California's deadline to file charges depends on the maximum punishment and the specific offense. Most felonies must be charged within three years, felonies punishable by eight or more years within six years, and most misdemeanors within one year. Murder, other crimes punishable by life, and certain felony sex offenses have no deadline or a much longer one, and specific rules delay or pause the clock for some offenses.
The three general deadlines
Start with the maximum punishment the charged offense allows, then check whether a special rule overrides the default. Under section 805, that maximum is the most the statute allows for the offense itself, ignoring sentence enhancements and whatever sentence the prosecution actually seeks. Penal Code section 799(a) sets no time limit at all for an offense punishable by death or life imprisonment, or for embezzlement of public money. Section 799(b) separately lists certain felony sex offenses with no time limit, but that part of the statute only reaches conduct on or after January 1, 2017, or conduct whose earlier deadline had not already expired by that date. Section 800 generally allows six years for an offense punishable by eight or more years in prison. Section 801 generally allows three years for any other offense punishable by state prison or by a felony jail term under section 1170(h), which covers first-degree residential burglary, punishable by up to six years, and most robbery charges; a home robbery committed in concert with two or more others, punishable by up to nine years, falls under the six-year rule instead. Section 802(a) generally allows one year for an offense not punishable by state prison or by a felony jail term under section 1170(h), which covers most misdemeanors, such as a first-offense simple assault or a first DUI, though 802(b) allows three years for a misdemeanor violation of section 647.6 committed with or upon a minor under 14, and 802(c) through (e) set separate periods for specified Business and Professions Code and related misdemeanors, such as contractor-licensing violations. Kidnapping shows how the maximum controls: simple kidnapping, punishable by three, five, or eight years under section 208(a), falls under the six-year rule, while kidnapping for ransom or to commit robbery or a sex offense under section 209 carries a life term and has no deadline. See the firm's page on kidnapping for the charge itself.
| Category | Deadline | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Death or life-maximum offense, or embezzlement of public money | No limit | PC 799(a) |
| Certain felony sex offenses (date-limited rule) | No limit | PC 799(b) |
| Felony punishable by 8 or more years | 6 years | PC 800 |
| Other felony, punishable by state prison or a section 1170(h) jail term | 3 years | PC 801 |
| Felony fraud, theft or embezzlement from an elder or dependent adult, or public misconduct in office | 4 years after discovery or after completion, whichever is later | PC 803(c), 801.5 |
| Specified felony sex offenses against a victim under 18 (date-limited rule) | Before the victim's 40th birthday | PC 801.1(a) |
| Other felony sex offenses requiring registration | 10 years | PC 801.1(b) |
| Corporal injury on a partner, PC 273.5 (date-limited rule) | 7 years | PC 803.7 |
| Most other offenses (most misdemeanors) | 1 year | PC 802(a) |
The sex offense exceptions
Penal Code section 801.1(a) allows prosecution of specified felonies, including rape, sodomy, oral copulation, lewd acts on a minor, continuous sexual abuse, and penetration by a foreign object, any time before the victim's 40th birthday, when the victim was under 18 at the time and the conduct occurred on or after January 1, 2015, or the earlier deadline had not yet run. Section 801.1(b) gives 10 years for other felony sex offenses that require registration under section 290(c), when the longer rules above do not apply. Building the correct timeline for an older sex offense allegation, including the separate delayed-report and DNA rules, takes a charge-by-charge comparison; see the firm's page on time limits for older sex offense allegations for that detail.
The fraud and theft discovery rule
Penal Code section 803(c) delays the start of the clock, rather than extending a running one, for felonies where fraud or breach of a fiduciary obligation is a material element, theft or embezzlement from an elder or dependent adult, and misconduct in office by a public officer or employee, including grand theft of any type, forgery, and specified public-corruption offenses. For those crimes, the clock does not start until the offense is discovered, and section 801.5 then allows four years after discovery or four years after the offense was completed, whichever is later. See the firm's page on theft or fraud statute of limitations for how that discovery rule actually works in practice.
The domestic violence exception
Ordinary domestic battery under Penal Code section 243(e)(1) follows the general one-year misdemeanor rule in section 802(a). Corporal injury on an intimate partner under section 273.5 is different: a separate rule in section 803.7 currently permits prosecution within seven years, though the start-date conditions matter for older conduct. See the firm's page on domestic violence statute of limitations for a full count-by-count comparison.
What pauses or extends the clock in other cases
Section 803(a) states the baseline rule plainly: a filing deadline is not paused or extended for any reason not written into the statute itself. A few narrow, specific exceptions exist beyond the ones above. Section 803(b) excludes the time another prosecution against the same person for the same conduct is already pending. Section 803(d) excludes up to three years during which the defendant is out of the state. A further, narrower route in section 803(f) lets a complaint proceed within one year after a person of any age reports certain qualifying childhood sexual abuse to law enforcement, once independent corroboration and the statute's other specific conditions are met. Section 803(g) separately allows a complaint within one year of a conclusive DNA match for a qualifying registerable sex offense, but only if the biological evidence was analyzed within the specific time windows the statute sets. None of these exceptions is a general "it depends" rule; each applies only to the exact offense and condition it names.
What to check in your situation
For each count, write down the exact code section and subdivision charged, the alleged date or date range of the conduct, the maximum punishment that section allows, and the date prosecution formally began, which under Penal Code section 804 is when an indictment or information was filed, a misdemeanor complaint was filed, you were arraigned on a felony complaint, or a qualifying arrest warrant was issued. A single case can also involve several counts with different deadlines, for example a theft count governed by the discovery rule alongside an assault count governed by the ordinary one-year or three-year rule, so check each count separately rather than assuming one deadline covers the whole case. Then compare that timeline against the rules above, since a crime like murder has no deadline at all under section 799(a) (see the firm's page on murder defense for how that offense is handled), while most other charges do. For a review of the timeline in a specific case, see the Law Offices of David S. Chesley's criminal defense page.