Opinion ID: 2626357
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mr. Green's Arguments Regarding the Statute of Limitations for Rape of a Child

Text: ¶ 19 Mr. Green attacks the applicability of the 1991 amendment on both legal and factual grounds. He asserts that the law governing the retroactive application of statutes forecloses the State's use of the amendment against him. He also argues that the factual record demonstrates that law enforcement officials had received a report that Mr. Green raped Linda more than one year before the effective date of the 1991 amendment, and therefore, even if the 1991 amendment applies retroactively, it does not apply to him because his exposure to prosecution under the 1983 limitations had ended. ¶ 20 We turn first to Mr. Green's legal challenge. We have determined that a statutory amendment enlarging a statute of limitations will extend the limitations period applicable to a crime already committed only if the amendment becomes effective before the previously applicable statute of limitations has run. Lusk, 2001 UT 102 at ¶ 26, 37 P.3d 1103. This statement of law is controlling and dispatches Mr. Green's legal argument because the amendment was enacted in 1991, three years before the initial statute of limitations would have expired. Mr. Green does not attempt to distinguish or explain Lusk. Instead, he gestures toward, but does not analyze, statutory and case authority to assert that the 1991 amendment does not have retroactive application. ¶ 21 He holds up section 68-3-3 of the Utah Code as a shield to retroactivity. This section provides that [n]o part of these revised statutes is retroactive, unless expressly so declared. Utah Code Ann. § 68-3-3 (1986). Mr. Green then directs us to State v. Lavoto, 776 P.2d 912, 913 (Utah 1989), for confirmation that the 1991 amendment did not expressly make its provisions applicable to the crime of rape of a child. The sum total of Mr. Green's analysis of Lavoto is his notation that the case held that section 68-3-3 means what it says. We agree, but the clarity of expression found in section 68-3-3 does not implicate the retroactivity of the 1991 amendment, nor does a 1989 case, Lavoto, provide any clarification or interpretative precedent for a law enacted in 1991. ¶ 22 Lavoto presented us with the question of whether the 1983 limitations applied to crimes involving sexual misconduct, which shared similar elements with offenses subject to the 1983 limitations, but were not identical to the newly created crimes enumerated in the 1983 limitations statutes. Id. at 913. We held that the 1983 limitations attached only to the crimes specifically identified within the 1983 limitations statutes. Id. We reached our result by applying the tools of statutory interpretation to the 1983 limitations provisions, a task in which section 68-3-3 played a negligible role. Id. Before 1983, our criminal code did not classify sex crimes by the age of the victim; therefore, conduct that incorporated the elements of rape of a child was prosecuted under the same statute as a rape of an adult. Id. We concluded that the legislature did not intend the 1983 limitations statutes to operate as a de facto retroactive creation of a separate category of crimes against children. Id. at 914. In enacting the 1991 amendment, the legislature conformed to the grant of authority we sanctioned in Lavoto by expanding the statute of limitations for a crime specifically listed in the prior statute, rape of a child. The revised statute of limitations for this offense, therefore, has retroactive application.