Pen. Code, § 1331 · Chapter 3. Compelling the Attendance of Witnesses

Pen. Code, § 1331

Verbatim from the official edition

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

Disobedience to a subpoena, or a refusal to be sworn or to testify as a witness, may be punished by the Court or magistrate as a contempt. A witness disobeying a subpoena issued on the part of the defendant, unless he show good cause for his nonattendance, is liable to the defendant in the sum of one hundred dollars, which may be recovered in a civil action.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Enacted 1872.

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=PEN&sectionNum=1331.
Text hash: sha256 961fab269190fbd99db195208eb8c66071e68fd9cebeefcba419d8c061f70566
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

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.