Pen. Code, § 219 · Chapter 5. Attempts to Kill
Pen. Code, § 219
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Every person who unlawfully throws out a switch, removes a rail, or places any obstruction on any railroad with the intention of derailing any passenger, freight or other train, car or engine and thus derails the same, or who unlawfully places any dynamite or other explosive material or any other obstruction upon or near the track of any railroad with the intention of blowing up or derailing any such train, car or engine and thus blows up or derails the same, or who unlawfully sets fire to any railroad bridge or trestle over which any such train, car or engine must pass with the intention of wrecking such train, car or engine, and thus wrecks the same, is guilty of a felony and punishable with death or imprisonment in the state prison for life without possibility of parole in cases where any person suffers death as a proximate result thereof, or imprisonment in the state prison for life with the possibility of parole, in cases where no person suffers death as a proximate result thereof. The penalty shall be determined pursuant to Sections 190.3 and 190.4.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 1977, Ch. 316.
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=219.
- Text hash
- sha256 2f7d5385bab3ff99c74d9a863fb582efc6c80fed9e3cc1d9759d01dbaf0b3388
- 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
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