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Evid. Code, § 1156.5 · Chapter 3. Other Evidence Affected or Excluded by Extrinsic Policies

Evid. Code, § 1156.5

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) Evidence that a person suffered or experienced excited delirium shall not be admitted in any civil action.

(b) A party or witness may describe the factual circumstances surrounding the case, including a person’s demeanor, conduct, and physical and mental condition at issue, including, but not limited to, a person’s state of agitation, excitability, paranoia, extreme aggression, physical violence, and apparent immunity to pain, but shall not describe or diagnose such demeanor, conduct, or condition by use of the term excited delirium, or attribute such demeanor, conduct, or physical and mental condition to that term.

(c) For the purposes of this section, “excited delirium” means a term used to describe a person’s state of agitation, excitability, paranoia, extreme aggression, physical violence, and apparent immunity to pain that is not listed in the most current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or for which the court finds there is insufficient scientific evidence or diagnostic criteria to be recognized as a medical condition. Excited delirium also includes excited delirium syndrome, excited delirium, hyperactive delirium, agitated delirium, and exhaustive mania.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Added by Stats. 2023, Ch. 431, Sec. 1. (AB 360) Effective January 1, 2024.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=EVID&sectionNum=1156.5.
Text hash
sha256 58a0e5c6bad8e24fd307e4659af15a1605bc863dca50c484340d3f8670fdba22
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

Cited by 1 provision

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Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.