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Pen. Code, § 617 · Title 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF

Pen. Code, § 617

Verbatim from the official edition

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

Every person who maliciously mutilates, tears, defaces, obliterates, or destroys any written instrument, the property of another, the false making of which would be forgery, is punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2011, Ch. 15, Sec. 417. (AB 109) Effective April 4, 2011. Operative October 1, 2011, by Sec. 636 of Ch. 15, as amended by Stats. 2011, Ch. 39, Sec. 68.

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=617.
Text hash
sha256 c72af9d6406127cdc2d635b231f5c061caa3a4d44a5fbb8f480633f917c25099
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

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