What is the test for establishing a new offence under a new penal code?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Siler, A132078 (Cal. App. 2013):

"[T]he terms of a penal statute creating a new offense must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties." (Connally v. General Const. Co. (1926) 269 U.S. 385, 391.) This requirement is "consonant alike with ordinary notions of fair play and the settled rules of law. And a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law. (Citations)." (Ibid.)

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