Pen. Code, § 152 · Chapter 7. Other Offenses Against Public Justice
Pen. Code, § 152
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Every person who, having knowledge of an accidental death, actively conceals or attempts to conceal that death, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for not more than one year, or by a fine of not less than one thousand dollars ($1,000) nor more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment.
(b) For purposes of this section, “to actively conceal an accidental death” means any of the following:
(1) To perform an overt act that conceals the body or directly impedes the ability of authorities or family members to discover the body.
(2) To directly destroy or suppress evidence of the actual physical body of the deceased, including, but not limited to, bodily fluids or tissues.
(3) To destroy or suppress the actual physical instrumentality of death.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by Stats. 1999, Ch. 396, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2000.
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=152.
- Text hash
- sha256 61e0fd85650c33610664da8a12a310b3336840a10e9536095b9b9162cf564811
- 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
Provisions in this library whose text cites Pen. Code, § 152. Each shows the citation as that text prints it.
Penal Code
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.