Section 18-6-401.1 - Child abuse - limitation for commencing proceedings - evidence - statutory privilege(1) For the purposes of this section, "child abuse" means child abuse as defined in section 18-6-401(1).(2) No person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for an act of child abuse other than the misdemeanor offenses specified in section 18-6-401(7)(a)(V), (7)(a)(VI), and (7)(b), unless the indictment, information, complaint, or action for the same is found or instituted within ten years after commission of the offense. No person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for the misdemeanor offenses specified in section 18-6-401(7)(a)(V), (7)(a)(VI), and (7)(b), unless the indictment, information, complaint, or action for the same is found or instituted within five years after the commission of the offense.(3) An out-of-court statement made by a child, as "child" is defined under the statutes that are the subject of the action, describing any act of child abuse to which the child declarant was subjected or that the child declarant witnessed, and that is not otherwise admissible by a statute or court rule that provides an exception to the hearsay objection, may be admissible pursuant to section 13-25-129(3).(4) All cases involving the commission of an act of child abuse shall take precedence before the court; the court shall hear these cases as soon as possible after they are filed.(5) The statutory privilege between the victim-patient and his physician and between the husband and the wife shall not be available for excluding or refusing testimony in any prosecution of an act of child abuse.Amended by 2019 Ch. 42,§ 3, eff. 7/1/2019.L. 85: Entire section added, p. 673, § 3, effective June 7.Section 4 of chapter 42 (SB 19-071), Session Laws of Colorado 2019, provides that the act changing this section applies to proceedings occurring on or after July 1, 2019.
For provisions concerning sex offenses against children that are similar to the provisions of this section, see § 18-3-411; for the physician-patient and husband-wife privileges, see § 13-90-107.