGNITO MODE

Also, DNA can degrade over time and our old methods were basically HLA7 typing.

Oh good, Bailo is talking to himself now.

Also, I'm in favor of removing the shorter statute of limitations for reporting. Make it match up.

I am very sympathetic to removing statute of limitations, but our criminal justice system is completely fucked, so at the same time I'm wary of completely removing it, because I'm not sure more justice would be served.

Godammit, I miss Cienna's writing. Actual reporting, instead of snark. Come back!

Yes they should eliminate statue of limitations for rape and sexual assault cases..

Nice reporting. I think it's interesting that they can bring charges against a DNA sample.

There is also the issue of child sexual abuse cases where it often takes years for the survivors to come to terms with what happened to them and be ready to report the crime. Statutes of limitation have resulted in these survivors of sexual assault being re-traumatized when they try to report their abusers. The survivors get that a prosecution may be difficult, but hearing that police can't do anything and therefore aren't interested in taking their report is a situation we can and should address.