Cal. PEN § 280

This is the official text of Cal. PEN § 280, part of California’s Penal Code — defines crimes and sets criminal procedure in California.

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Official statutory text

Every person who willfully causes or permits the removal or concealment of any child in violation of Section 8713, 8803, or 8910 of the Family Code shall be punished as follows:

(a) By imprisonment in a county jail for not more than one year if the child is concealed within the county in which the adoption proceeding is pending or in which the child has been placed for adoption, or is removed from that county to a place within this state.

(b) By imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170, or by imprisonment in a county jail for not more than one year, if the child is removed from that county to a place outside of this state.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.