Statute of limitations on someone not arrested yet

What is the name of your state? NC

Okay heres my question, leaving the scene of an accident where there is only property damage is a class 1 misdemeanor in nc right?? well if the person who left the scene is unknown how long is the statute of limitations on a class 1 misdemeanor for a crime such as this where the suspect has not been identified?? I read somewhere that is was 2 years but i have some confusion....how long can the unknown driver who left the scene be searched for (what are the statutes of limitation for this) before the case or search is dropped??? thanks for any information

If the identity of the driver is known, and if there were charges filed, then a warrant will be issued for their arrest and it will never expire until the person whom the warrant is for dies or answers it - meaning getting arrested. If the identity of the other driver is not known then I can assure you the "search" is already over. The case would remain either open or suspended pending further information and thats where it will lay until doomsday.

To explain it better, when I said if charges were filed, that means they know the person - they have enough evidence of a crime to pursue that purseon - and the DA has accepted charges.

thanks for your reply, i am still a little confused sorry,
ok if no one knows who the driver was are you saying that like 20 years down the road if someone finds him/her they could finally be charged??? i guess i got confused about the whole statute of limitations thing bc i thought there was only a certain amount of time that someone could be charged for something??? thanks for any further explanation...

I'm sorry, I misunderstood. An investigation can technically go on past any statute of limitations. It all in the policy of the handling agency. It would also depend on the charge filed. Simple Fail and render aid or Fail to stop and give information or Hit and Run probably would not be filed 20 years down the road. If it was neglegent homicide stemming from the accident, then it probably would.

i think i got it now, thanks so much for clearing that up.
If there was a supposed accident with "no contact" would this make a difference on the amount of time someone would search for the person who left the scene... what i mean by this is if someone caused an accident but didnt actually have contact with any other vehicle and the only result was property damage how long could a search for the suspect, who werent fully aware they caused an accident, go on??? thanks for taking the time to answer my question..

[stephenk]

every post you seem to add additional "what ifs".

Why dont you just post what you did and what you know surrounding the incident?

That person would be called "a noncontact unit" in the report. There would be no charges filed for this person not would anyone be looking for them unless the severity was pretty great, and what others are saying is true. We can "what if" all day - it all depends on what exactly took place and injuries or damages that were incurred.

I was reluctant to post what happened bc details are shady and its a long confusing story. I already made too many posts, and I might as well explain this story as best as possible. Here goes...
All I know is my friend might have caused an accident where they caused someone driving a truck to hit a street sign( i dont exactly know how they caused a truck to hit the sign because there was NO contact between the vehicles) , but they didnt know they caused an accident, they found out later on when someone told them (but the source isnt very reliable and has a tendancy to play jokes on people, the source claimed they saw the whole thing) so this has been almost a year ago, and the source did say there was no injuries. all this happened close to a year ago. I would imagine punishment would be less severe if you had no clue you casued a wreck, but my freind didnt have a clue that they made someone wreck until the source told them, so they are scared they will be punished for knowingly leaving the scene..you said there would be no charges for the non contact unit, is this true even if the person became aware that they possibly caused a wreck??? See i told you this is a weird confusing story...but I do appreciate everyones effort to reply to this!!! And Lets all hope this will be my last post bc im I feel bad for bothering everyone on here.

I promise there will be not have there ever been any charges filed. This person will not go to jail over this, there has never been any investigation to track this person down. Forget about it.