No accusatory pleading is insufficient, nor can the trial, judgment, or other proceeding thereon be affected by reason of any defect or imperfection in matter of form which does not prejudice a substantial right of the defendant upon the merits.
Cal. Penal Code § 960
Rules of Pleading
Applied in 52 court decisions — leading case 71 Cal. App. 2d 606 - People v. Gordon (1945)
Most recently applied in 9 Cal. 5th 946 - People v. Anderson (July 2020)
Amended by Stats. 1951, Ch. 1674.
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.