I’m willing to concede that there may be issues here, but where does Congress get the power to make banks subject to federal jurisdiction?
From a brief google search, it looks like bank robbery was made a federal crime in 1934, and it looks like the federal aspect is that the banks are subsidiaries of the federal reserve system
So, yeah, it’s a stretch to figure out some federal authority over church property. Maybe some angle along the lines of being federally tax exempt? As I said, I realize it may not work.
Banks are clearly involved in inter-state commerce. But the Supreme Court held in Lopez that the commerce power wasn’t sufficient to support a ban on gun possession near a school:
Oops. I see I didn’t finish my post. Just meant to add that by the Lopez analysis, how can the commerce clause support federal criminalising of an assault, just because it’s in a church?
One of the most horrendous and notorious child abusing priests began his career in Illinois. The first victim came forward something like 30 years after he had been assaulted. The Illinois statute of limitations had long since run. But the priest had a habit of taking his victims to a retreat house in Wisconsin. (Ironically, the house was owned by the parents of one of his victims.) Wisconsin law tolls (suspends) the statute of limitations for non-residents while they are out of state. So he couldn’t be convicted in Illinois, but they got his first conviction in Wisconsin, because he didn’t spend much time there.
Since then, he has also been convicted in Arizona and on federal charges of taking boys on international trips.
There was also recently a case in Illinois where a police officer was accused of having sex with underage girls. The federal penalty was worse than the state penalty, so they wanted to try him on federal charges. One of the justifications they used for federal jurisdiction was that he used condoms manufactured in a foreign country. He took a plea bargain, so the condom theory never got tested. Frankly, I’m all in favor of severe punishment for this kind of crime, but I’m not sure I like the message “use a condom, go to jail longer.”
I personally think that statute of limitations should exist for the bolded reasons, but a caveat should be made for cases where the crime was documented contemporaneously in some form (recorded testimony, unprocessed rape kits, etc.).
The fact that the SoL has already passed for many of the victims isn’t a reason not to extend the SoL. I have no doubt that there are far too many more incidents that are still prosecutable under the current limit that won’t be revealed until it’s currently too late.
Seems like a weak argument to me. If you want a speedy trial, turn yourself in right away. It’s not like statue of limitation laws are based on criminals challenging the constitutionality of not having been given a speedy trial, right?
Turn myself in for what? I didn’t do it. And if you had asked me before, instead of waiting ten years when all of the evidence had dried up, I could prove it.
Indeed, this is true and has been done in many cases already, but it then requires the clarification of what is intended by the proposal. Extending the pending term is not the same thing as retroactively restarting an expired term.
Indeed, a statute of limitations may very well not apply if the accused has deliberately fled to avoid prosecution. But if Alice is just innocently going about her business, unaware that she’s even a suspect, blithely destroying old potentially exculpatory records (“Oh, another box of old receipts showing I was out of town on the night of August 18, 2003? Well, I’ll certainly never need those”) then of course the statute of limitations does apply, and the state needs to make its case in a timely manner or let the issue drop.
For what it’s worth, the speedy trial guarantees and the statute of limitations do not measure the same time frame.
Typically, a speedy trial clock starts at the moment of arrest, or at the moment the indictment is unsealed if the indictment precedes the arrest. Speedy trial statutes typically provide both a minimum time where trial cannot commence, and then a maximum time by which trial must commence. The accused can waive both those time periods, agreeing to a quicker trial or agreeing to extend the beginning of the trial date.
The criminal statute of limitations typically begins to run when the crime is complete. For some crimes, this is simple: if you break into my house and shred my priceless Vermeer on Tuesday January 10th, then the clock starts on that date.
But if you steal it, keep it hidden for seven years until you think the statute of limitations has run, and then sell it, you’re in for a surprise: keeping the painting is a continuing offense, and the statute of limitations clock hasn’t even started yet, much less ended.
