Question re: Statute of limitations

[ExtremeCaution]

I have heard this from a few people that I've met (none of them in the legal profession) and I want to know if it's true or not.

A minor accused an adult of CSC. The case went to trial, the jury found the adult guilty and he was sentenced to prison.

Is it true that this minor would not get in trouble for saying that she lied about the accusations until a 7-year period after the trial has passed? In other words, if she came forward now (within 2 years of the trial) and said that she lied, would she be prosecuted in some way?

Is there such a thing as this? I've heard it called a Statue of Limitations.

There has always been some question about the truthfulness of the accusations. The opinion has been that, once the accusations were made and the whole legal process started, the minor saw/knew/was told there was no turning back.

Hope I made sense. Thank you.

[Gryphon]

I'm not sure, in part because the question is jurisdiction specific. There could be an argument that after whatever your jurisdiction's time period runs, then there could be a bar to prosecution. On the other hand, there are many exceptions to the rule and you need to know the laws of that particular jurisdiction, and even then it wouldn't surprise me if the correct answer wasn't crystal clear and full of qualifying phrases.

As far as chances of such a thing actually happening, it'd be highly unusual. In sex crime cases where the defense can't point to a solid reason the alleged victim is lying, the chance of conviction is very high. The victim gets put through a bit of a meat grinder on the way to prosecution, trial, and sentencing. It seems unlikley, as an outsider looking in, that a victim would put themselves through that unless the crime happened. Then, it takes a twisted person to go through that pain and lie in order to convict an innocent person (and send them to prison).
The effect is that I doubt many victims lie about what happened, and the ones that do lie are so messed up that they are unlikley to recant.

Originally Posted by ExtremeCaution

I have heard this from a few people that I've met (none of them in the legal profession) and I want to know if it's true or not.

A minor accused an adult of CSC. The case went to trial, the jury found the adult guilty and he was sentenced to prison.

Is it true that this minor would not get in trouble for saying that she lied about the accusations until a 7-year period after the trial has passed? In other words, if she came forward now (within 2 years of the trial) and said that she lied, would she be prosecuted in some way?

Is there such a thing as this? I've heard it called a Statue of Limitations.

There has always been some question about the truthfulness of the accusations. The opinion has been that, once the accusations were made and the whole legal process started, the minor saw/knew/was told there was no turning back.

Hope I made sense. Thank you.

[Don Quixote]

The fact is that whether or not there is a risk of prosecution, if the minor then lied about what happened, the person really needs to own up to that and take their lumps. (Sometimes a person thinks something happened one way and then learns that it wasn't right, and that isn't considered perjury generally.)

Having said that, the system is likely to put such a victim under oath when the victim admits to lying initially and threaten to prosecute them then for lying, and do all manner of things to persuade the victim NOT to recant earlier testimony or to make it really pain in the butt to do so.

That is why a person in this position usually goes to the attorney who represents the wrongfully accused.

Sometimes even a victim recanting is not enough to vacate a conviction. I still think that if the victim wrongfully accused, it is absolutely not okay that s/he fails to do everything in her/his power to correct their false testimony.

(Sometimes when victims see the fall out from their testimony, they want to recant not because it wasn't true,but because they want the perp not to suffer consequences. If that is the kind of case you are talking about, the person risks conviction for perjury for lying under oath at the the time they come forward, no matter what the statute of limitations was on the original testimony.)

[ExtremeCaution]

Thank you both for this insight. It is valuable food for thought.

[LeBeau]

The falsehoods have already sent an innocent individual to prison and done incalulable and irrevocable damage to his current and future life- Getting his named cleared will not undo all of the harm done (many will always believe the lie, no matter what- accused equals guilty in the minds of a great many people) but will give the wrongfully convicted man a chance at salvaging a life from the ashes left by the lies.

Odds are, given that this person was a minor at the time, that the fallout won't involve jailtime, but possible charges might include perjury and giving false information/filing a false report.... but whatever the repercussions, if their accusations were untruthful, this young person must step forward with the truth. Any other choice will eat at their soul all their life.... and rightfully so.

[RobinsMan]

How a statute of limitation works is backwards from what you ask in your question. A person can be prosecuted for something up until the limitation time is reached, not after. For example, if the statute of limitations for the particular state in question is three years for perjury then once three years had passed after committing a perjury then she could not be prosecuted for it. Chances are that in any given state there are things that can happen to cause the limitation period to be tolled, or suspended. An example might be leaving the state where time spent out of the state does not count towards the limitation period and so effectively extendeds it should that happen. Again, existence and period of limitation and rules that govern it are specific to each state.

[DaveMoff]

I once saw an accuser about to recant some rather obvious false accusations, only to have the defendant's public defender tell her that if she did, she could be prosecuted for perjury and making a false police report. She shut up, and after the public defender treated a witness and some material evidence in the same manner, the accused agreed to a plea bargain over a crime that was never committed.

The accuser in that case was a pathological liar and a borderline sociopath (not my words....those of several professionals). Not much point in appealing to conscience in that sort of situation.

[BillieJo]

please pardon me for jumping in but I think that there are ten states that use a "John Doe DNA warrant" to invalidate the statute of limitations- I am not sure if that would be applicable to the specifics you have discussed, but you may want to check it out.

[Carlos Medina]

Originally Posted by ExtremeCaution

I have heard this from a few people that I've met (none of them in the legal profession) and I want to know if it's true or not.

A minor accused an adult of CSC. The case went to trial, the jury found the adult guilty and he was sentenced to prison.

Is it true that this minor would not get in trouble for saying that she lied about the accusations until a 7-year period after the trial has passed? In other words, if she came forward now (within 2 years of the trial) and said that she lied, would she be prosecuted in some way?

Is there such a thing as this? I've heard it called a Statue of Limitations.

There has always been some question about the truthfulness of the accusations. The opinion has been that, once the accusations were made and the whole legal process started, the minor saw/knew/was told there was no turning back.

Hope I made sense. Thank you.

The Statute of Limitations is a law that sets a time limit on when the prosecutors can file charges on certain crimes. All felonies have a set number of years that they can be brought to the court for prosecution, the only exception is Murder.

What you are talking about is recanting testimony. That's when a witness who say's one thing today, tells a different story tomorrow. It is very hard thing to prove. the prosecutors will put all kinds of obstacales in your path. Try to get the person on a tape recorder telling the truth, or record a telephone conversation where she tells the truth. Then go see the lawyer. bring him/her a copy of the tape. Don't trust any lawyer. They are all full of SH**!