then, yes, the juvenile justice system is designed to protect a juvenile from mistakes made.

However, if he's guilty of what is alleged, to me, it's another nail in the coffin of his confirmation.

The reason they exist is that as time goes by witnesses become unavailable, die, or forget things, and physical evidence is lost or degraded. It becomes more difficult to either prosecute or defend a case where the evidence has become unreliable or nonexistent. The only crime for which there is no statute of limitations is murder, because it's such a serious crime that even if evidence may have become scarce, nobody should be able to even think they can kill someone and then just wait out some period of time, after which they will be off the hook. As to other crimes, in general the more serious they are the longer the statute of limitations. In some states, where the crime charged involves the sexual assault or molestation of a child, the statute is tolled (does not run) until some number of years after the child becomes an adult. This gives the victim time to process the fact that he/she was in fact a victim and to be able to withstand the stress arising from making an accusation and going through a trial. I don't think it makes sense to eliminate all or even most statutes of limitations, not just because of the many problems establishing the credibility of evidence, but because of the huge burden on the law enforcement and court systems arising from prosecuting something like a 30-year-old burglary case.

It depends on the crime.

It's not a good idea to seek to change them when they go against something we'd like to see pursued. It could so easily go the other way. Any of us could be accused of a 30-year-old crime and not have the slightest way to defend ourselves so many years later.

... to lead productive lives played into the establishment of statutes of limitations?

than it is if the accused might have become a better person.

Murder has no statute of limitations, so obviously if "maturing" is part of it, people feel you don't "go on" after that. I have little doubt the Golden State Killer or the Green River Killers, both caught long after their main crime sprees had ended, were seen as fairly upstanding citizens by their neighbors but still arrested because they found DNA proof.

With rape that isn't also part of familial child sex abuse, most states have pretty long SOLs now because of DNA technology allowing some proof to be available, but also, sadly, DNA just proves sex, not rape. So SOLs probably exist because it's as hard to prove rape for the prosecution after many years (without it being immediately reported, obvious injuries, and a hit randomly coming up on a kit) as it is for a defendant to produce alibi witnesses so long after.

There are states that have extended SOLs for child sex abuse, particularly with family as perpetrators, until a sufficient time has passed for the state to assume the child has had enough distance from family to report if they remembered the whole time -- and some even allow attempts at prosecution for "recovered memories" of child sex abuse. But those prosecutions are VERY difficult and it's probably easier to go the civil route to get therapy paid for, where there's a lesser standard for a guilty verdict but jail isn't in the cards.

But no, I think it's about burden of proof more than the idea that people will "grow out" of crimes that we have statutes of limitations for adults or people who could be tried as adults (if Kavanaugh was 17 here in AR he could have been tried as an adult, even if he wouldn't have been placed into adult prison until age 18).

If you're talking about Kavanaugh, this isn't about a statute of limitations since he's not on trial and doesn't have any constitutional right to be on the Supreme Court. Anything he has ever done in his life, regardless how long ago it was, is fair game for consideration.

...and usefulness (or lack of) about statutes of limitations for a long time. Although, of course, Kavanaugh's hearings raised the question in my mind yesterday.

...the responses on DU are varied. What's going on here that the mildest attempt to launch a discussion is perceived as some kind of trolling? It's getting a little scary.

... when you don't know what it is? Maybe I'm peddling getting rid of statutes of limitations. Maybe I'm peddling keeping them. Your post is irrational on multiple grounds. Irrational and hostile. Not good for our website.