House Bill 144

AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 99-1-5, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO EXTEND THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS ON THE CRIME OF RAPE TO TEN YEARS; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:

SECTION 1. Section 99-1-5, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:

99-1-5. A person shall not be prosecuted for any offense, with the exception of murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, kidnapping, arson, burglary, forgery, counterfeiting, robbery, larceny, * * * embezzlement, obtaining money or property under false pretenses or by fraud, felonious abuse or battery of a child as described in Section 97-5-39, touching or handling a child for lustful purposes as described in Section 97-5-23, sexual battery of a child as described in Section 97-3-95(c) or exploitation of children as described in Section 97-5-33, unless the prosecution for such offense be commenced within two (2) years next after the commission thereof, but nothing contained in this section shall bar any prosecution against any person who shall abscond or flee from justice, or shall absent himself from this state or out of the jurisdiction of the court, or so conduct himself that he cannot be found by the officers of the law, or that process cannot be served upon him.

Any prosecutions for felonious abuse or battery of a child as described in Section 97-5-39, touching or handling a child for lustful purposes as described in Section 97-5-23, sexual battery of a child as described in Section 97-3-95(c) or exploitation of children as described in Section 97-5-33, shall be commenced on or before the child's twenty-first birthday.

Any prosecution for rape as described in Section 97-3-65 shall be commenced within ten (10) years after the commission of the act.

SECTION 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2003.