Statute of Limitations Several States,

Statute of Limitations

Several states, as well as Federal legislation, contain a legal stipulation which is called the "statute of limitations." This particular statute may very from state to state, or even country to country, but essentially it serves an important purpose. The statute is an expiration date on when a person can be tried after he or she has been charged with a specific crime or lawsuit. Once a person is charged, there is a deadline in which that trial or lawsuit must then commence. These statues also vary depending on the severity of the crime or the lawsuit which is in question. For example, many states have a longer statute regarding murder cases and other serious felonies than smaller misdemeanor crimes. If the legal case is not filled within the required period of time after the charge is first brought, then the case is dismissed (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008). In some states and cases, the statute of limitations does not come into play as it normally would. In these cases, the statute of limitations begins not at the time when the person was charged, but rather at the time when evidence should have been discovered in a reasonable manner, (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008).

An example of a case where statute of limitations came into play is that of Lawrence v. Florida in 2006 and 2007, (Oyez.com, 2008). Gary Lawrence had appealed his first degree murder conviction, but his appeal was denied by the Supreme Court in 2007 due to his failure to adhere to the one year statute of limitations based on the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which gives convicted felons a period of one year to submit petitions for their appeal based on writs of habeas corpus.

The reasoning behind these types of legislation is to ensure citizens that they do not have to fear being convicted of a crime they were initially charged with thirty years ago. If the state does not have sufficient evidence to commence trial within a timely manner, then the person charged with the crime also has the right to move on with his or her life, rather than continually live in fear of the trial emerging from their distant past. In terms of civil litigation, it also ensures that old debts and lawsuits cannot come back to haunt someone several years after the initial proceedings began and faded out.

These laws have both positive and negative consequences within society. First, as previously mentioned, it is good for people who have been charged with a crime or lawsuit. If the state or opposing party cannot come up with the sufficient evidence to proceed to trail within a timely manner, the defendant should not have to live the rest of his or her life in fear of being prosecuted out of the blue at some future date. These laws also help protect debtors who have defaulted on their debt. If their creditors are unable to take legal action within that specific amount of time, then they have freed themselves from that debt. However, these laws also have negative consequences as well. They restrict the state and any citizen who must gather enough evidence to commence trail from having complete freedom to do so. Prosecuting offenders is not nearly as easy as it may appear to be, and having limitations on the length of time in which it takes to gather that evidence makes it that much harder for prosecutors. Also, within the scope of these laws, many guilty parties go free from punishment because their cases have run out of time. Allowing guilty parties to avoid punishment is always a negative aspect of such legislation.

Florida State Statue of Limitations covers a wide range of crimes, offenses, debt issues, and civil litigations. They are broken up into time periods and which crimes and offenses are allotted into those specific time periods. The time lengths go as follows, twenty years, five years, four years, two, and one year. For instance, the time period given by the Florida Statute of Limitations for commencing trial on the charge of "An action for assault, battery, false arrest, malicious prosecution, malicious interference, false imprisonment, or any other intentional tort, except as provided in subsections," (Florida Legislature, 2008) has a statute of limitations which expires at four years. Most malpractice actions within the state of Florida have a two-year statute of limitation. The majority of debt related cases fall under one to two years statutes; while most other contract disputes fall under the one year statute. Florida legislation is a good representation of how the statutes vary depending on severity of the charges.