Track

Status

Governing provision

No limitation for a named short list — § 30-1-8(H), as amended in 2026: no limitation period exists for a capital felony, a first-degree violent felony, second degree murder, second degree criminal sexual contact of a minor, and second degree criminal sexual penetration. The last two limbs are new this year: S.B. 41 (Laws 2026, ch. 21) added them. 

BUT THE REST OF THE SEX OFFENSES KEEP A CLOCK — § 30-1-8(A): six years for a second-degree felony. § 30-1-8(B): five years for a third- or fourth-degree felony. Criminal sexual contact of a minor under § 30-9-13 and criminal sexual penetration under § 30-9-11 are graded by circumstance, and only the second-degree limbs are in the no-limitation list. Third and fourth degree criminal sexual contact of a minor falls on the five-year period. 

And the lower grades shorter still — § 30-1-8(C): two years for a misdemeanor. § 30-1-8(D): one year for a petty misdemeanor. § 30-1-8 also carries a three-year residual for crimes outside the Criminal Code or with no period specified. 

The child-victim tolling rule — § 30-1-9.1: “The applicable time period for commencing prosecution pursuant to Section 30-1-8 NMSA 1978 shall not commence to run for an alleged violation of Section 30-6-1, 30-9-11 or 30-9-13 NMSA 1978 until the victim attains the age of eighteen or the violation is reported to a law enforcement agency, whichever occurs first.” Section 30-6-1 is abandonment or abuse of a child. The section applies to crimes committed on or after 19 June 1987 (Laws 1987, ch. 117, § 2). 

Note what that tolling rule does and does not do. It starts the clock at eighteen — or earlier, at the date of any report to law enforcement, whichever comes first. A childhood report by a parent therefore starts the five- or six-year period running while the survivor is still a child. Combined with § 30-1-8(B), a third- or fourth-degree offense reported when the survivor was ten would be time-barred before she turned sixteen. 

DNA tolling — § 30-1-9.2(A): “When DNA evidence is available and a suspect has not been identified, the applicable time period for commencing a prosecution pursuant to Section 30-1-8 NMSA 1978 shall not commence to run for an alleged violation of Section 30-9-11 NMSA 1978 until a DNA profile is matched with a suspect.” It reaches criminal sexual penetration only, not criminal sexual contact. 

Why the status is “partly removed”: New Mexico now has no limitation for second degree criminal sexual contact of a minor and second degree criminal sexual penetration — and a five-year clock, tolled only to eighteen or first report, for the third- and fourth-degree limbs of the same two offenses and for child abuse under § 30-6-1. “No deadline” is not a fair description of that.

S.B. 41 (2026), Laws 2026, ch. 21 — New Mexico Legislature, final enacted text amending § 30-1-8 

S.B. 41 (2026) legislative history — signed 4 March 2026, Chapter 21 

N.M. Stat. § 30-1-9.1 — free full text 

N.M. Stat. § 30-1-9.2 — free full text 

The rule — § 37-1-30(A): “An action for damages based on personal injury caused by childhood sexual abuse shall be commenced by a person before the latest of the following dates: (1) the first instant of the person’s twenty-fourth birthday; or (2) three years from the date that a person first disclosed the person’s childhood sexual abuse to a licensed medical or mental health care provider in the context of receiving health care from the provider.” 

What counts as childhood sexual abuse — § 37-1-30(B): conduct that, if prosecuted criminally, would violate § 30-9-11 (criminal sexual penetration of a minor), § 30-9-13 (criminal sexual contact of a minor), or the Sexual Exploitation of Children Act (ch. 30, art. 6A). 

The general tolling section is switched off — § 37-1-30(C): “The provisions of Section 37-1-8 NMSA 1978 and any statutes of limitation therein shall not apply to causes of action for childhood sexual abuse.” 

The disclosure limb is the operative one in most cases. Twenty-four is early by the standards of this dataset, but the alternative measure — three years from the survivor’s first disclosure to a licensed medical or mental health provider while receiving health care — has no outer cap, so a survivor who first discloses to a therapist at fifty has until fifty-three. New Mexico is the clearest example in the dataset of a deadline keyed to clinical disclosure rather than to age or to discovery of the injury. 

The narrowness of the trigger is the risk. It must be a licensed medical or mental health care provider, and the disclosure must be in the context of receiving health care from that provider. Disclosure to a family member, a lawyer, a member of the clergy, a police officer or a school counselor who is not a licensed provider does not start the three years — and, on the face of the section, does not start any other period either. 

The disclosure limb matters: New Mexico’s deadline can run into a survivor’s fifties, which makes it behave unlike other states scored on a fixed age.

N.M. Stat. § 37-1-30 — free full text

There is no revival provision anywhere in § 37-1-30 or elsewhere in chapter 37, article 1. The 2017 amendment (Laws 2017, ch. 77) rewrote the deadline and did not address claims already barred. 

H.B. 73 (2025) would have removed the civil deadline outright and made the removal retroactive. The New Mexico source folder preserves the bill deliberately, filed as “HB73-2025-DIED”. The bill would have provided that an action for damages based on personal injury caused by childhood sexual abuse may be commenced at any time, with a new subsection making the section apply to claims that had already expired. It passed the House 65–0 on 11 March 2025, went to Senate Judiciary, and died there — Action Postponed Indefinitely. 

H.B. 151 (2026) tried again and died. It would have extended the filing deadline from the twenty-fourth to the fifty-eighth birthday, replaced § 37-1-30(C) with a provision making subsection A the only statutory time or procedural limitation on an accrued claim, and opened a revival window running to 30 June 2029. House Judiciary reported it “Do Not Pass, but with a Do Pass recommendation on Committee Substitution” on 10 February 2026; the bill was then Postponed Indefinitely. 

No New Mexico appellate decision on the constitutionality of retroactive revival was located, and none is asserted. Because no window has ever been enacted, the question has not arisen in the way it has in Kentucky, Utah, Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, Maryland and North Carolina.

H.B. 151 (2026) — New Mexico Legislature, bill history: died, Action Postponed Indefinitely 

H.B. 73 (2025) — New Mexico Legislature, bill history: passed House 65–0, died in Senate Judiciary

no New Mexico row.