Bill Text: CA SB1427 | 2013-2014 | Regular Session | Introduced

---

Bill Title: Criminal liability: diminished capacity.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2014-03-17 - Referred to Com. on RLS. [SB1427 Detail]

Download: California-2013-SB1427-Introduced.html

---

BILL NUMBER: SB 1427	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Senator Walters

                        FEBRUARY 21, 2014

   An act to amend Section 25 of the Penal Code, relating to criminal
liability.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   SB 1427, as introduced, Walters. Criminal liability: diminished
capacity.
   Existing law, as added by Proposition 8, adopted June 8, 1982,
among other things, abolished the defense of diminished capacity.
Existing law prohibits, in a criminal action, as well as any juvenile
court proceeding, evidence concerning an accused person's
intoxication, trauma, mental illness, disease, or defect from being
admissible to show or negate capacity to form the particular purpose,
intent, motive, malice aforethought, knowledge, or other mental
state required for the commission of the crime charged.
   This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to those
provisions.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Section 25 of the Penal Code is amended to read:
   25.  (a) The defense of diminished capacity is hereby abolished.
In a criminal action, as well as  any   a 
juvenile court proceeding, evidence concerning an accused person's
intoxication, trauma, mental illness, disease, or defect shall not be
admissible to show or negate capacity to form the particular
purpose, intent,  malice aforethought,  motive, 
malice aforethought,  knowledge, or other mental state
required for the commission of the crime charged.
   (b) In any criminal proceeding, including any juvenile court
proceeding, in which a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity is
entered, this defense shall be found by the trier of fact only when
the accused person proves by a preponderance of the evidence that he
or she was incapable of knowing or understanding the nature and
quality of his or her act and of distinguishing right from wrong at
the time of the commission of the offense.
   (c) Notwithstanding the foregoing, evidence of diminished capacity
or of a mental disorder may be considered by the court only at the
time of sentencing or other disposition or commitment.
   (d) The provisions of this section shall not be amended by the
Legislature except by statute passed in each house by rollcall vote
entered in the journal, two-thirds of the membership concurring, or
by a statute that becomes effective only when approved by the
electors.