SBC Lawyers File Brief Asking Supreme Court To Side AGAINST Confirmed Sex-Abuse Victim. But Do They Have a Point?
Lawyers representing the Southern Baptist Convention have filed an amicus brief encouraging the Supreme Court of Kentucky to rule AGAINST a verified sex abuse victim, understanding that a ruling in her favor would negatively impact them.
Several years ago, Samantha Killary claimed that her father, a police officer who adopted her when she was two, sexually abused her throughout her childhood until she turned 18 in 2009. She recorded him admitting it and turned in the tapes, resulting in a guilty plea and 15 years in prison.
She later sued her father’s girlfriend, whom he dated from 2001-2003, and her grandfather. Like her father, they were also police officers, and she alleges they both knew of the abuse but failed to report it. She sued the police station as well for employing all three.
A judge initially dismissed the case against her, saying that the statute of limitations of five years had passed. But then the state legislature doubled the statute to 10 years in 2017, and then four years later made it so that claims against “non-perpetrators” could be brought forward against law enforcement and religious organizations if they knew about the abuse but failed to lawfully report it.
As a result, the Court of Appeals reopened Killary’s case. The state Supreme Court is weighing whether or not the legislature’s expansion of the statute of limitations can be applied retroactively, enabling her to bring another suit against her father’s girlfriend from 20 years ago, her grandfather, and the police station responsible for employing them all.
Enter the SBC. Lawyers for the Southern Baptist Convention, Lifeway, the Executive Committee, and SBTS filed an amicus brief encouraging the Supreme Court to throw out Killary’s lawsuit and not to revive tort claims against “non-perpetrator parties.”
This is because they are one of those “non-perpetrator parties” currently involved in a similar lawsuit. Hannah-Kate Williams, a young woman with a troubled history, contends that her father sexually, physically, and psychologically abused her from her teens to childhood. She claims she reported the abuse at the age of 8 to SBC church staff and later on others, but they did nothing other than tell her, “I’m praying for you.”
Unlike Killary, these allegations from Williams have not been proven or substantiated.
The SBC says that victims of child abuse should certainly get justice, but insists that retroactively applying expired timelines against those who had no part in the abuse is not the way to do it, notwithstanding the fact that it violates due process claims.
Here, their motivations are clear. They don’t believe that the new 2021 laws against “non-perpetrator parties” should be allowed to proceed. If the Supreme Court agrees, Williams’ lawsuit against them would be dead in the water and dismissed.
But if the court agrees that these parties can be charged, it would open them up to far greater liability and directly impact other case they’re involved in.
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