Track

Status

Governing provision

No limitation — § 701-108(1): a prosecution for murder in its several forms, attempted murder, conspiracy and solicitation to commit murder, and — the provisions that matter here — “sexual assault in the first and second degrees, sex trafficking, and continuous sexual assault of a minor under the age of fourteen years may be commenced at any time.” 

The clock stops while the child is a child — § 701-108(6)(c): the period of limitation does not run “For any felony offense under chapter 707, part V or VI, during any time when the victim is alive and under eighteen years of age.” Chapter 707 parts V and VI are the sexual offenses and the child abuse offenses. So, for every felony in those parts that is not already unlimited, the period begins at the victim’s eighteenth birthday. 

The periods that then run — § 701-108(2): manslaughter not caused by a motor vehicle, ten years; class A felony, six years; a felony under part IX of chapter 708, five years; any other felony, three years; misdemeanor or parking violation, two years; petty misdemeanor or other violation, one year. 

A DNA extension, but a bounded one — § 701-108(3)(c): where a test confirming the presence of the offender’s DNA is performed before the ordinary period expires, the period may be extended, “but in no case shall this provision extend the period of limitation by more than ten years from the expiration of the period of limitation prescribed in subsection (2).” 

Absence from the State — § 701-108(6)(a): the period does not run while the accused is continuously absent from the State or has no reasonably ascertainable place of abode or work in it, capped at four additional years. 

What the legislature said it was doing — the official commentary printed with the section records that Act 113, Session Laws 2014 eliminated the limitation for sexual assault in the first and second degrees and continuous sexual assault of a minor under fourteen, on the express finding that “child sexual abuse is an epidemic”, that most victims do not report, that studies estimate between sixty and eighty per cent withhold disclosure, and that studies of latency report “an average delay of three to eighteen years”. Act 68, Session Laws 2021 added sex trafficking for similar reasons. 

Why “partly removed”: the elimination covers sexual assault in the first and second degrees. Sexual assault in the third and fourth degrees — which reach a great deal of child sexual abuse — are not in § 701-108(1). They fall to the three-year felony period (or the two-year misdemeanor period for the fourth degree), tolled to the victim’s eighteenth birthday by § 701-108(6)(c). A survivor of third-degree sexual assault in childhood is therefore out of time at twenty-one. And “continuous sexual assault of a minor” is limited to victims under fourteen.

Haw. Rev. Stat. § 701-108 — Hawaii State Legislature, official Hawaii Revised Statutes

Two regimes divided by 1 July 2024 — § 657-1.8(a)(1): for sexual abuse committed before 1 July 2024, no action may be commenced more than “(A) Eight years after the eighteenth birthday of the victim; or (B) Three years after the date the victim discovers or reasonably should have discovered that psychological injury or illness occurring after the victim’s eighteenth birthday was caused by the sexual abuse, whichever occurs later.”

§ 657-1.8(a)(2): for sexual abuse committed on or after 1 July 2024, the equivalent periods are “Thirty-two years after the eighteenth birthday of the victim” or “Five years after the date the victim discovers or reasonably should have discovered” the causal link, whichever occurs later. That is a deadline at fifty rather than at twenty-six — a very large change, and it is prospective only.

What conduct qualifies — § 657-1.8(a): “A civil cause of action for the sexual abuse of a victim when the victim was a minor shall be based upon sexual acts that constituted or would have constituted a criminal offense under part V or VI of chapter 707.”

Institutions, on a gross negligence standard — § 657-1.8(b): a claim may also be brought against a legal entity where the abuser was employed by an entity owing a duty of care to the victim, or where the abuser and victim “were engaged in an activity over which the legal entity had a degree of responsibility or control”. But “Damages against the legal entity shall be awarded under this subsection only if there is a finding of gross negligence on the part of the legal entity.”

A certificate of merit is mandatory — § 657-1.8(d): the plaintiff’s attorney must file a sealed, confidential certificate of merit containing a notarized statement by a licensed marriage and family therapist, mental health counselor, psychologist or clinical social worker, knowledgeable in the facts and not a party, setting out “in reasonable detail the facts and opinions relied upon to conclude that there is a reasonable basis to believe that the plaintiff was subject to” the acts alleged.

A remedy found nowhere else in the dataset — § 657-1.8(e): where a claim is brought against a legal entity, “a plaintiff may request, and a court may order, the personnel of the legal entity to undergo training on trauma-informed response to allegations of sexual abuse”, and the subsection then defines what trauma-informed response may include: integrating trauma research into policies and practice, understanding how stress and trauma affect attention, cognition, behavior and memory, creating an environment that is safe, non-judgmental and free of gratuitous re-triggering, and listening to and documenting victims’ statements without judgment.

Costs risk — § 657-1.8(c): a defendant may recover attorney’s fees where the court determines a false accusation was made with no basis in fact and with malicious intent; a verdict for the defendant is not by itself a basis for that finding, and the court must make an independent finding of improper motive.

The eight-years-past-eighteen rule still governs almost every claim now being brought, because it applies to all abuse before 1 July 2024. The thirty-two-year rule will matter enormously in time, but for a survivor abused in the 1990s or 2000s it does nothing. Hawaii is a state whose entry will look very different in twenty years than it does today, and the tracker should say which regime it is describing.

Haw. Rev. Stat. § 657-1.8 — Hawaii State Legislature, official Hawaii Revised Statutes

The provision as it finally read — former § 657-1.8(b): “For a period of eight years after April 24, 2012, a victim of child sexual abuse that occurred in this State may file a claim in a circuit court of this State against the person who committed the act of sexual abuse if the victim is barred from filing a claim against the victim’s abuser due to the expiration of the applicable civil statute of limitations that was in effect prior to April 24, 2012.” 

It reached institutions too, but only on gross negligence — the entity provision applied to revived claims as it does to ordinary ones: damages against a legal entity were available “only if there is a finding of gross negligence on the part of the legal entity”. Hawaii therefore differs from Georgia, whose window reached individual abusers alone, and from Delaware, which used the same gross-negligence device. 

And the certificate of merit applied — a plaintiff filing in the window still had to produce the notarized statement from a licensed mental health professional required by § 657-1.8(d). That is a real procedural gate, and it is part of why the window’s length is not the whole story. 

It was extended twice — the eight-year period is not what the legislature first enacted. Act 68 (2012) opened it; Act 112 (2014) and Act 98 (2018) extended it, the 2018 amendment being made retroactive to 24 April 2012. The current statute no longer contains the provision at all. 

Hawaii ran one of the longest revival windows in the country — eight years — and let it lapse in April 2020, four years before it raised the ordinary deadline to age fifty. Anyone abused before 1 July 2024 whose claim had already expired by 2012 therefore had one eight-year chance and now has none. That sequencing is the substance of Hawaii’s entry and none of it was in the tracker.

Haw. Rev. Stat. § 657-1.8 (2019 Hawaii Revised Statutes — text of the former revival subsection) — Justia 

Haw. Rev. Stat. § 657-1.8 (current) — Hawaii State Legislature, official HRS

no Hawaii row.