Lawmaker wants voters to decide on time limits for raising old claims of sex abuse

Sonya Martinez-Ortiz, executive director of the Rape Recovery Center, signs a pledge to kick off Sexual Assault Awareness Month at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, April 7, 2021. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News

Since the Utah Supreme Court struck down a state law reviving old claims of sexual abuse, a state lawmaker says she will propose a ballot measure allowing voters to effectively bring it back.

“I’m committed to that,” Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, said Wednesday. “I will be doing that during the 2022 session.”

Romero made the comment at a news conference recognizing April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month, saying it can take years for people to accept what happened to them early in life.

Laura Seitz, Deseret News

Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, left, speaks with assistant chief Nate Mutter and section chief Brendan Call, both of the Attorney General’s Office. at the kickoff of Sexual Assault Awareness Month at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, April 7, 2021.

She joined advocates, law enforcers and others on the steps of the state Capitol to cheer new laws addressing sexual violence in Utah.

One that passed the 2021 Legislature would bring Utah in compliance with federal standards designed to prevent prison rape, while another creates a task force to study the deaths and disappearances of Native American women and girls.

Supporters of the measures signed a poster, pledging to “start by believing” instead of automatically doubting or dismissing a person’s experience as a survivor of sexual assault.

Romero said she made a promise to her former colleague who sponsored the law. She told Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, that if the Utah Supreme Court ruled against it, she’d sponsor a legislative resolution to put the question before voters.

Laura Seitz, Deseret News

A person signs a pledge to kick off Sexual Assault Awareness Month at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, April 7, 2021.

Ivory’s wife, Rebecca Ivory, testified in favor of the law before it passed, telling lawmakers that a schoolteacher abused her when she was a child. The emotional scars “never fully heal,” Rebecca Ivory said.

The 2016 Utah law was one of many across the country that extend or remove time limits on old cases, allowing those who say they were abused to sue decades later. Neighboring Nevada, California and Illinois have passed similar laws.

After the state law passed, a Utah woman sued a federal judge, alleging he raped her when she was a teenage witness and he was an attorney prosecuting a white supremacist serial killer in Salt Lake City in 1981.

Richard Roberts announced his retirement as chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia the same day Terry Mitchell filed a lawsuit against him. His attorneys had argued the claims were too old and Utah law would lead to a flood of similar allegations.

Utah’s high court threw out the state law last year. In an “originalist” view of the Utah Constitution, Justice Thomas Lee wrote the right to a statute of limitation defense is vested — or unconditional — like the right to property, and beyond the reach of lawmakers to change.

Lee said it’s not outside voters’ ability, however, to amend the Utah Constitution.

This story will be updated.

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