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Cal. Penal Code § 26

OF PERSONS LIABLE TO PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME

Applied in 14 court decisions — leading case 41 Cal. 4th 472 - People v. Abilez (2007)

Most recently applied in 13 Cal. 5th 933 - People v. Hendrix (August 2022)

Amended by Stats. 2007, Ch. 31, Sec. 3

How often courts cite this section

200720102020202230
citing decisions per year

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.

All persons are capable of committing crimes except those belonging to the following classes:

One—Children under the age of 14, in the absence of clear proof that at the time of committing the act charged against them, they knew its wrongfulness.

Two—Persons who are mentally incapacitated.

Three—Persons who committed the act or made the omission charged under an ignorance or mistake of fact, which disproves any criminal intent.

Four—Persons who committed the act charged without being conscious thereof.

Five—Persons who committed the act or made the omission charged through misfortune or by accident, when it appears that there was no evil design, intention, or culpable negligence.

Six—Persons (unless the crime be punishable with death) who committed the act or made the omission charged under threats or menaces sufficient to show that they had reasonable cause to and did believe their lives would be endangered if they refused.

Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.