Legal Question in Criminal Law in Minnesota

Re: Statute of Limitations on Arrest Warrants?

"Statutes of Limitations" limit the time within which an actionable claim may be made in a Complaint. In criminal cases, normally these statutes, when applicable, limit the time a prosecutor can file a criminal charge, after the date of the alleged criminal act.

Arrest warrants normally do not issue from a court until after a criminal charge has already been filed. If the criminal charge (Complaint) has already been filed with the court within the time allowed under any applicable statute of limitations, then the statute of limitations would not normally be a defense to that criminal Complaint, ever. An arrest warrant would not normally be affected by any statute of limitations.

Arrest warrants never expire by their own terms. However, after a number of years sometimes a court will make an arrest warrant inactive or otherwise render it ineffective. A prosecutor could then ask the court to issue an new arrest warrant, or revive the previous one.

What can happen if you fail to show up for your court appearance where you are a defendant is that you could have an arrest warrant issued, and you could be arrested and held in custody for court. It could also make it more difficult, more expensive, or perhaps impossible to get pretrial release in the future. It could also affect sentencing, if any, potentially. Extradition from another state or country could also be possible.