Is it true that if you are not charged with a crime within one year from the date of arrest, the state later cannot bring a case against you? This would be a methamphetamine manufacturing charge.

No. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees a speedy and public trial to those accused of crime. However, its protection only applies once charges have been filed. Statutes, generally called Statutes of Limitations address the boundaries of acceptable time periods between the commission of a crime and the time that charges are filed. If charges are not brought against within this time period, the case is considered time-barred and should be dismissed. Under the federal system, the Government has five years from the date of the offense to bring charges against you for manufacturing a controlled substance. For state offenses, the period varies from state to state. In Arkansas, where you are writing from, manufacturing methamphetamine is a class Y felony, which allows the state six years within which to bring charges against you. The time begins to run on the day after the offense was committed. Certain periods can be excluded from the calculations. In Arkansas, they include any time when the accused is continually absent from the state or has no reasonably fixed place of residence or work within the state. It also includes any period during which a prosecution for the same conduct is pending against you in Arkansas. The burden is on the state to prove either that the offense was committed within the applicable period or that the running of the statute has been suspended for one of these reasons. Even if the charge is brought within the applicable time period, you may be able to make an argument that the case should be dismissed for pre-indictment delay. This argument relies on your 5th Amendment right to due process of law. For example, if you could show that the prosecution waited until five years of the allotted six had passed to bring charges, and also that you were prejudiced by this delay because, for example, witnesses that would have testified for you died or became unavailable or suffered a dimmed memory of the events, or that physical evidence to support your defense was no longer available, you could ask the court to dismiss the charges. The burden would be on you to establish the prejudice. If you could do so, then the state would have to provide a satisfactory reason for the delay.