Stogner v. California: The Intersection of Statutes of Limitations, Child Molestation and the Ex Post Facto Clause
![handle is hein.journals/geojlap2 and id is 723 raw text is: Stogner v. California: The Intersection of Statutes of
Limitations, Child Molestation and the
Ex Post Facto Clause
KENT D. KRABILL*
I. INTRODUCTION
Imagine a kitchen. Not just any kitchen, but a child molester's kitchen. Inside
this kitchen, there is a calendar hanging on the refrigerator door. And on this
calendar, a child molester's calendar, a very special date is circled. Day after
day the child molester watches the calendar, waiting for the moment when he
will be able to celebrate. On the circled date, at long last, the child molester will
be able to discard the records of his crime, return to his country, and even, if he
chooses, place a gloating phone call to the victim.' Now imagine an innocent
child. This child is a victim, a victim of the gloating molester. This child, day
after day, and year after year, lives with a deep and lasting pain. And after years
and years of living in this state of agony, the victim, now an adult, has at long
last overcome [the] shame and the desire to repress th[e] painful memories.
They have [finally] reported the crime so that the [molester can be] brought to
justice and harm to others [can be] prevented.,2 However, in Stogner v. Califor-
nia, the United States Supreme Court has suggested that the victim's decision
to come forward is in vain.'3 By ruling that state laws which revive time-barred
criminal prosecutions are unconstitutional under the Ex Post Facto Clause-
Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the Constitution-the Court has placed the
criminal's reliance interest in the statute of limitations above the interests of
both the State and the victims of sexual abuse.4
In Stogner, California prosecuted Marion Stogner as a child abuser after the
original statute of limitations of the alleged crime had expired.5 The State did so
under the authority of [Cal. Penal Code § 803(g)(3)6 which] (1) permits
resurrection of otherwise time-barred criminal prosecutions, and (2) was itself
* J.D. Candidate, May 2005, Pepperdine University School of Law.
1. Stogner v. California, 539 U.S. 607, 649 (2003) (Kennedy, J., dissenting); see also id. at 632
(quoting WHARTON, CRIMINAL PLEADING AND PRACTICE § 316, at 210 (8th ed. 1880)) (suggesting that
retroactively changing the statute of limitations after they have expired and therefore exposing an
individual to prosecution is unfair because the individual has relied on the states' assurance that he is
at liberty to return to his country ... and that from henceforth he may cease to preserve the proofs of
his innocence).
2. Id. at 652.
3. Id.
4. See id. at 652-53.
5. Id. at 610. The statute of limitations governing prosecutions at the time the crimes were allegedly
committed had set for a 3-year limitations period. And that period had run 22 years or more before the
present prosecution was brought. Id.
6. CAL. PENAL CODE § 803(g)(3) (West Supp. 2003).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/geojlap2&div=33&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Stogner v. California: The Intersection of Statutes of Limitations, Child Molestation and the Ex Post Facto Clause
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