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Pen. Code, § 4901 · Chapter 5. Indemnity for Persons Erroneously Convicted and Pardoned

Pen. Code, § 4901

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) A claim under Section 4900, accompanied by a statement of the facts constituting the claim, verified in the manner provided for the verification of complaints in civil actions, is required to be presented by the claimant to the California Victim Compensation Board within a period of 10 years after judgment of acquittal, dismissal of charges, pardon granted, or release from custody, whichever is later.

(b) For purposes of subdivision (a), “release from custody” means release from imprisonment from state prison or from incarceration in county jail when there is no subsequent parole jurisdiction exercised by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation or postrelease jurisdiction under a community corrections program, or when there is a parole period or postrelease period subject to jurisdiction of a community corrections program, when that period ends.

(c) A person may not file a claim under Section 4900 until 60 days have passed since the date of reversal of conviction or granting of the writ, or while the case is pending upon an initial refiling, or until a complaint or information has been dismissed a single time.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2019, Ch. 473, Sec. 2. (SB 269) Effective January 1, 2020.

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&sectionNum=4901.
Text hash
sha256 9a3d4b87ab81868662fa7ae41b88298c6806252440190bdd914b2d431793203b
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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