{"data":{"id":"us-ca/pen-594.3","jurisdiction":"us-ca","citation":"PEN § 594.3","heading":"","body":"(a) Any person who knowingly commits any act of vandalism to a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, building owned and occupied by a religious educational institution, or other place primarily used as a place of worship where religious services are regularly conducted or a cemetery is guilty of a crime punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for not exceeding one year or imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170.\n(b) Any person who knowingly commits any act of vandalism to a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, building owned and occupied by a religious educational institution, or other place primarily used as a place of worship where religious services are regularly conducted or a cemetery, which is shown to have been a hate crime and to have been committed for the purpose of intimidating and deterring persons from freely exercising their religious beliefs, is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170.\n(c) For purposes of this section, “hate crime” has the same meaning as Section 422.55.","path":["Penal Code - PEN","PART 1. OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS [25. - 680.4.]","TITLE 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF [594. - 625c.]"],"source_url":"https://downloads.leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/pubinfo_2025.zip","current_through":"2026-09-13","vintage":"","retrieved_at":"2026-09-14T05:56:33Z","sha256":"7c2a7dbed73a9c097391db8c8156fc591e67274d7139c9b5986cb0c5fd24059c","source_id":"us-ca","stale":false,"prev":"us-ca/pen-594.2","next":"us-ca/pen-594.35"},"notice":"GroundRules: Original legal text. Not legal advice."}