Track

Status

Governing provision

Only class A felonies are unlimited — § 46.3106(a): “A prosecution for any class A felony may be commenced at any time.” § 46.3106(b): “(1) for any felony, 3 years; (2) for any misdemeanor, 1 year; (3) for any infraction, 6 months.” 

AND THE CLOCK RUNS FROM THE ACT, NOT FROM MAJORITY — § 46.3106(d): “An offense is committed either when every element occurs, or, if a legislative purpose to prohibit a continuing course of conduct plainly appears, at the time when the course of conduct or the defendant’s complicity in it is terminated. Time starts to run on the day after the offense is committed.” Subsection (f) suspends the period only while the accused is absent from the territory, is concealing himself from justice, or is already being prosecuted. Nothing anywhere in the section stops the clock because the victim is a child. 

Now the grading, which is what decides the classification. § 46.3604(a): “A person commits the crime of rape if: (1) he has sexual intercourse with another person without that person’s consent by the use of forcible compulsion; or (2) he has sexual intercourse with another person who is 16 years of age or less.” § 46.3604(b): “Rape is a class B felony unless in the course of it the actor inflicts serious physical injury on any person or displays a deadly weapon in a threatening manner, then rape is a class A felony.” 

BUT ONE SECTION OVERRIDES THE WHOLE CHAPTER, AND IT IS THE REASON THE CLASSIFICATION IS NOT “DEADLINE APPLIES.” § 46.3618: “Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, a person commits the crime of child molesting if he engages in sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse with a minor of the age of 12 years or under. Child molesting is a class A felony, the sentence of imprisonment for which must include a prison term of at least 10 years. This prison term is served without probation or parole.” Because it is a class A felony, § 46.3106(a) applies and the prosecution may be commenced at any time. Sexual intercourse and deviate sexual intercourse are defined broadly in § 46.3601 — the second covers “any sexual act involving the genitals of one person and the mouth, tongue, hand, or anus of another person.” 

SO THE AGE OF THE CHILD IS WHAT DECIDES IT, AND THE LINE IS DRAWN AT TWELVE. Penetrative abuse of a child of twelve or under can be charged at any time. The same act against a child of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen or sixteen is rape under § 46.3604 or sodomy under § 46.3611 — class B felonies — or sexual assault under § 46.3610 or deviate sexual assault under § 46.3612 — class C felonies — and every one of them must be charged within three years of the act, running from the day after it happened, with no tolling for the child’s age. A thirteen-year-old raped in the territory is time-barred on her sixteenth birthday. 

And below penetration the three-year clock runs whatever the child’s age. § 46.3615: sexual abuse in the first degree reaches sexual contact with a person sixteen or under, and is “a class D felony unless in the course of it the actor inflicts serious physical harm on any person or displays a deadly weapon in a threatening manner, then the crime is a class C felony” — three years either way, so hands-on sexual contact with a six-year-old is barred when she is nine. § 46.3616: sexual abuse in the second degree is “a class B misdemeanor unless in the course of it the actor displays a deadly weapon in a threatening manner, then the crime is a class A misdemeanor” — one year. 

The value is therefore “Partly removed”: one childhood sexual offense has no deadline, and the rest run on three years or one. The elimination is real but narrow, and what falls outside it is unusually wide — all penetrative abuse of thirteen- to sixteen-year-olds, and all non-penetrative abuse of children of any age. 

One point of statutory hygiene. Section 46.3603(b) removes the mistake-of-age defense only where criminality depends on the child being under fourteen: “it is no defense that the defendant believed the child to be 14 years old or older.” The offenses that turn on the victim being sixteen or under are not covered by that sentence. 

For a survivor of penetrative abuse aged thirteen to sixteen, and for any survivor of non-penetrative abuse, this is the shortest criminal exposure anywhere in the fifty-seven jurisdictions — three years from the act, with no allowance for the fact that the victim was a child.

A.S.C.A. § 46.3106 (time limitations) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 46.3604 (rape) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 46.3615 (sexual abuse in the first degree) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 46.3616 (sexual abuse in the second degree) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 46.3618 (child molesting) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 46.3610 (sexual assault) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 46.3611 (sodomy) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 46.3612 (deviate sexual assault) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 46.3601 (definitions) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 46.3603 (mistake as to incapacity or age) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated

Two years for injury to the person — § 43.0120: “Actions may be brought within the following times after their causes accrue, and not afterward, except where otherwise especially declared:… (2) actions founded on injuries to the person or reputation, including injuries to relative rights, whether based on contract or tort, or for a statutory penalty, within 2 years.” Paragraph (7) gives three years for any action with no limitation period provided. 

Minority gives one year past majority, and it overrides — § 43.0126: “Minors and insane persons shall have 1 year from after the termination of such disability within which to commence any action regardless of any otherwise applicable limitation period.” The High Court has read that as a floor rather than a cap: Lutu v. American Samoa Government, 7 A.S.R.2d 61 (1988) and Utu v. National Pacific Insurance Co., 9 A.S.R.2d 88 (1988) both hold that an action brought inside the one year is not barred by the otherwise applicable two-year period. 

Majority is eighteen — § 40.0401: “The age of majority of males and females in American Samoa is 18 years.” 

SO THE NOMINAL DEADLINE IS NINETEEN. One year past eighteen, and the shortest nominal civil deadline in this dataset by a wide margin. 

BUT ACCRUAL IS MEASURED FROM KNOWLEDGE, NOT FROM THE ACT. Section 43.0120 runs its periods from when the causes of action “accrue,” and the High Court has stated the accrual rule in discovery terms. Randall v. American Samoa Gov’t, 19 A.S.R.2d 111: “The general rule is that a tort claim accrues when a person has been injured and knows or should have known the essential facts about his injury and its probable cause.” The same decision records that an injured person may sue “within two years from the date of injury (or, in certain cases, of knowledge thereof),” and Utu v. National Pacific Insurance Co., 9 A.S.R.2d 88, applies the same measure, barring a claim because the plaintiff “had discovered her claim… no later than 1984.” 

Equitable tolling is available in principle, and the formulation fits these cases. Randall again: “Tolling is frequently deemed consistent with the purposes of statutes of limitation, particularly when the plaintiff was unable to bring suit due to circumstances that were in the primary control of the defendant.” Against that, Patau v. Rosendahl Corp., 19 A.S.R.2d 80, records that “specific provisions which toll a statute of limitations are provided by statute,” naming A.S.C.A. §§ 43.0124-43.0127, and Passi v. Amerika Samoa Bank, 28 A.S.R.2d 130, holds that where a statute of limitations fixes the period, laches is inapplicable. 

AND THE SECOND LIMB OF § 43.0126 IS BROADER THAN IT LOOKS. The section covers “minors and insane persons,” and the High Court has construed the second term functionally. Afatasi v. Ho Ching, 17 A.S.R.2d 173, holds that tolling “does not require violent behavior or a prior adjudication of incompetency”; that “a clinical diagnosis of a pathological condition such as dementia or schizophrenia is neither necessary nor sufficient”; and that the test is “whether the potential plaintiff suffered, during the statute of limitations period, from a mental disorder which resulted in his inability to manage his affairs,” a test the Court calls functional, for which “the best evidence is empirical.” That limb is not tied to the survivor’s age and does not require a diagnosis. 

So the practical position is narrower than the bare statute suggests: nineteen is the deadline where the survivor knew the essential facts and was under no disability, and the two general doctrines that soften it — discovery accrual and the § 43.0126 incapacity limb — exist in American Samoa law but have never been applied to a childhood sexual abuse claim in any reported decision. 

There is no childhood-sexual-abuse-specific civil provision anywhere in the American Samoa Code. A direct search of the Code Annotated returns no result. 

Claims against the government have their own rule, and it is more forgiving than Guam’s. § 43.1204: “A tort claim against the government shall be forever barred unless an action on it is begun within 2 years after the claim accrues.” § 43.1205 makes an administrative claim to the Attorney General a prerequisite, and Randall v. American Samoa Gov’t, 19 A.S.R.2d 111 (1991) holds that the claim does not accrue — so the two years do not begin — until the Attorney General has finally denied it. Critically, Lutu and Utu both hold that the § 43.0126 minority tolling DOES apply to claims against the government, so a survivor’s claim against a public school or agency is not barred so long as it is begun within one year of majority.

A.S.C.A. § 43.0120 (limitation periods) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 43.0126 (commencement of action by minors and insane persons) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 40.0401 (age of majority; power to appoint guardians) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 43.1204 (statute of limitations, government tort claims) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

A.S.C.A. § 46.2801 (registration of persons convicted of offenses against a victim who is a child) — American Samoa Bar Association, Code Annotated 

American Samoa Digest, TORTS § 19 (Statutes of Limitations) and § 10(3) — American Samoa Bar Association 

American Samoa Digest, CIVIL PROCEDURE § 9 (Equitable Remedies, including § 9(4) Tolling) — American Samoa Bar Association

A search of the American Samoa Code Annotated for a childhood sexual abuse civil action returns no result. There is no elimination, no extension, no window and no reach-back. 

American Samoa has taken no legislative action of any kind on the civil side. The age-nineteen deadline comes from general limitation statutes enacted in 1962 and never amended for this subject, and what softens it — discovery accrual and the incapacity limb of § 43.0126 — is general tort doctrine the High Court has developed in other kinds of case, not anything the Fono has done for survivors. On the criminal side the territory has legislated once, in 1981, by creating the child molesting offense in § 46.3618 — but that is a grading provision that happens to carry no limitation period, not a limitation reform, and it leaves every survivor over twelve on the general three-year clock. 

American Samoa is an unorganized, unincorporated territory. Its High Court sits under the Secretary of the Interior rather than in the federal appellate structure, and its reported decisions appear in the American Samoa Reports. No decision on limitation in a childhood sexual abuse case was located.