Greeley’s Sen. John Cooke, the former Weld County Sheriff, wants to remove the statute of limitations on sexual assault crimes.

The Republican senator is working across the aisle with Rep. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, to completely repeal Colorado’s 10-year statute of limitations on felony sexual assault crimes, such as rape.

Although the bill has garnered a lot of attention in the wake of the sex-abuse allegations against actor Bill Cosby — including allegations from at least two Colorado women — advances in technology and evidence collection motivate Cooke, he said.

“Law enforcement is like any other profession. You grow and you learn, and there are always new ways to investigate,” he said Thursday. “Evidence collection is better than it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and it continues that way all the time.”

The use of DNA in investigations and special training of nurses at hospitals to collect evidence of sexual assaults means law enforcement officers get evidence now they might not have several years ago — evidence that can make the difference in solving a case.

Cooke cited the Mary Pierce case as an example. In 2009, DNA evidence led to the arrest of Marcello Maldonado-Perez in the 1977 rape and murder of the Greeley convenience store clerk. There is no statute of limitations on murder.

“The suspect got out of prison in Texas (for a different crime), and he had to give a DNA sample, and that’s how we got him,” Cooke said. “So who knows how many other cases that this might be able to solve?”

Statutes of limitations say if police don’t have the suspect in a set amount of time, they probably won’t solve the crime, Cooke said.

“Well, that’s not the case when we have this type of physical evidence, and we have DNA. We can solve these (sexual assault) cases years down the road,” he said. “Rape is such a crime of violence. For God’s sake, forgery doesn’t have a statute of limitations, but rape does, so we need to do a little better job.”

Removing the statute of limitations wouldn’t immediately bring every felony sex-assault case into court. It would give prosecutors the option to bring a case to court that occurred more than 10 year ago if they think it’s provable, said Weld District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Kimberly Corban, herself a sex-assault survivor.

Scientific advances in DNA evidence collection and retention, means many sex-assault cases can be investigated and prosecuted well past the current statute of limitations.

It is always going to be in the best interest of the victims — and the public — to give prosecutors the discretion to try a case, not let the statute of limitations decide what goes to court, she said.

Each sex-assault case is different. In many cases, victims won’t report the crime immediately, possibly waiting years, before telling the police, Corban said. Under the current law, however, the clock starts on the statute of limitations as soon as the assault happens, not at the time of the report. A longer statute of limitations — or none at all — would mean cases reported years later could still find resolution.

Sex-assault victims experience a multitude of emotions. Giving them the option to still go forward and seek closure at a later time should be made available to them, she said.

“To speak to it from a victim’s standpoint, once you’ve been victimized you live with that for the rest of your life,” Corban said. “There’s no statute of limitations on being a victim. Why should there be a statute of limitations on holding somebody accountable for that?”

The legislation, House Bill 1072, was introduced on the first day of the session — Jan. 13 — and assigned to the House Judiciary Committee, with a hearing scheduled for Feb. 11.

Increased attention from the public following the allegations against Cosby certainly brought the issue of Colorado’s sex-assault statute of limitations to the forefront, but it probably wouldn’t have hurt to have it come up earlier, Cooke admitted.

“Because we might have been able to solve crimes that have already happened,” he said. “All we can do is move forward on it and help the women and prosecution from here on.”

Cooke said she feels optimistic about the bill’s chance of passing. Colorado’s lawmakers have a pretty good record recently of working across the aisle on matters of law enforcement and victims rights, he said.

He’s heard the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, a statewide organization of defense lawyers, has some issues with the bill. That opposition means a legislator may try to amend the bill to only extend the statute of limitations for felony sex-assault crimes, not remove it completely.

“I’m hoping that it comes through as is. I think it stands a good chance,” Cooke said. “(Ten years) is almost like an arbitrary number, so when you look at the crime of violence that is rape, I’m not so sure there is any length of time that should stop prosecution.”