Pen. Code, § 26 · Title 1. OF PERSONS LIABLE TO PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME
Pen. Code, § 26
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
All persons are capable of committing crimes except those belonging to the following classes:
One—Children under the age of 14, in the absence of clear proof that at the time of committing the act charged against them, they knew its wrongfulness.
Two—Persons who are mentally incapacitated.
Three—Persons who committed the act or made the omission charged under an ignorance or mistake of fact, which disproves any criminal intent.
Four—Persons who committed the act charged without being conscious thereof.
Five—Persons who committed the act or made the omission charged through misfortune or by accident, when it appears that there was no evil design, intention, or culpable negligence.
Six—Persons (unless the crime be punishable with death) who committed the act or made the omission charged under threats or menaces sufficient to show that they had reasonable cause to and did believe their lives would be endangered if they refused.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2007, Ch. 31, Sec. 3. Effective January 1, 2008.
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=26.
- Text hash
- sha256 5737eecf680312202a2c154c1d3fc19e4e2026d41f1fc902520217f9b6c590fb
- 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 2 provisions
Provisions in this library whose text cites Pen. Code, § 26. Each shows the citation as that text prints it.
Penal Code
Welfare and Institutions Code
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