Pen. Code, § 146 · Chapter 7. Other Offenses Against Public Justice
Pen. Code, § 146
Verbatim from the official edition
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Every public officer, or person pretending to be a public officer, who, under the pretense or color of any process or other legal authority, does any of the following, without a regular process or other lawful authority, is guilty of a misdemeanor:
(a) Arrests any person or detains that person against his or her will.
(b) Seizes or levies upon any property.
(c) Dispossesses any one of any lands or tenements.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 1990, Ch. 350, Sec. 11.
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§ionNum=146.
- Text hash
- sha256 b5cf256e5d58d5a73cceb287955ba19f9ebbcbaec6b62cd28fb72ce463d432b7
- 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.