Upon a plea of guilty, or upon conviction by the court without a jury, of a crime or attempted crime distinguished or divided into degrees, the court must, before passing sentence, determine the degree. Upon the failure of the court to so determine, the degree of the crime or attempted crime of which the defendant is guilty, shall be deemed to be of the lesser degree.
Cal. Penal Code § 1192
The Judgment
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case 24 Cal. 3d 43 - People v. Dixon (1979)
Most recently applied in 956 F. Supp. 2d 1125 - Valdivia v. Brown (July 2013)
Amended by Stats. 1978, Ch. 1166.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.