How does one protect a defendant from decaying evidence and fading memories while still upholding justice for the prosecution? According to Cornell Law, a statute of limitation is the window of time that the legal offense has to charge a perpetrator. Depending on the crime and the state, there are various time windows that the state has to charge. RAINN organization also says that in some states, the statute of limitation clock begins running after the victim reports to law enforcement. Statutes of limitations are one way to ensure that every defendant receives a fair trial. They are created to ensure that the government can deliver upon its 6th Amendment promise. The 6th Amendment states that every American citizen has the right to a fair trial
Additionally, the Corporate Finance Institute outlines how statutes of limitations are made to protect defendants and defend justice. While it seems that statutes of limitations only exist to protect the accused to an unfair extent, they are put in place to ensure that defendants are protected because key evidence in trials is often lost over time. However, many Americans may not know about statutes of limitations. When people don’t know the rules regarding the time available for them to initiate justice, complications arise regarding statutes of limitations and the ability to execute justice. In our community, many Tower Hill students may not know that in the case of major infractions, “[i]f in the school’s discretion a report has been made in an untimely, untruthful or bad faith manner, the school may adjust the disciplinary process in view of the circumstances of the reporting” (Tower Hill Handbook, pg 30). If a student does not know about this rule and reports an issue in what is considered an “untimely” manner, the school might not punish the perpetrator of the infraction.
Simply requiring an infraction to be made within a “timely” manner is vague and prevents students from fully understanding their rights when it comes to reporting an infraction. Although the handbook also includes how administrators may use their discretion based on the situation, the lack of guidelines allows for what can feel like unequal treatment. What may be an “untimely” manner in the administration’s opinion, could be another person’s timely manner. If the handbook were to outline a specific amount of time the student has to report an infraction for a variety of different situations, even if the infraction isn’t the same, then the student has some sort of understanding of how much time they have to report a similar incident. This could empower the student to act earlier while protecting the accused.
In the case that a student’s report is deemed untimely and no action is taken by the administration, this furthers a cycle of mistrust and frustration toward administrators. If a student feels courageous enough to come forward with information and feels as though justice or closure is not delivered to them, this frustration spreads throughout the student body. Over time, the relationship between the students and the administration will erode. If the administration were to approach disciplinary actions that deeply affect specific groups of the student body with more transparency, trust between the students and the administrators could be fostered. As most students heard in the recent restorative justice assembly, the school promised to work with students. However, actions and transparency rather than empty promises will help to end this cycle of frustration.
When students feel as if justice has not been executed through administration, they turn to each other to administer whatever consequences they feel are deserved. This sort of vigilante justice leads to a mob mentality that compels students to ostracize the accused. This ostracization causes a deep divide within the tight-knit community Tower Hill strives to be and unnecessarily burdens students with the weight of executing justice.
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