Pen. Code, § 209 · Chapter 3. Kidnapping
Pen. Code, § 209
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) A person who seizes, confines, inveigles, entices, decoys, abducts, conceals, kidnaps, or carries away another person by any means whatsoever with intent to hold or detain, or who holds or detains, that person for ransom, reward, or to commit extortion or to exact from another person any money or valuable thing, or a person who aids or abets any such act, is guilty of a felony. When a person subjected to that act suffers death or bodily harm, or is intentionally confined in a manner that exposes that person to a substantial likelihood of death, the person, upon conviction, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life without possibility of parole. When no person subjected to that act suffers death or bodily harm, the person, upon conviction, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life with the possibility of parole.
(b) (1) A person who kidnaps or carries away an individual to commit robbery, rape, oral copulation, sodomy, or any violation of Section 264.1, 288, 289, or former Section 262, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life with the possibility of parole.
(2) This subdivision shall only apply if the movement of the victim is beyond that merely incidental to the commission of, and increases the risk of harm to the victim over and above that necessarily present in, the intended underlying offense.
(c) When probation is granted, the court shall, except in unusual cases where the interests of justice would best be served by a lesser penalty, require as a condition of the probation that the person be confined in the county jail for 12 months. If the court grants probation without requiring the defendant to be confined in the county jail for 12 months, it shall specify its reason or reasons for imposing a lesser penalty.
(d) Subdivision (b) does not supersede or affect Section 667.61. A person may be charged with a violation of subdivision (b) and Section 667.61. However, a person may not be punished under subdivision (b) and Section 667.61 for the same act that constitutes a violation of both subdivision (b) and Section 667.61.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2021, Ch. 626, Sec. 16. (AB 1171) Effective January 1, 2022.
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=209.
- Text hash
- sha256 88d8385de925a88b86d36d85b11c43b468e547ce18ba51f6c1d2566c204c0f7a
- 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
Provisions in this library that the text above cites, as it prints each citation. A range cited as “ss. 61.13-61.16” links its first and last provisions.
Cited by 38 provisions
Provisions in this library whose text cites Pen. Code, § 209. Each shows the citation as that text prints it.
Business and Professions Code
Penal Code
- Pen. Code, § 190.2Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5
- Pen. Code, § 288.3Printed as Section 207, 209, 261, 264.1, 273a, 286, 287, 288, 288.2, 289, 311.1, 311.2, 311.4 or 311.11
- Pen. Code, § 290Printed as Section 207 or 209
- Pen. Code, § 290.008Printed as Section 207 or 209
- Pen. Code, § 290.46Printed as Section 209
- Pen. Code, § 629.52Printed as Section 209
- Pen. Code, § 667.61Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5
- Pen. Code, § 667.71Printed as Section 209
- Pen. Code, § 667.8Printed as Section 207 or 209
- Pen. Code, § 667.85Printed as Section 207 or 209
- Pen. Code, § 667.9Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5
- Pen. Code, § 679.02Printed as Section 207 or 209
- Pen. Code, § 778aPrinted as Sections 207 and 209
- Pen. Code, § 868.5Printed as Section 209
- Pen. Code, § 868.8Printed as Section 209
- Pen. Code, § 999ePrinted as Section 209 or 209.5
- Pen. Code, § 1203.055Printed as Section 209
- Pen. Code, § 1203.06Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5
- Pen. Code, § 1203.066Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5
- Pen. Code, § 1203.075Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5
- Pen. Code, § 1203.08Printed as Section 187, 192, 207, 209, 209.5, 211, 215, 217, 245, 288
- Pen. Code, § 1203.09Printed as Section 209
- Pen. Code, § 1601Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5
- Pen. Code, § 2933.5Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5
- Pen. Code, § 3000Printed as Section 209
- Pen. Code, § 3000.02Printed as Section 209
- Pen. Code, § 3000.1Printed as Section 209
- Pen. Code, § 3420Printed as Section 207 or 209
- Pen. Code, § 4852.03Printed as Section 187, 209, 219, 4500, or 18755 of this code
- Pen. Code, § 12022.53Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5
- Pen. Code, § 13853Printed as Section 209 or 209.5
Welfare and Institutions Code
- Welf. & Inst. Code, § 707Printed as Section 209 of the Penal Code
- Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6500Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5 of the Penal Code
- Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600Printed as Section 207, 209, or 220 of the Penal Code
- Welf. & Inst. Code, § 8103Printed as Section 207, 209, or 209.5 of the 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.