Supreme Court sides with Port St. Lucie veteran, nullifies statute of limitations in military rape cases

In a unanimous 8-0 decision Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court said the military is allowed to prosecute sexual assault cases committed before 2006, removing a five-year statute of limitations.

Republican Rep. Brian Mast had advocated for such a ruling on behalf of Port St. Lucie veteran Harmony Allen, who was raped in 2000.

Allen spoke out in 2014, identifying Master Sgt. Richard Collins as her attacker. A military court convicted Collins in 2017 and sentenced him to more than 16 years in prison.

But Collins appealed that decision. A lower court ruling found in his favor due to its interpretation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). That court argued the code established a five-year statute of limitations for sexual assaults.

As a result, Collins was released after less than three years.

Thursday morning, the Supreme Court disagreed with that interpretation, arguing the UCMJ did not intend to apply the statute of limitations to rape offenses. Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not take part in the 8-0 decision.

“This has been a long and difficult journey, but today’s ruling finally brings me peace. For years, I had to live with the fact that my rapist was set free with nothing stopping him from doing to another innocent woman what he did to me,” Allen said Thursday.

“Today’s decision changes that, and after all these years, I can finally take a deep breath knowing that justice has been served.”

The case bundled three separate military assault cases together — including Allen’s — which dealt with similar questions of law. In addition to Mast pushing for a decision in favor of Allen, he also introduced a bill prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, which would have sought to ensure the statute of limitations would not apply in cases such as Allen’s.

“I could not be happier for Harmony Allen and her family knowing that this massive miscarriage of justice has been righted once and for all,” Mast added Thursday.

“Harmony Allen has been relentless in her fight for justice to hold her rapist accountable for the crimes he committed, and I am proud to stand by her today in victory. This was no easy fight, but we gave it everything we had for years — writing Harmony’s Law, urging the Solicitor General to take up the case and securing a Supreme Court hearing. Today’s decision is a monumental one, and it serves a justice that was long overdue.”

The precise controversy dealt with a 1986 UCMJ provision — Article 43(a) — stating that an offense “punishable by death” can be prosecuted at any time. By contrast, offenses not punishable by death would be subject to a five-year statute of limitations.

In 1977 — nine years before that 1986 UCMJ update — the Supreme Court ruled the Eighth Amendment barred the use of capital punishment for rape. Therefore, rape was not subject to the death penalty in 1986.

Despite that ruling, other portions of the UCMJ still described rape as “punishable by death” in 1986. While the UCMJ would have seemed to permit military prosecutors to seek the death penalty, it’s likely such a move would have posed constitutional questions due to the Supreme Court’s 1977 ruling.

That led to two lines of argument. Respondents — those speaking on behalf of individuals convicted of rape — argued Article 43(a) meant to apply a five-year statute of limitations to sex crimes, given the 1977 ruling found those crimes could no longer result in the death penalty.

Petitioners disagreed. They argued the term “punishable by death” in Article 43(a) simply meant to refer to other portions of the UCMJ listing crimes which were “punishable by death.” That is, Article 43(a) intended to state that any offense listed as “punishable by death” in the UCMJ — whether those sections were accurate or not — would not be subject to a statute of limitations.

The Court agreed with petitioners, dubbing the language in Article 43(a) as a “term of art.”

In 2006, the UCMJ did away with this problem, explicitly removing the statute of limitations for rape. Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling only dealt with the UCMJ’s rules from 1986-2006.