News Release
For Immediate Release
November 19, 2001
 

Appropriations Committee Approves Three Greenleaf Bills

HARRISBURG—The Senate Appropriations Committee approved and sent to the Senate floor three bills sponsored by Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf -- an anti-terrorism package; proposed Probate Code changes recommended by the Joint State Government Commission’s Advisory Committee on Decedents’ Estates Laws; and a measure to extend the statute of limitations on sexual assault when DNA evidence is available.

Senate Bill 1000, aimed at curbing terrorist activities in the commonwealth, would establish a crime of terrorism with enhanced penalties, along with crimes of soliciting or providing support for an act of terrorism and hindering prosecution of a terrorist. The bill would also allow for the seizure of assets of those who knowingly abet terrorist activities.

Senate Bill 1014, which contains a set of Probate Code amendments, includes a provision to eliminate legal red tape involved in probating the wills of state residents who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks. Under the provision, the seven-year waiting person for a missing person to be declared dead would be waived, as would be the statutory alternative to the waiting period involving court-ordered newspaper publication of death notices over a four-week period. The provision would facilitate the settling of victims’ estates and reduce the bureaucratic burden on bereaved family members.

Senate Bill 415 would extend the statute of limitations for serious sexual offenses when DNA evidence is available to identify the defendant and would require that all biological evidence, including the rape kit, must be preserved for trial.

Under the bill, the period of five years allowed for prosecution after a crime has occurred would be extended by permitting a sexual assault case to be prosecuted if a suspect is identified through preserved DNA evidence and is prosecuted within one year after the DNA match-up. The period allowed for such prosecution would not extend beyond seven years after the original five-year period, thus providing for a 12-year window when DNA evidence is available. The extension would apply only to crimes of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, and aggravated indecent assault.