Cal. Penal Code § 805

Time of Commencing Criminal Actions

Applied in 12 court decisions — leading case 14 Cal. 4th 367 - Cowan v. Superior Court (1996)

Most recently applied in 227 Cal. Rptr. 3d 848 - Central Valley Hospitalists v. Dignity Health (January 2018)

Added by Stats. 1984, Ch. 1270, Sec. 2.

How often courts cite this section

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.

For the purpose of determining the applicable limitation of time pursuant to this chapter:

(a) An offense is deemed punishable by the maximum punishment prescribed by statute for the offense, regardless of the punishment actually sought or imposed. Any enhancement of punishment prescribed by statute shall be disregarded in determining the maximum punishment prescribed by statute for an offense.

(b) The limitation of time applicable to an offense that is necessarily included within a greater offense is the limitation of time applicable to the lesser included offense, regardless of the limitation of time applicable to the greater offense.

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