What Crimes Have No Statute of Limitations in Missouri?

In Missouri, three categories of crime have no statute of limitations: murder, any Class A felony, and forcible rape or forcible sodomy (including first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, and attempts of each). For these offenses, RSMo § 556.036 allows prosecutors to file charges at any point, with no expiration. Every other crime carries a filing deadline, though several tolling rules can pause the clock. These are the crimes with no statute of limitations in Missouri, and the rest of this article explains how each category works and where the boundaries sit.¹

Murder and Any Class A Felony

The statute is direct about the most serious offenses. A prosecution for murder or any Class A felony “may be commenced at any time.”¹ Decades can pass. Evidence can surface forty years later. The filing window never closes.

Class A felonies sit at the top of Missouri’s severity ladder, carrying prison terms of no less than ten years, up to thirty years, or life.² First-degree robbery, kidnapping resulting in serious injury, and first-degree child molestation are examples. Any offense classified as Class A inherits the permanent chargeability of murder, which is why the classification matters far more than the specific label on the charge.

Forcible Rape, Forcible Sodomy, and First-Degree Versions

Section 556.036 names forcible rape, forcible sodomy, and the attempted versions of both as offenses that may be prosecuted at any time. It also lists first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, and attempts of each.¹ Missouri uses both the older terminology (“forcible rape,” “forcible sodomy”) and the current designations because the criminal code has been renumbered over the years. The practical result is unchanged: when the offense involved force or the threat of force, the clock never starts.

A survivor who comes forward at fifty about an assault that occurred at twenty still has a path to criminal prosecution. The law places no deadline between the offense and the charge.

Sexual Offenses Against Children

Many sex offenses against children have no statute of limitations because they qualify as Class A felonies. First-degree child molestation applies when someone subjects a child under fourteen to sexual contact and the offense is aggravated; when the victim is under twelve, the defendant must serve the entire prison term without eligibility for probation or parole.³ Because every Class A felony can be prosecuted at any time, these charges carry no expiration.

Child sex offenses that don’t reach Class A classification follow Missouri’s standard three-year felony deadline, though tolling can extend that window. The dividing line is severity: the most serious offenses are permanently chargeable, lesser offenses are not.

Civil Lawsuits Are a Separate Track

Criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits run on different clocks. A survivor seeking money damages for childhood sexual abuse must file within ten years of turning twenty-one or within three years of discovering that the injury was caused by the abuse, whichever comes later, under RSMo § 537.046.⁴ That civil window is narrower than the criminal one, so a case can remain chargeable by the state long after the time for a private lawsuit has run.

When the Clock Pauses on Other Crimes

For crimes that do have a filing deadline, Missouri recognizes several situations where the clock stops running under § 556.036.¹

Absence from the state pauses the clock, capped at three additional years beyond the normal deadline.
Active concealment from law enforcement, whether inside Missouri or elsewhere, stops the clock entirely with no cap.
A pending prosecution for the same offense pauses the limitation period while the case is active.
A finding that a defendant lacks mental fitness to stand trial pauses the clock until competency is restored.
Once a DNA profile is developed from crime scene evidence and included in a laboratory report, the clock stops until the suspect is identified by name through a match between the crime scene DNA and the suspect’s known profile.

The DNA Rule Is Not a “No Limit” Rule

The DNA provision is frequently misread as eliminating the statute of limitations. It does not. It freezes the clock only for the stretch between when a profile is developed from crime scene evidence and when that profile is matched to a named individual. A burglary with a three-year filing window could still be charged fifteen years later if the lab-reported profile sat unmatched for twelve of those years. Once the match is made, the remaining time on the original clock resumes.

This tolling rule applies to any felony, not just violent crimes, because biological evidence routinely sits in a backlog before technology or resources catch up.

Standard Deadlines for Everything Else

Any Missouri offense not covered above has a filing deadline under § 556.036:¹

Most felonies: three years from the date of the offense.
Class B felony burglary under § 569.040, and violations of §§ 569.050 and 569.055: five years.
Misdemeanors: one year.
Infractions: six months.

These deadlines run from the date of the offense, not the date of discovery, unless a tolling provision applies.

Federal Charges Follow Their Own Clock

State limitations only govern state-level charges. If conduct in Missouri also violates federal law, federal time limits apply separately. Under federal law, any offense punishable by death can be charged at any time, and federal terrorism offenses that resulted in death or serious bodily injury also have no filing deadline.⁵ A single act can lead to both state and federal prosecution under the dual sovereignty doctrine, with each jurisdiction applying its own statute of limitations independently.

1
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Revised Statutes 556.036 – Time Limitations
2
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 558.011 – Authorized Terms of Imprisonment
3
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 566.067 – Child Molestation in the First Degree
4
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 537.046 – Childhood Sexual Abuse Civil Actions
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC Ch. 213 – Limitations