Pen. Code, § 3605 · Chapter 1. Executing Death Penalty
Pen. Code, § 3605
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) The warden of the state prison where the execution is to take place shall be present at the execution and shall, subject to any applicable requirement or definition set forth in subdivision (b), invite the presence of the Attorney General, the members of the immediate family of the victim or victims of the defendant, and at least 12 reputable citizens, to be selected by the warden. The warden shall, at the request of the defendant, permit those ministers of the Gospel, not exceeding two, as the defendant may name, and any persons, relatives or friends, not to exceed five, to be present at the execution, together with those peace officers or any other Department of Corrections employee as he or she may think expedient, to witness the execution. But no other persons than those specified in this section may be present at the execution, nor may any person under 18 years of age be allowed to witness the execution.
(b) (1) For purposes of an invitation required by subdivision (a) to members of the immediate family of the victim or victims of the defendant, the warden of the state prison where the execution is to take place shall make the invitation only if a member of the immediate family of the victim or victims of the defendant so requests in writing. In the event that a written request is made, the warden of the state prison where the execution is to take place shall automatically make the invitation 30 days prior to the date of an imminent execution or as close to this date as practicable.
(2) For purposes of this section, “immediate family” means those persons who are related by blood, adoption, or marriage, within the second degree of consanguinity or affinity.
(c) No physician or any other person invited pursuant to this section, whether or not employed by the Department of Corrections, shall be compelled to attend the execution, and any physician’s attendance shall be voluntary. A physician’s or any other person’s refusal to attend the execution shall not be used in any disciplinary action or negative job performance citation.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2001, Ch. 71, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2002.
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=3605.
- Text hash
- sha256 2a6f0442135383f942a3efbacdd393b76e00cdf2104f16137ef8c9510b8b68a6
- 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, § 3605. Each shows the citation as that text prints it.
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