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Veh. Code, § 23542 · Article 2. Penalties for a Violation of Section 23152

Veh. Code, § 23542

Verbatim from the official edition

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

(a) (1) If the court grants probation to a person punished under Section 23540, in addition to the provisions of Section 23600 and any other terms and conditions imposed by the court, the court shall impose as conditions of probation that the person be confined in county jail and fined under either of the following:

(A) For at least 10 days, but not more than one year, and pay a fine of at least three hundred ninety dollars ($390), but not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000).

(B) For at least 96 hours, but not more than one year, and pay a fine of at least three hundred ninety dollars ($390), but not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000). A sentence of 96 hours of confinement shall be served in two increments consisting of a continuous 48 hours each. The two 48-hour increments may be served nonconsecutively.

(2) The person’s privilege to operate a motor vehicle shall be suspended by the department under paragraph (3) of subdivision (a) of Section 13352. The court shall require the person to surrender the driver’s license to the court in accordance with Section 13550.

(b) In addition to the conditions specified in subdivision (a), the court shall require the person to do either of the following:

(1) Enroll and participate, for at least 18 months subsequent to the date of the underlying violation and in a manner satisfactory to the court, in a driving-under-the-influence program licensed pursuant to Section 11836 of the Health and Safety Code, as designated by the court. The person shall complete the entire program subsequent to, and shall not be given any credit for any program activities completed prior to, the date of the current violation. The program shall provide for persons who cannot afford the program fee pursuant to paragraph (2) of subdivision (b) of Section 11837.4 of the Health and Safety Code in order to enable those persons to participate.

(2) Enroll and participate, for at least 30 months subsequent to the date of the underlying violation and in a manner satisfactory to the court, in a driving-under-the-influence program licensed pursuant to Section 11836 of the Health and Safety Code. The person shall complete the entire program subsequent to, and shall not be given any credit for any program activities completed prior to, the date of the current violation.

(c) The court shall advise the person at the time of sentencing that the driving privilege shall not be restored until proof satisfactory to the Department of Motor Vehicles of successful completion of a driving-under-the-influence program of the length required under this code licensed pursuant to Section 11836 of the Health and Safety Code has been received in the department’s headquarters.

(d) Whenever, when considering the circumstances taken as a whole, the court determines that the person punished under this section would present a traffic safety or public safety risk if authorized to operate a motor vehicle during the period of suspension imposed under paragraph (3) of subdivision (a) of Section 13352, the court may disallow the issuance of a restricted driver’s license required under Section 13352.5.

(e) This section shall become operative on September 20, 2005.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Repealed (in Sec. 18.3) and added by Stats. 2004, Ch. 551, Sec. 18.5. Effective January 1, 2005. Section operative September 20, 2005, by its own provisions.

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=VEH&sectionNum=23542.
Text hash
sha256 94ddf100da4e4042ed6dfa3b9019a8dfa6cfe56eadd47ac59791b18fac2d2f83
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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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