Track

Status

Governing provision

No limitation for the most serious offenses — § 12-12-17(a): “There shall be no statute of limitations for the following offenses: treason against the state; any homicide, arson, first-degree arson, second-degree arson, third-degree arson, burglary, counterfeiting, forgery, robbery, rape, first-degree sexual assault, first-degree child molestation sexual assault, second-degree child molestation sexual assault, bigamy; manufacturing, selling, distribution, or possession with intent to manufacture, sell, or distribute, a controlled substance under the Uniform Controlled Substance Act, chapter 28 of title 21; or any other offense for which the maximum penalty provided is life imprisonment.” 

BUT EVERY OTHER SEXUAL OFFENSE FALLS TO THREE YEARS — § 12-12-17(c): “The statute of limitations for any other criminal offense shall be three (3) years, unless a longer statute of limitations is otherwise provided for in the general laws.” Section 12-12-17(b) sets ten years for a list of larceny, bribery, perjury, extortion, racketeering, antitrust, elder exploitation and financial fraud offenses; no sexual offense appears in it. 

So the boundary is the degree of the offense. First-degree child molestation sexual assault (R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-37-8.1) and second-degree child molestation sexual assault (§ 11-37-8.3) are unlimited by name. First-degree sexual assault and rape are unlimited by name. Third-degree sexual assault under § 11-37-6 — the offense covering a person over eighteen who engages in sexual penetration with a person over fourteen and under sixteen — is not named, is not in the ten-year list, and does not carry a maximum of life. On the face of § 12-12-17 it runs on the three-year residual. 

The same is true of second-degree sexual assault (§ 11-37-4), of the child-pornography offenses in chapter 9 of title 11, and of indecent-exposure and solicitation offenses. None is named in subsection (a); none is in subsection (b); each therefore falls to three years unless a longer period is given elsewhere in the general laws. 

The residual clause leaves room, and it has not been closed out here. Subsection (c) ends “unless a longer statute of limitations is otherwise provided for in the general laws”, so a longer period given in title 11 for a particular offense would displace the three years. Whether any such provision exists for the sexual offenses named above was not established, and that is recorded in the open questions below. 

Participants share the principal’s period — § 12-12-17(d): “Any person who participates in any offense, either as a principal accessory or conspirator, shall be subject to the same statute of limitations as if the person had committed the substantive offense.” 

Why the status is “partly removed”: the elimination is real for the first and second-degree child molestation offenses, which cover the gravest childhood conduct, but the code then drops to a three-year residual with nothing in between. Rhode Island has the widest gap in this dataset between its unlimited category and its next period — no limitation at all, or three years, with no intermediate tier of the kind Ohio, Oregon, New Jersey and Pennsylvania use.

R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-12-17 — Rhode Island General Assembly, official statute text

Thirty-five years, or seven from discovery, tolled to eighteen — § 9-1-51(a)(1), as amended: all claims for damages for injury suffered as a result of sexual abuse, “including alleging negligent supervision of a person that sexually abused a minor, or that the defendant’s conduct caused or contributed to the childhood sexual abuse by another person to include, but not be limited to, wrongful conduct, negligence or default in supervision, hiring, employment, training, monitoring, or failure to report and/or the concealment of sexual abuse of a child shall be commenced within the later to expire of: (i) Thirty-five (35) years of the act alleged to have caused the injury or condition; or (ii) Seven (7) years from the time the victim discovered or reasonably should have discovered that the injury or condition was caused by the act. Provided, however, that the time limit or commencement of such an action under this section shall be tolled for a child until the child reaches eighteen (18) years of age.” The ordinary deadline is the survivor’s fifty-third birthday, and the discovery limb has no outer cap. 

The 2026 amendment merged perpetrator and non-perpetrator defendants into one rule. Before 1 July 2026 the section had two parallel provisions: § 9-1-51(a)(1) for a “perpetrator defendant” and § 9-1-51(a)(2) for a “non-perpetrator defendant” alleging negligent supervision. The amendment replaced “perpetrator defendant” with “party” and folded the institutional language into a single paragraph, so one rule now governs both. Rhode Island is therefore moving in the opposite direction from Oklahoma and Nebraska, which give institutions a shorter clock than perpetrators. 

What counts as sexual abuse — § 9-1-51(e): “any act committed by the defendant against a complainant who was less than eighteen (18) years of age at the time of the act and which act would have been a criminal violation of chapter 37 of title 11.” § 9-1-51(d): “child” means a person under eighteen. 

No need to isolate the act — § 9-1-51(b): the victim “need not establish which act in a series of continuing sexual abuse or exploitation incidents caused the injury complained of, but may compute the date of discovery from the date of the last act by the same defendant which is part of a common scheme or plan of sexual abuse or exploitation.” § 9-1-51(c): a custodial parent or guardian’s knowledge is not imputed to a person under eighteen. 

CLAIMS AGAINST THE STATE ARE CAPPED AT $100,000 — § 9-1-51(g), added in 2026: all claims under the section against the State of Rhode Island or any political subdivision “shall be subject to the limitations of damages set forth in §§ 9-31-1, 9-31-2, or 9-31-3 and any damages recovered therein shall not exceed the sum of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000).” § 9-1-51(f) exempts such claims from prejudgment interest under § 9-21-10. 

And private defendants pay 12% prejudgment interest on window claims — § 9-1-51(h): in actions filed under § 9-1-51(a)(3) other than against the State or a political subdivision, interest at twelve per cent per annum runs “from the date of written notice of the claim by the claimant or his or her representative to the defendant or the defendant’s insurer or the filing of the action, whichever comes first.” 

The status is the least informative part of Rhode Island’s row. The state has a fifty-three-year deadline with an uncapped discovery limb, a permanent revival, an open window, one rule for perpetrators and institutions alike, a punitive interest rule against private defendants and a $100,000 ceiling against public ones. The two damages provisions are the mirror image of Maryland’s 2025 H.B. 1378, which the tracker records as a civil-track limit; Rhode Island’s belong there too.

P.L. 2026, ch. 80 (2026 H. 7200 Sub. A) — Rhode Island General Assembly, enacted public law amending § 9-1-51 

R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-1-51 — Rhode Island General Assembly, official statute text (see the note below: this page had not been updated to the 2026 text when checked)

The window — § 9-1-51(a)(3): “Notwithstanding any other law, a cause of action for damages that involves sexual conduct or sexual contact with a child, including alleging negligent supervision of a person that sexually abused a minor, or that the defendant’s conduct caused or contributed to the childhood sexual abuse by another person to include, but not be limited to, wrongful conduct, negligence or default in supervision, hiring, employment, training, monitoring, or failure to report and/or the concealment of sexual abuse of a child, and that would be time barred because of an applicable statute of limitations shall be revived and shall be commenced by no later than June 30, 2028.” 

THE PERMANENT REVIVAL UNDERNEATH IT — § 9-1-51(a)(2): a claim based on conduct of sexual abuse or conduct that caused or contributed to sexual abuse, including the institutional limbs, “regardless of if the claims were time-barred under previous versions of the general laws on the effective date of this section, may be commenced within the time period enumerated in subsections (a)(1)(i) and (a)(1)(ii) of this section.” There is no end date. A claim that was dead under the old law but is inside thirty-five years of the act, or inside seven years of discovery, is alive and stays alive. 

These are two different things and the tracker records only one. Subsection (a)(2) revives permanently but only up to the § 9-1-51(a)(1) periods. Subsection (a)(3) revives everything else — claims outside even thirty-five years and seven years from discovery — and gives them until 30 June 2028. A survivor abused in 1975 who discovered the connection in 2024 is inside (a)(2) and needs no window; a survivor abused in 1975 who has always known is inside (a)(3) and has until 30 June 2028. 

The 2026 amendment widened both. The pre-2026 section revived permanently only as against a “perpetrator defendant” (old subsection (a)(3)), while claims against non-perpetrators were revived only if “not otherwise time-barred” on the effective date (old subsection (a)(4)). The amendment removed that distinction: the permanent revival in the new (a)(2) covers institutional claims expressly, and the new (a)(3) window covers them too. 

It took effect on 1 July 2026 — P.L. 2026, ch. 80, § 3: “This act shall take effect on July 1, 2026.” The same Act added a severability section, § 9-1-55: “If any provision of this chapter or the application thereof to any person or circumstances is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications of this chapter, which can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this end the provisions of this chapter are declared to be severable.” A severability clause enacted alongside a revival window is a legislature anticipating a constitutional challenge. 

No Rhode Island appellate decision on the constitutionality of the revival was located, and none is asserted. The window is two months old as at the date of this page.

P.L. 2026, ch. 80 (2026 H. 7200 Sub. A) — Rhode Island General Assembly, enacted public law, § 9-1-51(a)(2), (a)(3) and the effective-date and severability sections