The Charleston Law Review and the Riley Institute present the 13th Annual Law & Society Symposium

Sexual Abuse and Sex Trafficking:
Protecting Children, Supporting Victims, and Seeking Justice

This year’s symposium will bring together leading experts in law, medicine, academia, and advocacy to discuss the complexities and nuance of sexual abuse and exploitation law. Speakers and panelists will navigate new developments in the law, procedural issues in criminal and civil cases, as well as robust conversations related to advocacy, reformation, and legislative efforts at a national and state level.

Friday, February 5, 2021
8:30 am to 5:30 pm
Virtual Broadcast
REGISTER HERE

Approved for 7.33 hours of CLE Credit

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Questions? Email Jessica Carroll at jlcarroll@charlestonlaw.edu

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KEYNOTE SPEAKER

MARCI A. HAMILTON, JD

The Emergence of Children’s Civil Rights 

Ms. Hamilton is the Founder, CEO, and Legal Director of CHILD USA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit academic think tank dedicated to interdisciplinary, evidence-based research to improve laws and public policy to end child abuse and neglect. She is also the Fels Institute of Government Professor of Practice and a Resident Senior Fellow in the Program for Research on Religion at the University of Pennsylvania. Before moving to Penn, Professor Hamilton held the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.

Prof. Hamilton is the leading expert on clergy sex abuse and child sex abuse statutes of limitation (“SOL”). She has been invited to testify and advise legislators in every state where significant SOL reform has occurred. She is the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge University Press), which advocates for the elimination of child sex abuse statutes of limitations. She has filed countless pro bono amicus briefs for the protection of children at the United States Supreme Court and the state supreme courts. She is also the co-author of Children and the Law (Carolina Academic Press 2017).

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS

Kristen M. Gibbons Feden, JD

Presenting: Criminal Justice in the #MeToo Era: The Cosby Prosecution

Kristen is widely regarded as one of the Nation’s leading litigators in the field of sexual abuse. She has proven herself to be fearless when fighting for survivors against high profile offenders and large institutions. Christened by the New York Times as “The Prosecutor Who Stared Down Bill Cosby,” Kristen is internationally recognized as a leading litigator in the #MeToo Movement. Nationally acclaimed as a fierce litigator, Kristen has represented numerous sexual abuse survivors in their pursuit of civil justice and received a multitude of awards for her tireless work with the most vulnerable survivors, many of whom were in their darkest moments when they sought her out.

Elizabeth J. Letourneau, PhD

Presenting: Juvenile Registration is a Failed Policy that Must Go

Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau is a Professor in the Department of Mental Health, and Director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  For more than 30 years, she has developed, evaluated, and implemented policies and practices that aim to prevent the onset of sexual offending.  Dr. Letourneau has led dozens of research projects resulting in more than 80 scientific publications.  These publications establish an empirical basis for perpetration prevention efforts that work.  In addition, Dr. Letourneau has helped develop and evaluate state and national sex crime policies.  Her research on juvenile sex offender registration established the inefficacy and harmfulness of such policies and was influential in several U.S. state supreme court cases and in U.S. state legislatures that revised their registration policies.  For this work, Dr. Letourneau was awarded the inaugural Faculty Practice Award in 2017 by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Check out her 2017 TED Talk

EVENT SCHEDULE

8:30 – 8:45   Symposium Opens

8:45 – 9:00   WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS

9:00 – 9:40   KEYNOTE: THE EMERGENCE OF CHILDREN’S CIVIL RIGHTS

Presented by: Marci A. Hamilton

Not long ago, children were considered property, who belonged to their parents or guardians. They were owned labor and parental rights were unquestioned. Children have evolved into “persons” within the meaning of the Constitution. In her keynote address, Professor Hamilton will examine how the movement to end child sex abuse is further articulating the civil rights of children.

9:45 – 10:30   CHANGING LAWS TO SUPPORT SURVIVORS

Farrell, Kroloff, and Wilson come together for an interactive discussion founded on survivorship and fortitude. These seasoned advocates and legislative veterans—including SC State Senator Marlon Kimpson as moderator—will examine the extreme grit necessary to take on deep-pocketed institutions through tales of their own experiences, and will lay the groundwork for how they were able to achieve legislative success to better support victims of sexual abuse.

10:35 – 11:30   CARDINAL SINS: HOW THE CATHOLIC CLERGY ABUSE CRISIS IMPACTED CIVIL LITIGATION, AND DIVERGENT PERSPECTIVES ON STATUTE OF LIMITATION REFORM

Revising statute of limitations provides an opportunity for survivors to pursue justice where they may have otherwise been precluded from doing so, and creates legislative guidelines more in line with the harms caused by abuse moving forward. Patrick J. Wall, Edward Lindsey, Esq., and Daniel Lapinski, Esq. will discuss Statute of Limitations provisions as it relates specifically to the Catholic Church, the decades of covering up systemic abuse that not only intimidated victims from coming forward but facilitated the erosion of valuable evidence applicable to survivor claims. The Panel will also balance the victims’ interests in Statute of Limitations reform with the rights and protections afforded to Defendants by the Due Process Clause.

12:00 – 12:40  CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN THE #MeToo ERA: THE COSBY PROSECUTION

Presented by: Kristen M. Gibbons Feden

Distinguished Speaker, Kristen M. Gibbons Feden, JD, will speak on her involvement in the first high-profile sexual assault prosecution in the #MeToo era which spanned more than three years from the re-opening of the investigation to sentencing including two trials, scores of motions and hearings, and nearly two dozen defense attorneys on the other side. Ms. Feden’s case study will focus on some of the most impactful decisions made in the Cosby case and its challenges. Her examination of this complex prosecution has special meaning in a world where powerful men are finally being held to account for what is often years or decades of sexual abuse. This case study will draw parallels between similar cases involving disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and music artist R. Kelly, and will give the audience an understanding of what to expect and how traditional roadblocks in such cases may be avoided. The case study will be dynamic and interactive and encourage listener engagement throughout.

12:45 – 1:35   PROTECTING CHILDREN:  APPROACHES TO SEXUAL ABUSE PREVENTION

Patricia Dailey Lewis, Esq., Katelyn Brewer, and Ryan T. Shields, M.S., Ph.D. will discuss the missions of the Beau Biden Foundation and Darkness to Light and their approaches to preventing the sexual abuse of children. This panel will include case studies as well as discussions of the proactive social behavior change approach to prevention of abuse, the public health approach to child sexual abuse prevention, and the basic conceptual framework, current and emerging programs aimed at preventing child sexual abuse, and recommendations for future prevention efforts.

1:40 – 2:10   JUVENILE REGISTRATION IS A FAILED POLICY THAT MUST GO

Presented by: Elizabeth J. Letourneau

Throughout her more than 30 years of research and scholarship, Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau has developed, evaluated, and implemented policies and practices that aim to prevent the onset of sexual offending, establishing an empirical basis for perpetration prevention efforts that work. Here, Dr. Letourneau will focus on her research on juvenile sex offender registration which established the inefficacy and harmfulness of such policies, and was influential in several U.S. state supreme court cases and in U.S. state legislatures that revised their registration policies.  For this work, Dr. Letourneau was awarded the inaugural Faculty Practice Award in 2017 by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

2:10 – 3:00   RESOLVING PROCEDURAL & LOGISTICAL COMPLEXITIES INHERENT IN SEXUAL ABUSE/ASSAULT CASES

In 1985, the nation’s first Child Advocacy Center was created by a district attorney who observed that the social service and criminal justice systems often failed to coordinate their responses to child maltreatment cases, leaving victims in want of basic services and forced to repeat stressful and emotionally painful interactions with system officials. Rachel Garrett, LMSW, Emma Hetherington, Esq., and Jennifer G. Long, MGA, JD will discuss the role of Child Advocacy Centers today as well as the revolutionary work being done at Aequitas and the Wilbanks C.E.A.S.E. Clinic at University of Georgia School of Law, to train prosecutors’ offices around the nation and to prepare future attorneys to advocate for survivors in a variety of civil and criminal legal proceedings.

3:05 – 3:55   SEX TRAFFICKING: ADVOCACY, DECRIMINALIZING SEX WORK, AND CIVIL LITIGATION EFFORTS

What would happen if America decriminalized prostitution? It is difficult to answer this question definitively, but by now there has been a lot of empirical research on how decriminalization has worked in other countries and some places in the US. Additionally, why are so few civil cases being pursued despite the enhanced protections afforded to sex trafficking victims under modern State and Federal laws? Melissa Sontag Broudo, Esq., Jodi Westbrook Flowers, Esq., and Jamie Rosseland will explore these questions including their assessment of why both of these large fringe efforts aimed at undermining the prevalence of sex trafficking —decriminalizing prostitution and civil litigation—remain largely stalled.

4:00 – 4:45   SEX TRAFFICKING IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Kathryn A Moorehead, M.Ed., Brooke Burris, Esq., Judge Michèle Forsythe, and moderator Pamela Larson, Esq. will discuss efforts being taken by the Human Trafficking Taskforce at the State Attorney General’s office, the Tri-county Human Trafficking Taskforce, and the South Carolina Judiciary towards prevention, early identification of potential victims of exploitation, prosecuting offenders, and support for survivors.

4:50 – 5:30   LOCAL INSIGHTS: CASES & TRENDS IN SEX TRAFFICKING

Veterans in bringing perpetrators of trafficking to Justice in South Carolina, Detective Charlie Benton and attorneys Matt Austin and Jamie Schoen will provide case studies and trends they have observed in their efforts at the local and federal level to combat the trafficking industry, prosecute offenders, and rescue and support victims of the trafficking industry.