Legal Question in Criminal Law in New York

Re: reguards to statute of limitations

Dear J.D.,

I am not surprised to hear that the D.A. isn't going to give you a complete "bye" on this one. It would be very hard to without proving that these women have one heck of a grudge againt you. Yes, now you have to deal with a potential parole violation. But I digress; your question was about the statute of limitations - or how long a case will be viable against you before it is too old to bring to court.

The general rule in a NY criminal case is this... Felonies - 5 years. Misdemeanors - 2 years. Violations - 1 year. The time starts on the date the crime was last committed (just in case it was a long drawn-out series of events). Different things can make the clock stop on occasion. A good example of this is the recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Since the system was having difficulty working, NY's Governor determined that the statute of limitations should be tolled (put on hold for a while) on all legall matters.

Of course this is an exception which affects only a llimited period of time. It only really matter in terms of days, weeks and months. So you can use the 5 year period as a general rule of thumb.

Good Luck