Yost, former AGs seek to end time limits on rape charges

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Ohio lawmakers should remove time limits for charging suspects with rape, state Attorney General David Yost said Monday as he and former attorneys general joined a call to eliminate such statutes of limitations in the state.

Gov. Mike DeWine made a similar request last month in light of the sex-abuse scandal at Ohio State University. The late Richard Strauss, a former team doctor, is accused of abusing more than 170 male students from the late 1970s into the 1990s.

Yost and other attorneys general said the Strauss scandal was one impetus for the push, as is the national #MeToo movement, and changes in society’s understanding of the impact of rape.

Rape should be treated like murder, which has no limits on when charges can be brought, Yost and five former attorneys general said in a May 31 letter to House Speaker Larry Householder and Senate President Larry Obhof.

Yost was joined at a news conference by former Republican Attorney General Betty Montgomery and former Democratic Attorney General Nancy Rogers. Jim Petro, a Republican, and Democrats Lee Fisher and Richard Cordray also signed the letter.

Yost dismissed arguments that eliminating time limits for rape charges could lead to unjust convictions. It’s still up to the prosecution to prove their case, and prosecutors can’t bring convictions if they don’t meet the burden of proof, the letter said.