Justice Denied

A Review of Marci Hamilton's Justice Denied: What America Must Do To Protect Its Children

By THOMAS P. DOYLE, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.
Wednesday, Jun. 24, 2008

The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed a remarkable surge of concern for the rights and welfare of children. Parallel to this concern there has been unprecedented scholarly activity into the history of this subject. Though not as extensive as one would expect, the scholarship has revealed that children’s rights and the very comprehension of the emotional, psychological and moral development of the child has been severely limited. The innocence of children and young adolescents was not presumed, in fact there is evidence that the canonists, perhaps the most significant group of lawyers in the middle ages, presumed that children and minors were always prone to do wrong.1

About Marci Hamilton

Marci A. Hamilton is an internationally recognized constitutional law expert specializing in church/state relations, and a tireless crusader for children’s rights.

Professor Hamilton has represented numerous survivors of childhood sexual abuse, particularly those involving circumstances where the abuse was made possible by religious organizations. In recent weeks, she has appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “World News with Charles Gibson,” “CBS Saturday Morning,” and CNN.com to comment on the recent FLDS case and the Pope’s visit to America.

She is a Visiting Professor and the Kathleen and Martin Crane Fellow in the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton.

Professor Hamilton holds the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, and is the Founding Director of the Cardozo Intellectual Property Law Program. Her weekly blog is HERE

Excerpt from Justice Denied What America Must Do to Protect its Children

Chapter One: We Have Failed Our Children

I received an e-mail from an incest survivor that beautifully and tragically captures the rotten core of the legal system's handling of childhood sexual abuse.

"I am a child of sexual abuse at the hands of my father from the age of 6–12 years. He has also abused two other girls that I know of (have proof) one being a friend of mine from school and the other, our babysitter from when I was about 9 years old. I live day to day with the knowledge of these horrors and seem to get tougher day by day with the injustice of seeing nothing being done. Anyway, I called my father 4 years ago and told him that I have somehow found the self esteem and strength to now confront him and make him answer for all the horror he put myself and these two girls (children at the time) through. He basically laughed at me and told me that there are 'Statu[t]e of Limitations.' I pursued the right channels by filing a police report, called the DA's office, contacted attorneys to see if I could pursue this, and come to find out he was right."

Interview with Prof. Hamilton on Written Voices Podcast

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Marci Hamilton was interviewed by Written Voices host Allan Hunkin in early May 2008.

Listen to excerpt from interview:

Written Voices podcasts (Link HERE) are hosted by life enhancement expert Allan Hunkin.

Listed in the who’s who book Self Improvement: The Top 101 Experts That Help Us Improve Our Lives Allan holds credentials in five different models of psychology and has interviewed over 600 authors, celebrities and thought leaders from around the world.

About Justice Denied: What America Must Do To Protect Its' Children

There is a silent epidemic of childhood sexual abuse in the United States, but our legal system is not effectively protecting the most innocent from predators. Recent coverage of widespread abuse in schools and in churches has brought the once-taboo subject of childhood sexual abuse to the forefront. But despite increasing awareness of the problem, the United States has not succeeded in establishing effective means of deterring and preventing abuse or providing justice to victims, leaving the children of today and tomorrow vulnerable.

Popular legal fixes, like sex offender registries, increased sentences, and pedophile-free zones, are ineffective without acknowledging that the problem extends well beyond schools and churches. The vast majority of survivors are sexually abused by family or family acquaintances -- with 90 percent of abuse never being reported to the authorities.

Hamilton proposes a comprehensive yet simple solution: eliminate the arbitrary statutes of limitation for childhood sexual abuse so that survivors past and present can get into court. Removing this merely procedural barrier permits the millions of survivors to make public the identities of their perpetrators and to receive justice and much-deserved compensation.

Buy book from Amazon.com:

Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect its Children