Pen. Code, § 18 · . PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
Pen. Code, § 18
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Except in cases where a different punishment is prescribed by any law of this state, every offense declared to be a felony is punishable by imprisonment for 16 months, or two or three years in the state prison unless the offense is punishable pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170.
(b) Every offense which is prescribed by any law of the state to be a felony punishable by imprisonment or by a fine, but without an alternate sentence to the county jail for a period not exceeding one year, may be punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year or by a fine, or by both.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended (as amended by Stats. 2011, Ch. 15, Sec. 230) by Stats. 2011, 1st Ex. Sess., Ch. 12, Sec. 7. (AB 17 1x) Effective September 21, 2011. Operative October 1, 2011, by Sec. 46 of Ch. 12.
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=18.
- Text hash
- sha256 29f239f976e51416b2b6e539298fbd3420c92dcf7bd9f8a715a4071956547b27
- 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
This section cites
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Penal Code
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