Bill O'Neill, Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Ohio, citing a "national feeding frenzy" on decades-old sexual misconduct, alluded to his sexual past with a Facebook posting, a past alleged to have involved intimacy with some fifty women.

Given his current position as a member of the Ohio Supreme Court, Justice O'Neill might simply have called for a statute of limitations bar on consideration of allegations of sexual misconduct.  That is to say, if the allegations could not be brought to court as barred by the statute of limitations, they should not be considered for any extra-legal purpose – including removal from public office of an elected official, for example.  O'Neill apparently came forward in response to sex-groping allegations against Sen. Al Franken – not the allegations against Roy Moore, who, as it happens, twice served on the Alabama Supreme Court. 

Now that the public has graphic proof of groping by Al Franken, here is Justice O'Neill, telling Ohio voters, and the general public, what they likely had no interest in hearing about: his Don Juan prowess.  By coming forward to volunteer this information, has Justice O'Neill dragged his past girlfriends from privacy into the unwanted, certainly unnecessary, public arena?  Will the media apply the "feeding frenzy" cited by Justice O'Neill and engage in a quest to identify "the O'Neill 50"?

In the case of Roy Moore, the Republican Senate leadership has already decided: if Moore should get elected to the Senate, the expulsion machinery will begin operating immediately.  Considerations of due process are apparently of no consequence.  Has anyone heard Mitch McConnell explain why, if the statute of limitations bars stale allegations, this barrier is without effect when it comes to demanding the reversal of election to public office – by the voters?  Or will what Justice O'Neill calls a "national feeding frenzy" now lead to doing away with the statute of limitations and putting an end to the legal concept that one is innocent until proven guilty?  That is certainly a concept that separates a free society from an oppressive one.