California Criminal Law
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California Criminal Law
California criminal law generally follows the law of the United States. However, there are both substantive and procedural differences between how the United States federal government and California prosecute alleged violations of criminal law. This article focuses exclusively on California criminal law. Types of crimes California Penal Code section 15 defines a "crime" or "public offense" as "an act committed or omitted in violation of a law forbidding or commanding it, and to which is annexed, upon conviction, any of the following punishments: # Death; # Imprisonment; # Fine; # Removal from office; or, # Disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit in this State." California recognizes three categories of crime, distinguishable by the gravity of offense and severity of punishment: Felonies, Misdemeanors, and Infractions. Regardless of category or specific offense, all valid crimes are required to have two elements: 1) an act committed or omitted ...
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United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ...
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Detention Facility
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correctional facility, lock-up, hoosegow or remand center, is a facility in which inmates (or prisoners) are confined against their will and usually denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as punishment for various crimes. Prisons are most commonly used within a criminal justice system: people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until their trial; those pleading or being found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment. In simplest terms, a prison can also be described as a building in which people are legally held as a punishment for a crime they have committed. Prisons can also be used as a tool of political repression by authoritarian regimes. Their perceived opponents may be ...
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Law Of California
The law of California consists of several levels, including Constitutional law, constitutional, Statutory law, statutory, and regulatory law, as well as case law. The California Codes form the general statutory law, and most state agency regulations are available in the California Code of Regulations. Sources of law The California Constitution, Constitution of California is the foremost source of state law. Legislation is enacted within the California Statutes, which in turn have been codified into the 29 California Codes. State agencies promulgate regulations with the California Regulatory Notice Register, which are in turn codified in the California Code of Regulations. California's legal system is based on common law, which is interpreted by case law through the legal opinion, decisions of the Supreme Court of California, California Courts of Appeal, and Appellate Divisions of the Superior Courts of California, and published in the ''California Reports'', ''California Appella ...
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Restitution
The law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery, in which a court orders the defendant to ''give up'' their gains to the claimant. It should be contrasted with the law of compensation, the law of loss-based recovery, in which a court orders the defendant to ''pay'' the claimant for their loss. Evolving Meaning ''American Jurisprudence'' 2d edition notes: Legal vs Equitable Remedy Restitution may be either a legal remedy or an equitable remedy, "depend ngupon the basis for the plaintiff's claim and the nature of the underlying remedies sought". Generally, restitution and equitable tracing is an equitable remedy when the money or property wrongfully in the possession of defendant is traceable (i.e., can be tied to "particular funds or property"). In such a case, restitution comes in the form of a constructive trust or equitable lien. Where the particular property at issue cannot be particularly identified, restitution is a legal remedy. This occurs, for example ...
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Probation
Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such as suspended sentences. In others, probation also includes supervision of those conditionally released from prison on parole. An offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer. During the period of probation, an offender faces the threat of being incarcerated if found breaking the rules set by the court or probation officer. Offenders are ordinarily required to maintain law-abiding behavior, and may be ordered to refrain from possession of firearms, remain employed, participate in an educational program, abide a curfew, live at a directed place, obey the orders of the probation officer, or not leave the jurisdiction. The probationer might be ordere ...
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State Prison
This is a list of U.S. state prisons (2010) (not including federal prisons or county jails in the United States or prisons in U.S. territories): * Alabama * Alaska * Arizona * Arkansas * California * Colorado * Connecticut * Delaware * Florida * Georgia * Hawaii * Idaho * Illinois * Indiana * Iowa * Kansas * Kentucky * Louisiana * Maine * Maryland * MassachusettsOfficially, these are "correctional facilities," or "correctional institutions," the term "state prison" being reserved for the facility at Cedar Junction in Walpole. * Michigan * Minnesota * Mississippi * Missouri * Montana * Nebraska * Nevada * New Hampshire * New Jersey * New Mexico * New York * North Carolina * North Dakota * Ohio * Oklahoma * Oregon * Pennsylvania * Rhode Island * South Carolina * South Dakota * Tennessee * Texas * Utah * Vermont * Virginia * Washington * West Virginia * Wisconsin * Wyoming See also * List of prisons Notes {{DEFAULTSORT:United States state prisons State prisons ...
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Prosecuting Attorney
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against an individual accused of breaking the law. Typically, the prosecutor represents the state or the government in the case brought against the accused person. Prosecutor as a legal professional Prosecutors are typically lawyers who possess a law degree, and are recognised as suitable legal professionals by the court in which they are acting. This may mean they have been admitted to the bar, or obtained a comparable qualification where available - such as solicitor advocates in England and Wales. They become involved in a criminal case once a suspect has been identified and charges need to be filed. They are employed by an office of the government, with safeguards in place to ensure such an office can successfully pursue the pros ...
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Peace Officer
A law enforcement officer (LEO), or peace officer in North American English, is a public-sector employee whose duties primarily involve the enforcement of laws. The phrase can include campaign disclosure specialists, local police officers, prosecutors (who are law enforcement officers but not peace officers), municipal law enforcement officers, health inspectors, SWAT officers, customs officers, lawyers, state troopers, federal agents, secret agents, special investigators, coast guards, border patrol officers, judges, district attorney, bounty hunters, gendarmerie officers, immigration officers, private investigators, court officers, probation officers, parole officers, arson investigators, auxiliary officers, animal control officers, game wardens, park rangers, county sheriff's deputies, constables, marshals, detention officers, correction officers, sworn campus police officers and public safety officers (at public and private institutions). Security guards are no ...
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Battery (crime)
Battery is a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact, distinct from assault which is the act of creating apprehension of such contact. Battery is a specific common law offense, although the term is used more generally to refer to any unlawful offensive physical contact with another person. Battery is defined at American common law as "any unlawful and or unwanted touching of the person of another by the aggressor, or by a substance put in motion by them". In more severe cases, and for all types in some jurisdictions, it is chiefly defined by statutory wording. Assessment of the severity of a battery is determined by local law. Generally Specific rules regarding battery vary among different jurisdictions, but some elements remain constant across jurisdictions. Battery generally requires that: # an offensive touch or contact is made upon the victim, instigated by the actor; and # the actor intends or knows that their action will cause the offensive touching. U ...
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California Penal Code
The Penal Code of California forms the basis for the application of most criminal law, criminal procedure, penal institutions, and the execution of sentences, among other things, in the American state of California. It was originally enacted in 1872 as one of the original four California Codes, and has been substantially amended and revised since then. The entirety of the Penal Code is available for free aleginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codesTOCSelected.xhtml?tocCode=PEN History The Penal Code enacted by the California State Legislature in February 1872 was derived from a penal code proposed by the New York code commission in 1865 which is frequently called the Field Penal Code after the most prominent of the code commissioners, David Dudley Field II (who did draft the commission's other proposed codes). The actual drafter of the New York penal code was commissioner William Curtis Noyes, a former prosecutor. New York belatedly enacted the Field Penal Code in 1881. Prior t ...
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Nolo Press
Nolo, formerly known as Nolo Press, is a publisher in Berkeley, California, that produces do-it-yourself legal books and software that allows people to handle simple legal matters such as making wills or writing business partnership contracts. Its areas of focus include immigration, family law, employment law, tenant and landlord issues, wills, trusts and intellectual property. Even though Nolo encourages consumers and small business owners to handle their own legal matters when it is reasonably feasible to do so, the company recommends getting professional legal help for disputable or difficult matters. The company was founded in an attic in 1971 by Ralph Warner (a graduate of UC Berkeley's Boalt School of Law) and family law attorney Ed Sherman. The company's logo shows the scales of justice tilted in favor of the reader, and includes the motto "LAW for ALL." History In 1971 Ed Sherman wrote ''How to Do Your Own Divorce in California''. He and Ralph Warner discovered that est ...
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United States Federal Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 U.S. state, states, a city within a federal district (the city of Washington, D.C., Washington in the District of Columbia, where most of the federal government is based), five major Territories of the United States, self-governing territories and several United States Minor Outlying Islands, island possessions. The federal government, sometimes simply referred to as Washington, is composed of three distinct branches: United States Congress, legislative, #Executive branch, executive, and Federal judiciary of the United States, judicial, whose powers are vested by the United States Constitution, U.S. Constitution in the United States Congress, Congress, the President of the United States, president and the Federal Courts of the United State ...
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