Penal Law § 5.00 · Article 5. General Rules of Construction and Application
Penal law not strictly construed
Verbatim from the official edition
Text — Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 5.00 Penal law not strictly construed.
The general rule that a penal statute is to be strictly construed does not apply to this chapter, but the provisions herein must be construed according to the fair import of their terms to promote justice and effect the objects of the law.
Source of truth
- Edition
- Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
- Official file
- https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/PEN5.00
- Text hash
- sha256 a269d69e5d28c84d422ea5496c0f278ff0a1f272de8a07a82da4f5862b17801b
- Composed by
- gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order
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.