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Cal. Penal Code § 28

OF PERSONS LIABLE TO PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME

Applied in 16 court decisions — leading case Crittenden v. Ayers (2010)

Most recently applied in 10 Cal. 5th 983 - People v. Ramirez (January 2021)

Amended by Stats. 2002, Ch. 784, Sec. 528

How often courts cite this section

200720102020202130
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.

(a) Evidence of mental disease, mental defect, or mental disorder shall not be admitted to show or negate the capacity to form any mental state, including, but not limited to, purpose, intent, knowledge, premeditation, deliberation, or malice aforethought, with which the accused committed the act. Evidence of mental disease, mental defect, or mental disorder is admissible solely on the issue of whether or not the accused actually formed a required specific intent, premeditated, deliberated, or harbored malice aforethought, when a specific intent crime is charged.

(b) As a matter of public policy there shall be no defense of diminished capacity, diminished responsibility, or irresistible impulse in a criminal action or juvenile adjudication hearing.

(c) This section shall not be applicable to an insanity hearing pursuant to Section 1026.

(d) Nothing in this section shall limit a court’s discretion, pursuant to the Evidence Code, to exclude psychiatric or psychological evidence on whether the accused had a mental disease, mental defect, or mental disorder at the time of the alleged offense.

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