If the judge or magistrate directs the action to be dismissed, the defendant must, if in custody, be discharged therefrom; or if admitted to bail, his bail is exonerated, or money deposited instead of bail must be refunded to him or to the person or persons found by the court to have deposited said money on behalf of said defendant.
Cal. Penal Code § 1384
Dismissal of the Action for Want of Prosecution or Otherwise
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case Shelton v. City of Westminster (1982)
Most recently applied in 891 F. Supp. 2d 1149 - Ward v. Brown (August 2012)
Amended by Stats. 1980, Ch. 938, Sec. 6.
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.