Track

Status

Governing provision

Felonies have no limitation, and the proof is what the section does not say. Section 19.2-8 opens: “A prosecution for a misdemeanor, or any pecuniary fine, forfeiture, penalty or amercement, shall be commenced within one year next after there was cause therefor…”. It then sets periods for a long list of particular offenses. Nowhere does it impose a period on felonies generally, and Virginia has never enacted one. Rape, object sexual penetration, aggravated sexual battery and carnal knowledge of a child are all felonies and may be prosecuted at any time. 

BUT THE MISDEMEANOR CHILD SEXUAL OFFENSES HAVE A DEADLINE, AND IT IS SHORT — § 19.2-8: “A prosecution of a misdemeanor under § 18.2-64.2, 18.2-67.4, 18.2-67.4:1, 18.2-67.4:2, 18.2-67.5, or 18.2-370.6 or clause (ii) of § 18.2-371 where the victim is a minor at the time of the offense shall be commenced no later than one year after the victim reaches majority, unless the alleged offender of such offense was an adult and more than three years older than the victim at the time of the offense, in which instance such prosecution shall be commenced no later than five years after the victim reaches majority.” 

The offenses in that list are not marginal. Section 18.2-67.4 is sexual battery, which is a Class 1 misdemeanor and is the offense most non-aggravated childhood sexual contact is charged under. Section 18.2-67.4:2 is sexual abuse of a child aged thirteen or fourteen. Section 18.2-370.6 is penetration of the mouth of a child with lascivious intent. Section 18.2-64.2 is carnal knowledge of certain detained persons; § 18.2-67.4:1 is infected sexual battery; § 18.2-67.5 is attempted sexual battery; and clause (ii) of § 18.2-371 is consensual sexual intercourse with a child fifteen or older by an adult. 

So the practical deadline for that whole group is the survivor’s nineteenth birthday, or twenty-third where the offender was an adult more than three years older. A survivor who discloses at thirty cannot have a sexual battery charged, however clear the evidence. 

The general rule the paragraph displaces — § 19.2-8, first paragraph: one year for any misdemeanor, with petit larceny at five years and attempt to produce abortion at two. 

One more sexual provision with a deadline — § 19.2-8: “A prosecution for a misdemeanor violation of § 18.2-386.1 or 18.2-386.2 shall be commenced within five years of the commission of the offense or within one year of the date the victim discovers the offense or, by the exercise of due diligence, reasonably should have discovered the offense, whichever is later.” Those are unlawful filming of another and unlawful dissemination of images. 

Flight and desertion are excluded — § 19.2-8, final paragraph: nothing in the section applies to a person fleeing from justice or concealing himself to avoid arrest, or limits the time for prosecuting desertion of a spouse or child or failure to support. 

Why the status is “partly removed”: § 19.2-8 names seven misdemeanor offenses involving children in a single paragraph, including sexual battery. This is the same shape as North Carolina, where § 15-1(b) puts a ten-year period on sexual battery and indecent liberties between children while felonies run unlimited. Virginia’s version is harsher: not ten years from the act but one year past majority, or five where there is an age gap.

Va. Code § 19.2-8 — Virginia Law Library, official Code of Virginia 

Va. Code § 18.2-67.4 (sexual battery; Class 1 misdemeanor) — Virginia Law Library, official Code of Virginia

Twenty years from accrual — § 8.01-243(D): “Every action for injury to the person, whatever the theory of recovery, resulting from sexual abuse occurring during the infancy or incapacity of the person as set forth in subdivision 6 of § 8.01-249 shall be brought within 20 years after the cause of action accrues.” 

AND ACCRUAL IS THE LATER OF THREE EVENTS, NOT SIMPLY MAJORITY — § 8.01-249(6): the cause of action accrues upon the later of the removal of the disability of infancy or incapacity as provided in § 8.01-229; when the fact of the injury and its causal connection to the sexual abuse is first communicated to the person by a licensed physician, psychologist, or clinical psychologist; or when corroborative evidence is discovered or by the exercise of due diligence reasonably should have been discovered. The section defines corroborative evidence as independent evidence supporting some essential allegation or issue of such injury, including physical evidence, witness statements or a confession. 

The floor is therefore thirty-eight, and there is no ceiling. A survivor who has always known has twenty years from her eighteenth birthday. A survivor first told by a clinical psychologist at fifty that her injury was caused by the abuse has twenty years from that conversation. Virginia is one of only two states in this dataset — with New Mexico — whose deadline is keyed to a communication from a clinician rather than to the survivor’s own realization. 

That is also the trap. The second limb requires the connection to be “communicated to the person by a licensed physician, psychologist, or clinical psychologist”. A survivor who works it out herself, or is told by a counselor who is not one of those three, does not start that clock. The third limb, corroborative evidence, is the safety net, and it is objective rather than personal. 

Adult abuse gets ten years, or fifteen against a person of authority — § 8.01-243(D1): for a cause of action accruing on or after 1 July 2020, an action for sexual abuse other than those in subsection D must be brought within ten years. § 8.01-243(D2): notwithstanding D and D1, an action for sexual abuse occurring when the person was eighteen or older “by a person of authority over a victim shall be brought within 15 years after the cause of action accrues”, and “person of authority” means “a person in a position of trust having influence over the victim’s life.” 

What it displaces — § 8.01-243(A): every action for personal injuries, whatever the theory of recovery, must be brought within two years after the cause of action accrues. 

The number is not twenty, and it is not thirty-eight either — it is twenty years from whichever of three events happens last, two of which have no outer limit. That is why the rule text above carries § 8.01-249(6) alongside § 8.01-243(D).

Va. Code § 8.01-243 — Virginia Law Library, official Code of Virginia 

Va. Code § 8.01-249(6) (accrual of the cause of action) — Virginia Law Library, official Code of Virginia

Neither § 8.01-243 nor § 8.01-249 contains a revival provision. Section 8.01-243 has been amended repeatedly — most recently by 2020, c. 1125 and 2023, c. 27 — and each amendment extended a period or added a category going forward. 

The 2020 amendment is the one that added subsections D1 and D2, and it is expressly prospective on its face: subsection D1 applies “[f]or a cause of action accruing on or after July 1, 2020”. Whether the twenty-year rule in subsection D reached claims accrued but not yet barred when it was enacted was not established for this page; the applicability language, if any, sits in the session law rather than in the codified section. 

The accrual structure does much of the work a revival would do elsewhere. Because § 8.01-249(6) delays accrual until a clinician communicates the causal connection or corroborative evidence is discovered, a Virginia claim from abuse in the 1970s may not have accrued at all, and so may never have been barred. That is a different mechanism from revival, and it does not help a survivor whose claim did accrue and did expire. 

No Virginia appellate decision on the constitutionality of retroactive revival was located, and none is asserted. Because no window has ever been enacted, the question that produced Mitchell v. Roberts, Thompson v. Killary, Aurora Public Schools v. A.S., Dupuis and Ball has not arisen here.

Va. Code § 8.01-243 and § 8.01–249 — Virginia Law Library, official Code of Virginia