Felonies Involving Homicide

• Homicide crimes in the state of Washington have no statute of limitations and can be prosecuted at any time. This includes all grades of murder, arson that leads to a death and all vehicular crimes that involve death.
  
  

Major Felonies Not Involving Death

• The other major felonies, generally, have a 10 year statute of limitations. These crimes are arson that does not involve a death, a felony committed by a public official in his official capacity when it violates the public trust and most rapes. There are some exceptions for crimes against children, such as rape, which can be prosecuted up until the victim turns 28-years-old.
  
  

Other Felonies

• Most other felonies have a statute of limitations of six years. There are some felonies that have shorter statutes of limitations, such as bigamy which has a statute of limitations of three years or felonies that involve failure to pay the fuel tax which has a five year statute of limitations.
  
  

Misdemeanors

• There is a two-year statute of limitations for gross misdemeanors and a one-year statute of limitations for a regular misdemeanor.