Doug Clark: Tilting at legislative windmills to protect children

For the record, Don Brockett will not be changing his name to Don Quixote.

Although the former Spokane County prosecuting attorney certainly has reason to identify with that famed literary windmill-tilter.

For the fifth frustrating year, Brockett has sat back and glumly watched as Washington’s Legislature closed up shop without embracing or advancing into law his idea to eliminate the statutes of limitations for sex crimes against children under age 18.

“I’ve always wondered if I should continue tilting at windmills,” said Brockett, lacing his words with a soft chuckle. “Because all you do is keep getting paddled.”

Pity. Spokane’s Sen. Chris Marr has worked hard to try to make it happen. But for the last two legislative sessions, his bills regarding this issue have died on the vine in committees.

Rep. John Ahern, R-Spokane, actually introduced a bill that passed the House in 2003. It went nowhere in the Senate.

But anyone who expects Brockett to give up on his Man of La Mancha-like quest doesn’t know the man.

He may be retired. He may be 71.

But Don Brockett is the same ass-kicker he’s always been.

Exhibit A is the letter to the editor we published in Wednesday’s Spokesman-Review.

“The child molesters have once again won the battle for the safety of the children in our state!” Brockett roared in a call to action that also invited readers to check out www.stopmolesters.org for details.

Exhibit B is an e-mail Brockett sent me the other day.

In it was the text for a flier Brockett is threatening to hand out in Sen. Adam Kline’s neighborhood.

Brockett blames the Seattle Democrat, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, for not allowing a committee vote on Marr’s 2007 bill. Faced with opposition, Marr came up with a fallback bill this session asking the State Sentencing Guidelines Commission to examine the matter.

Not good enough, said Brockett, who will only be satisfied when the state statutes of limitations for child sex crimes are gone.

Hence his proposed flier:

“The child sex molesters of Washington would like to congratulate the following legislator for his continued resistance to changing the law so we can continue to molest kids knowing that eventually we may get away with it.

“Washington, thank goodness, unlike many other states and the Federal government, still has statutes of limitations for sex offenses committed against children under 18. This allows us to know that if the victim cannot come forward and tell someone who will believe them within a certain period of years we will have no responsibility for that crime.

“What a wonderful state to live in! I hope the legislator named below will continue to be on our side.

“Senator Adam Kline.”

Wow. And good luck with that, Don.

Brockett, as you can see, isn’t a guy to mince words. Or compromise his black-and-white moral view of the world. But that’s what made him such an effective public servant.

During his long tenure as a prosecutor – from 1969 through 1994 – Brockett was committed to one thing and it wasn’t lowering his golf handicap.

The man lived to put the baddies away.

Brockett said he came up with the idea to remove statutes of limitations on child sex crimes after following the story of a Virginia woman who received a letter of apology from a man who had raped her in college many years earlier. The woman was able to prosecute her attacker because Virginia, said Brockett, had no statute of limitations on felonies.

The Catholic Church’s epidemic of pedophile priests has fueled Brockett’s mission. Many of those victims have endured decades of torment before coming forward “only to find they were cut off,” he added.

Currently in Washington, molestation charges can’t be filed if they haven’t been filed before a victim turns 24.

Time, in other words, is on the side of the perverts.

Granted, Brockett is a hard-nose. But he’s also absolutely right on this.

Sen. Marr and the other lawmakers need to keep fighting until this noble idea becomes Washington’s law of the land.

“There are no two sides to this. You are either for the molesters or for the children,” Brockett said, adding, “I just can’t understand why anyone would think that this isn’t the right thing to do.”