Who are we protecting?

Andy Dossett | The Wiley Post
Published May 20, 2026

This article is labeled as opinion because it includes the writer’s analysis, interpretation or personal viewpoint. Opinion pieces are separate from The Wiley Post’s news reporting.

A few years back, we had a teacher plead guilty to providing drugs and alcohol to a female student here in Bartlesville. 

According to the court documents, this male teacher tried to incite a child to come to his place and use cocaine.

He got 75 days in jail.

I remember being furious about the sentence and surprised more people weren't.

Then someone gave me their opinion on the case. 

Well, you know how those high school girls are. I mean, she was 17. Who knows all the things she was saying to him? He comes from a good Christian family. 

Maybe "child" feels too simplistic for a 17-year-old. Fine. But a teenager is still no match for the authority, grooming and manipulation tactics of a trusted adult.

When our state senator, Julie Daniels, defended blocking two Oklahoma child sexual abuse reform bills from reaching the Senate floor, The Roys Report quoted her saying that statutes of limitations exist "to protect the innocent."

She also was reported saying that retroactively voiding nondisclosure agreements in sexual abuse settlements was "not good for the balance in the system," curiously noting there are people who "count on" those NDAs.

Curious wording because it wasn't an innocent child who was afforded protection when a powerful pastor abused 12-year-old Oklahoman Cindy Clemishire in the 1980s. She didn’t benefit from the statute of limitations after decades passed before the truth could be dragged into court.

Her abuser, Robert Morris, founder of Gateway Church, pleaded guilty in 2025 to five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child; he was released this year after serving six months in jail on a 10-year suspended sentence. 

And it was not Trey Carlock who was protected by an non-disclosure agreement that kept him silent after he was abused by a Kanakuk Kamps Camp Director in the Ozarks over a ten-year period and later committed suicide at age 29.

Trey's Law exists because secrecy destroys lives. The Cindy Clemishire Act would have told child abusers there is no expiration date on justice in Oklahoma.

So again: Who are we protecting?

The false accusation panic is not evidence-based

I'm not saying false accusations never happen. They do. It sucks. 

We recently watched accusations destroy the career of a longtime Bartlesville principal. In my opinion, that case illustrates an important point: every accusation should be investigated carefully and fairly.

That's exactly why we have investigators, prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, rules of evidence and juries and the highest burden of proof in American law.

But the political obsession with false accusations in sexual abuse cases is wildly out of proportion to the data.

Research on sexual assault reports generally places false-reporting rates between 2% and 8%, while a widely cited analysis of 10 years of reported sexual assault cases found 5.9% were false. 

Child sexual abuse research points in the same direction: A 2018 study found false allegations usually fall between 2% and 5%, and pointed to a  Denver Department of Social Services review of 551 child sexual abuse reports, which found just 1.5% involved false allegations.

In 2014, Child Protective Services investigated nearly 4 million cases of child abuse and neglect in the United States. According to the Administration for Children and Families, just 2,242 of those cases — roughly 0.06% — were determined to be intentionally false.

Meanwhile, the much larger problem is silence. The CDC reports many children delay reporting or never report child sexual abuse, and at least one in four girls and one in 20 boys in the United States experience it. About 90% of child sexual abuse is committed by someone known and trusted by the child or the child's family.

On top of all that, Child USA's research shows the average age of a survivor of child sexual assault who discloses is 52, with the median age being 48, and 25% to 30% of victims never report.

I would also point out that no one has established a meaningful link between extending statutes of limitations and an increase in wrongful convictions. Both Wyoming and South Carolina have no statute of limitations on these crimes, and the wrongful convictions rates track with national trends.

Statutes of limitations may serve important legal purposes in some cases. But in child sexual abuse cases, they too often function as shields for predators and institutions that simply need enough time for evidence, witnesses and public outrage to disappear.

I don't know many victims who celebrate that it's too late for justice. Calling that protection for the innocent is shameful.

That is the world these bills were trying to address. Not a world overrun by false accusations, but one where children are groomed by trusted adults and institutions close ranks to protect themselves.

So when lawmakers say these limits exist "to protect the innocent," Oklahomans should ask:

Which innocent people are we protecting?

Old cases are hard, but that is not a reason to bury them.

Daniels is right about one thing: Older cases can be harder to defend. Memories fade. Records disappear. Witnesses die.

But that argument cuts both ways. Old cases are hard for prosecutors, too. Removing or extending a statute of limitations does not convict anyone. It does not erase due process.

It does not lower the burden of proof. It simply gives the state permission to examine the evidence instead of throwing up its hands because a survivor needed too long to say the unsayable.

Oklahoma's current law generally requires prosecution of certain child sex crimes by the victim's 45th birthday. The proposal Daniels blocked would have raised the age to 54. For Daniels, adding nine more years was “a deal breaker." 

It wasn't radical. It put the limit in line for the average age to disclose, with a little cushion.

Child sexual abuse is not like a stolen lawnmower or a bar fight. 

It is often wrapped in shame, spiritual manipulation, family pressure, threats, confusion and dependency. When the abuser is a pastor, teacher, coach, relative or camp leader, the child is not only fighting the perpetrator. The child is fighting a whole social order built to protect the adult's reputation.

And that is where Daniels' argument lands hardest. Whatever her intent, the effect is clear: The system remains more worried about an accused adult's inconvenience than an abused child's delayed voice.

The old church script in legal language

We have seen this before.

We saw it with Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. For years, he was not just a pastor. He was a spiritual authority, a movement leader, a man surrounded by institutions that gave him credibility and people who treated his words as if they carried divine weight.

Then the stories started surfacing.

An independent investigation released in 2025 found Bickle committed sexual abuse or misconduct involving at least 17 women, including minors, with allegations dating back to the mid-1970s. Bickle’s pattern of abuse started in his 20s and only came to light when he turned 70.

The report also found that some leaders were more focused on suppressing and minimizing reports than supporting those who came forward. 

That is why these cases take so long.

Not because women are sitting around plotting how to ruin godly men. Not because children are waiting for the most politically convenient moment to tell the worst story of their lives.

They take so long because powerful men are rarely powerful on their own.

They have boards. Churches. Donors. Attorneys. Friends. Theological language. Public reputations. 

People who say, "I know his heart." People who say, "This will hurt the ministry." People who say, "Are we sure she is telling the truth?" People who say, "She tempted him."People who say, “We need to forgive and move on."

That is the old church script. Daniels' argument just puts it in legal language.

Instead of saying "Protect the pastor," say "Protect the innocent."

Instead of saying "Keep this quiet," say "People count on those NDAs."

Instead of saying, "She waited too long," say, "The balance of the system."

But the result is the same. The child waits. The institution survives. They keep their reputation as long as the clock keeps running. And in some cases add more victims along the way.

And when the survivor finally speaks, the law turns around and asks why they did not speak sooner. 

No more silence

Trey's Law would void nondisclosure agreements that silence child sexual abuse and trafficking survivors. At the federal level, the bipartisan bill advanced unanimously through the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee this month.

Versions of the reform have moved in other states because lawmakers across the political spectrum have recognized a basic moral fact: Contracts should not be used as hush money for abuse or reduced to a routine cost of doing business. 

Survivors often sign NDAs under enormous emotional pressure. They are ashamed. Isolated. Outnumbered by institutions with lawyers and money. Many believe staying silent is the only path to closure or compensation available to them.

That is not justice. That is managed silence. And it needs to end.

Oklahoma had the chance to say the same. Instead, after unanimous support at multiple steps in the process, the measures died without a Senate floor vote. The proposals had unanimous approval during committee and house chamber consideration.

Daniels and the GOP-led Senate leadership chose governmental cowardice over democratic accountability.

Protecting the innocent must include innocent children

Protect the falsely accused? Yes.
Protect defendants' constitutional rights? Absolutely.
Require evidence? Always.

But do not pretend Oklahoma is protecting innocence by keeping child sex abuse cases on an arbitrary timer. Do not pretend NDAs are neutral paperwork when they can function as legal duct tape over a survivor's mouth. And do not tell survivors to come back next session as if trauma politely follows the legislative calendar.

The question before Oklahoma is not whether the accused deserve rights; they do. 

The question is whether abused children deserve nine more years and the right to speak without being legally silenced.

Daniels said maybe next year they can have it.

So, honestly, who are they protecting? 

Because it's not children.