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Welf. & Inst. Code, § 602 · Article 14. Wards—Jurisdiction

Welf. & Inst. Code, § 602

Verbatim from the official edition

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

(a) Except as provided in Section 707, any minor who is between 12 years of age and 17 years of age, inclusive, when he or she violates any law of this state or of the United States or any ordinance of any city or county of this state defining crime other than an ordinance establishing a curfew based solely on age, is within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, which may adjudge the minor to be a ward of the court.

(b) Any minor who is under 12 years of age when he or she is alleged to have committed any of the following offenses is within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, which may adjudge the minor to be a ward of the court:

(1) Murder.

(2) Rape by force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury.

(3) Sodomy by force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury.

(4) Oral copulation by force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury.

(5) Sexual penetration by force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2018, Ch. 1006, Sec. 2. (SB 439) Effective January 1, 2019. Note: This section was amended November 8, 2016, by initiative Proposition 57.

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=WIC&sectionNum=602.
Text hash
sha256 0ce333debc02c984b2ad225d03fbbef356b2f4f852403ce5889525871262a507
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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Welfare and Institutions Code

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Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.