Legal Question in Criminal Law in North Carolina

NC Gen Stat � 15-1. Statute of limitations for misdemeanors.

The crimes of deceit and malicious mischief, and the crime of petit larceny where the value of the property does not exceed five dollars ($5.00), and all misdemeanors except malicious misdemeanors, shall be presented or found by the grand jury within two years after the commission of the same, and not afterwards: Provided, that if any indictment found within that time shall be defective, so that no judgment can be given thereon, another prosecution may be instituted for the same offense, within one year after the first shall have been abandoned by the State.

Use of the words "malicious misdemeanors" is archaic; this term is not defined. Here is an excerpt on the subject:

NC Gen. Stat.� 15-1 requires that prosecutions for misdemeanors be initiated by either indictment or presentment (discussed further in the next section) within two years after the commission of the offense. Although the statute refers only to prosecutions initiated by grand jury action, it applies equally to offenses prosecuted on a warrant or other criminal process,

such as a criminal summons. For those prosecutions initiated by warrant or other criminal

process, the process must issue within the statute of limitations period. See State v.

Hundley, 272 N.C. 491 (1968); State v. Underwood, 244 N.C. 68 (1956).

This statute further states that if a prosecutor obtains a timely but defective indictment,

the State has one year to re-indict the defendant. This additional period applies to

indictments only. See infra � 7.1B (issuance of void warrant or invalid indictment).

NC Gen. Stat. � 15-1 retains archaic language making an exception to the statute of limitations for �malicious misdemeanors.� There are no modern cases construing this part of the statute, although an earlier case held that �malicious misdemeanors� are those in which malice is a necessary element of the offense. See State v. Frisbee, 142 N.C. 671 (1906) (holding that assault is not a malicious misdemeanor). A defendant charged with a �malicious

misdemeanor� outside the statute of limitations period may have a strong argument that

the phrase �malicious misdemeanors� is void for vagueness. See Papachristou v. City of

Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972) (Florida vagrancy statute held void for vagueness

where it failed to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that certain conduct

was forbidden by the statute); United States v. Habig, 390 U.S. 222, 227 (1968) (courts

urged to construe statutes of limitation in favor of repose).

There are also some isolated misdemeanors, specifically designated by statute, for which

there is a longer statute of limitations. See, e.g., NC Gen. Stat. � 105-236(9) (establishing six-year statute of limitations for prosecutions for willful failure to file tax return or pay tax).