Track

Status

Governing provision

No limitation for the felony child sexual offenses — § 3-6(j)(1): “When the victim is under 18 years of age at the time of the offense, a prosecution for criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual assault, predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, aggravated criminal sexual abuse, felony criminal sexual abuse, or female genital mutilation may be commenced at any time.” 

And for adult victims of the more serious offenses — § 3-6(i): “Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (j), a prosecution for criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual assault, or aggravated criminal sexual abuse may be commenced at any time. If the victim consented to the collection of evidence using an Illinois State Police Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit under the Sexual Assault Survivors Emergency Treatment Act, it shall constitute reporting for purposes of this Section.” 

But a very short period for the exploitation offenses — § 3-6(d): a prosecution for child pornography, aggravated child pornography, indecent solicitation of a child, soliciting for a sexually exploited child, juvenile pimping, exploitation of a child, or promoting commercial sexual exploitation of a child (except keeping a place of commercial sexual exploitation of a child) “may be commenced within one year of the victim attaining the age of 18 years. However, in no such case shall the time for prosecution expire sooner than 3 years after the commission of the offense.” One year past the victim’s eighteenth birthday is the shortest child sexual abuse period encountered anywhere in this review so far. 

And ten years for misdemeanor sexual abuse of a child — § 3-6(j)(3): “When the victim is under 18 years of age at the time of the offense, a prosecution for misdemeanor criminal sexual abuse may be commenced within 10 years after the child victim attains 18 years of age.” 

Failure to report — § 3-6(j)(2): where the victim was under 18, a prosecution for failure of a mandated reporter to report a suspected criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual assault, predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, aggravated criminal sexual abuse or felony criminal sexual abuse under the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act may be commenced within 20 years after the child victim attains 18. 

Trafficking — § 3-6(b-5): where the victim was under 18, a prosecution for involuntary servitude, involuntary sexual servitude of a minor, or trafficking in persons under § 10-9 may be commenced within 25 years of the victim attaining 18. In the version of the section attributed to P.A. 104-241, a new paragraph (b-5)(2) makes such a prosecution commencable at any time, applying to conduct arising on or after that Act’s effective date. § 3-6(b-7): where the victim was under 18, female genital mutilation may be prosecuted at any time. 

Professional or fiduciary relationships — § 3-6(e): except as provided in subdivision (j), a prosecution for an offense involving sexual conduct or sexual penetration where the defendant was in a professional or fiduciary relationship, or purported relationship, with the victim may be commenced within one year after the victim discovers the offense. 

The general section — 720 ILCS 5/3-5(b): “a prosecution for any offense not designated in subsection (a) or (a-5) must be commenced within 3 years after the commission of the offense if it is a felony, or within one year and 6 months after its commission if it is a misdemeanor.” Subsection (a) lists the offenses carrying no limitation at all. 

Why “partly removed”: Illinois has fully removed the deadline for the contact sexual offenses against children, and that is a strong position. But § 3-6(d) leaves child pornography, indecent solicitation of a child, exploitation of a child and juvenile pimping on a period that expires one year after the victim turns nineteen — before most survivors have told anyone. Misdemeanor criminal sexual abuse of a child expires at twenty-eight. Those are real child sexual abuse offenses with real deadlines, and the classification is right to say so.

720 ILCS 5/3-6 — Illinois General Assembly, official ILCS full text 

720 ILCS 5/3-5 — Illinois General Assembly, official ILCS full text

The elimination — § 13-202.2(f): “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an action for damages based on childhood sexual abuse or a violation of Section 10-9 of the Criminal Code of 2012 in which the victim is a minor may be commenced at any time; provided, however, that the changes made by this amendatory Act of the 98th General Assembly apply to actions commenced on or after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 98th General Assembly if the action would not have been time barred under any statute of limitations or statute of repose prior to the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 98th General Assembly.” 

The proviso is the whole point. The amendatory Act of the 98th General Assembly is P.A. 98-276, effective 1 January 2014. So, the elimination applies only where the claim was still alive on 1 January 2014. A survivor whose claim had already expired before that date is not helped by subsection (f) at all, and there is no separate revival provision to help them. 

What governs a claim outside subsection (f) — § 13-202.2(b): twenty years from the date the limitation period begins to run under subsection (d), or twenty years from the date the survivor discovers or should discover both that the abuse occurred and that the injury was caused by it. And the section is emphatic that mere knowledge of the abuse is not enough: “The fact that the person abused discovers or using reasonable diligence should discover that the act of childhood sexual abuse occurred is not, by itself, sufficient to start the discovery period under this subsection (b). Knowledge of the abuse does not constitute discovery of the injury or the causal relationship between any later-discovered injury and the abuse.” 

When the clock starts — § 13-202.2(d): the periods do not begin to run before the survivor turns 18, and if the survivor is under another legal disability at 18, not until that disability is removed. 

A tolling rule worth noting — § 13-202.2(d-1): “The limitation periods in subsection (b) do not run during a time period when the person abused is subject to threats, intimidation, manipulation, fraudulent concealment, or fraud perpetrated by the abuser or by any person acting in the interest of the abuser.” The words “or by any person acting in the interest of the abuser” reach institutional conduct, not just the abuser’s own. 

Continuing abuse — § 13-202.2(c): where the injury is caused by two or more acts by the same abuser forming a continuing series, the discovery period runs from discovery of the last act in the series and of the causal link to any act in it. 

Definitions — § 13-202.2(a): “childhood sexual abuse” means an act of sexual abuse occurring when the person abused is under 18; “sexual abuse” includes but is not limited to sexual conduct and sexual penetration as defined in § 11-0.1 of the Criminal Code of 2012. 

Why this has been changed to “partly removed”: subsection (f) says “at any time”, and read alone that is a complete elimination. Read with its proviso it is a prospective elimination that leaves every pre-2014 expired claim barred. That is precisely the structure the tracker already scores as “Partly removed” in Colorado, where § 13-80-103.7(1)(b) does the same thing with a 2022 date, and it is the same structure as Washington’s 2024 law. Scoring Illinois as “No deadline” while scoring Colorado as “Partly removed” is an inconsistency in the dataset rather than a difference between the states.

735 ILCS 5/13-202.2 — Illinois General Assembly, official ILCS full text

The cut-off is in the elimination itself — § 13-202.2(f) applies only “if the action would not have been time barred under any statute of limitations or statute of repose prior to the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 98th General Assembly.” 

The same drafting appears in the earlier amendment — § 13-202.2(e) records that the changes made by the amendatory Act of the 96th General Assembly likewise apply only to actions commenced on or after its effective date and only where the action would not already have been time barred. Illinois has repeatedly extended forward without reaching back. 

By contrast, the section does record two genuine retroactive applications, both to pending cases rather than expired ones — § 13-202.2(e): the 1990 amendment applied to actions pending on its effective date as well as those commenced after, and so did the amendment of the 93rd General Assembly. Neither revived an expired claim. 

Illinois therefore belongs with Florida rather than with New York: a state that has legislated repeatedly and generously, always prospectively. The tracker’s “None” for revival is correct, and the reason — an express statutory cut-off rather than legislative silence — is the same reason its civil track should read “Partly removed”.

735 ILCS 5/13-202.2 — Illinois General Assembly, official ILCS full text

no Illinois row.