By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – It’s now up to three judges whether or not a man who says he was raped by Fr. Karl Dowd is allowed to seek justice under the New Hampshire constitution.
The case illustrates the conflict between legislature’s 2020 law that removes the statute of limitations in child sex abuse civil complaints and Article 23 of the New Hampshire Constitution, which prohibits retroactive application of new laws.
The alleged victim, who claims he was raped in the 1970s while he was at a summer camp run by the Diocese of Manchester, brought his lawsuit in 2023. Under long-standing New Hampshire law, the man’s deadline to bring a lawsuit against the Church passed in the 1980s.
While the legislature removed the statute of limitations for child sex abuse complaints in 2020, the Diocese argues the legislature cannot pass laws that violate the constitution.
A skeleton-crew Court heard arguments Wednesday from attorney Scott Harris, representing the victim, and Olivia Bensinger, representing the Diocese. Supreme Court Associate Justices Patrick Donovan and Melissa Countway were joined by Superior Court Justice Charles Temple to hear the case.
Associate Justice James Bassett did not take part in the arguments due to his pending retirement, and Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald is disqualified from the case.
The victim’s lawsuit was dismissed last year when Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Leonard ruled that the law cannot be applied retroactively.
“The prohibition against retrospective application of laws under Article 23 of the New Hampshire Constitution must be respected in this case because “[r]etrospective laws are highly injurious, oppressive, and unjust” in every case, Leonard wrote.
Statute of limitations harm victims, enable abusers, and pervert justice, according to Harris. The 2020 law is absolutely meant to apply retroactively for people like the alleged victim, Harris said.
“The language could not have been clearer,” Harris said.
Victims of childhood abuse can take decades to even acknowledge what they suffered, and by the time they are ready to make a report the law closes the door on their ability to seek justice. The 2020 law ending limits for child sex abuse victims is a clear solution the legislature came up with to help victims, Harris said.
The 2020 law does not include any reference to retroactive enforcement. According to Harris, that is because the law is intended to apply retroactively.
“Our legislature would have included that language if they thought it necessary,” Harris said.
But Bensinger argued such language on retroactive enforcement isn’t needed since it is assumed that laws must comply with the constitution.
“[The 2020 legislature] knew the constitution protects against retroactivity,” Bensinger said.
The right to a statute of limitations defense is a vested right for all defendants, Bensinger said, and any change to the limits must also account for the constitution. Donovan expressed skepticism at Bensinger’s interpretation of the law.
“It seems to me that you’re reading language into the statute that isn’t there,” Donovan said.
Dowd was the priest in charge of the diocese’s Camp Fatima and Camp Bernadette for decades despite serious red flags. Dowd was promoted by the diocese in 1971 to be the camp director, after a prior sexual assault complaint at St. Bernard Parish in Keene where Dowd was accused of abusing a 16-year-old boy.
During Dowd’s leadership at Camp Fatima the summer camp become an abyss of child sex abuse, according to court records, with multiple priests and religious staffers raping the boys.
“Several other boys who attended Camp Fatima alleged that Dowd sexually abused them, including one man who alleged he was abused more than 100 times before 1975. Id. The abuse was so pervasive at the Camp that one former camper stated, ‘it was nothing to see somebody take a little kid, go into a cabin, [and] close all the shutters,’” court records state.
Camp Fatima is in Gilmanton Iron Works.
The alleged victim claims he was first assaulted by Dowd when other staffers directed the boy to hide in a particular cabin. The camp staffers were playing a game known as “strip the campers,” in which the boys were chased and forcibly stripped if caught by the staff. The victim was told he could avoid being stripped by going into the cabin, according to court records.
The alleged victim went into the cabin alone, and saw it was furnished with a bed. Dowd soon entered, joined him on the bed, and allegedly began his assault.
“Dowd proceeded to sexually assault the plaintiff while telling him that ‘God loved him and wanted him there, and so did Dowd,’” according to court records.
Dowd was the camp director until 1990. Dowd’s notorious abuse wasn’t known to the public until after he died in 2002 when several former campers came forward. But the victim alleges the diocese knew that Dowd sexually assaulted children.
Several former campers filed a class action lawsuit against the diocese in 2002, months after Dowd died while on vacation in Florida. That lawsuit was later settled out of court.