Every person who unlawfully and maliciously deprives a human being of a member of his body, or disables, disfigures, or renders it useless, or cuts or disables the tongue, or puts out an eye, or slits the nose, ear, or lip, is guilty of mayhem.
Cal. Penal Code § 203
Mayhem
Applied in 24 court decisions — leading case Ruiz-Morales v. Ashcroft (2004)
Most recently applied in People v. Stutelberg (November 2018)
Amended by Stats. 1989, Ch. 1360, Sec. 106.
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.