Updated October 2026 | The Bulldog Law | California Criminal Defense
If you are thinking about suicide, or worried about someone who is, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any time. The legal information below is for people with a question about the law; it is not a substitute for talking to someone now.
Suicide is not a crime in California, and neither is attempting it. No section of the Penal Code punishes either, and a person who survives an attempt is not arrested or charged for it. What California law does address is everyone around the act. Penal Code 401 makes it a felony, punishable by 16 months, two, or three years, to deliberately aid, advise, or encourage another person to commit suicide. Welfare and Institutions Code 5150 allows police or a clinician to place a person in crisis on a civil hold for evaluation, up to 72 hours, which is not an arrest but carries a five-year firearm prohibition. And since 2016 the End of Life Option Act lets a terminally ill adult obtain medical aid in dying from a physician under strict conditions, outside of which helping someone die remains a crime.
The Bulldog Law's attorneys answer this question for families, for people who survived an attempt and are frightened of what the police response means, and, occasionally, for someone who is being investigated because of what they said or did before another person's death. The honest answer is that the person in crisis has committed no crime, that the hold they may have been placed on is a medical process with one lasting legal consequence, and that the criminal exposure in this area belongs entirely to people who deliberately helped or encouraged. What follows covers each of those situations. For anything that has turned into an investigation, call (888) 928-1609 or message our team.
Why suicide and attempted suicide are not crimes
English common law treated suicide as a felony against the Crown, with forfeiture of the dead person's property, and attempted suicide as a misdemeanor. American states abandoned that rule through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and California never codified it; the Penal Code of 1872 contained no offense of suicide or attempt, and none has been added since. A person who attempts suicide in California has no criminal exposure for the attempt, cannot be prosecuted for it, and will not acquire a criminal record from it. Police who respond to an attempt are there under the mental health statutes, not the criminal ones.
Collateral charges are a different matter, and they are rare. An attempt that endangered other people, a fire, a crash, a weapon discharged in an occupied building, can produce charges for the harm to others, arson, reckless driving, negligent discharge, and those are prosecuted on their own elements. Our attorneys' experience is that prosecutors decline most of them, that mental health diversion under Penal Code 1001.36 is available where a charge is filed, and that the circumstances are mitigation at every stage.
The 5150 hold: civil, not criminal
Welfare and Institutions Code 5150 authorizes a peace officer, or a clinician designated by the county, to take a person into custody and place them in a designated facility for up to 72 hours of evaluation and treatment when there is probable cause to believe that, as a result of a mental health disorder, the person is a danger to themselves or others, or is gravely disabled. It is the mechanism behind most police responses to a suicide attempt or a credible statement of intent, and it is the source of most of the legal confusion. A 5150 is not an arrest. No charge is filed, no booking occurs, and no criminal record results. The person is transported to a hospital or psychiatric facility, evaluated, and either released, held for the 72 hours, or, if a facility certifies the need, held longer under the 5250 and subsequent provisions, each with a hearing right.
Two legal consequences follow. First, under Welfare and Institutions Code 8103, a person taken into custody on a 5150 as a danger to self or others is prohibited from owning or possessing firearms for five years, and the police will seize any firearms at the scene, a process our attorneys describe on our page about welfare-check firearm searches. The person may petition the superior court to lift the prohibition, and the state must prove the person would not use a firearm safely; our firearm defense attorneys bring those petitions. Second, the 5150 is reported to the Department of Justice for the firearm prohibition and appears in some background checks for firearm purposes, though not in ordinary criminal background checks. Officers who enter a home to carry out a 5150 do so under the emergency aid doctrine our attorneys explain on our exigent circumstances page, and what they see in plain view during that entry can be used; what they go looking for beyond the emergency cannot.
Penal Code 401: aiding, advising, or encouraging
Penal Code 401 is the criminal statute in this area, and it applies to a different person. Every person who deliberately aids, advises, or encourages another to commit suicide is guilty of a felony, punishable by 16 months, two, or three years in custody. The elements the prosecution must prove: the defendant deliberately aided, advised, or encouraged another person to commit suicide; and the other person attempted or committed suicide as a result. Deliberately means on purpose; the defendant must have intended to help or encourage the act.
What the statute reaches. Providing the means, with knowledge of the purpose. Instructing someone how. Urging someone to go through with it, in person or by message, when the urging was meant to be acted on. Participating in a suicide pact and surviving; where the survivor actively caused the other person's death, prosecutors have charged murder or manslaughter rather than 401, and the line between murder and manslaughter and between those and 401 is drawn by who did the act. The statute does not require that the person actually die; aiding an attempt is enough.
What the statute does not reach. Being present. Failing to stop someone, which is not a crime in California absent a special duty, as our attorneys explain on our Good Samaritan page. An argument, an insult, or a cruel statement that was not a deliberate encouragement of suicide. Expressing an opinion about assisted dying. Ordinary caregiving for a person who later takes their own life. Prosecutions under 401 are uncommon, and the ones that are filed turn on the deliberateness of the encouragement, which is proven by the defendant's messages and statements.
Encouragement by text and online
The modern 401 case is a phone. A person who sent messages urging someone to go through with a suicide, who answered questions about how, or who, in the worst cases, coached a person through an attempt in real time has aided and encouraged under the statute, and out-of-state prosecutions of that conduct, including under homicide theories, have drawn national attention. California has also seen the overlap with sextortion cases, where a victim's suicide following threats has led prosecutors to consider 401 and related charges against the person who made them. Our attorneys defend these cases on the deliberateness element and on the causation element, because the statute requires that the suicide or attempt result from the defendant's conduct, and messages read in hindsight are often not what they appear.
The End of Life Option Act
Since June 2016, Health and Safety Code 443 and the sections that follow, the End of Life Option Act, allow a qualified adult to request and self-administer an aid-in-dying drug prescribed by a physician. The requirements are strict: the person must be an adult California resident with the capacity to make medical decisions, diagnosed by the attending physician with a terminal disease expected to result in death within six months, confirmed by a consulting physician; must make two oral requests at least 48 hours apart, a timeline shortened from 15 days in 2022, and a written request witnessed by two people; must be informed of alternatives including hospice and palliative care; and must self-administer. A physician who follows the Act is expressly exempt from Penal Code 401 and from civil liability, and the death is not a suicide for purposes of insurance or the death certificate. Participation is voluntary for providers, and a facility may decline.
Outside the Act's process, the law is unchanged. A family member who helps a dying relative without a physician's prescription, or who helps a person who does not meet the Act's criteria, has aided a suicide under Penal Code 401, whatever the person's wishes. The Act was written to make a lawful path available precisely so that no one has to take the unlawful one, and our attorneys' advice to families facing that situation is to use it.
Related situations the law treats differently
Suicide by cop. A person who provokes officers into using deadly force has committed no crime if they die; a person who survives can be charged with the conduct used to provoke, brandishing, assault on an officer, criminal threats, and the mental health context is the defense and the mitigation.
Self-harm statements as threats. A statement that one intends to harm oneself is not a criminal threat under Penal Code 422, which requires a threat to another person. It is grounds for a 5150.
Minors. A child's attempt is handled through the 5150 process and the schools' and county's mental health systems, not juvenile court, and a parent's failure to prevent it is not child endangerment absent a willful act.
Abuse victims. Where a suicide or attempt follows a pattern of domestic abuse, the abuser's conduct is examined under the domestic violence statutes and, in rare cases, under 401; the evidence our attorneys describe on our intimate partner battering page is relevant to both directions.
Insurance. Many life insurance policies exclude suicide within the first two years; after that period California law generally prohibits the exclusion. That is a civil question, not a criminal one, but families ask our attorneys about it and the answer is that the policy terms and the timing control.
If an investigation has begun
The situations that produce a criminal investigation in this area are narrow: a death with messages that suggest encouragement, a pact with a survivor, a death involving drugs that someone supplied, or an assisted death outside the Act. In each, the person being investigated is usually a grieving friend, partner, or relative, and the detective's interview is where the deliberateness element is supplied, in the form of an explanation offered to show there was none. The right to counsel exists for this moment. A statement that explains the relationship, the messages, and the intent is given to a lawyer, who gives it to the investigator in a form that cannot become the case. The weaknesses of these prosecutions are real, causation and deliberate intent are hard to prove from text messages, and the cases that are filed are the ones where the person explained.
Frequently asked questions
Is suicide a crime in California?
No. Neither suicide nor attempted suicide is a crime in California, and neither has been under the Penal Code. A person who survives an attempt is not arrested or charged for the attempt itself. What California does have is a civil mental health process, the Welfare and Institutions Code 5150 hold, that allows a person in crisis to be taken for evaluation for up to 72 hours, and a criminal statute, Penal Code 401, that punishes a different person who deliberately aids, advises, or encourages a suicide.
What is Penal Code 401?
The statute that makes it a felony to deliberately aid, advise, or encourage another person to commit suicide. It applies to the helper, not the person who died or attempted. Penalties are 16 months, two years, or three years in custody. Since 2016 the statute carries an exception: a physician who follows the End of Life Option Act's requirements for a terminally ill adult is not aiding a suicide under the law.
Can you be charged for encouraging someone to kill themselves over text?
Potentially, yes. Penal Code 401 covers advising and encouraging, and it does not require physical help. A person who sent messages urging someone to go through with it, or who provided information intended to make it happen, can be prosecuted, and prosecutions of that kind have been brought in other states. The line is deliberate encouragement; expressing anger, failing to intervene, or being present is not the crime.
Is a 5150 hold an arrest?
No. A 5150 is a civil detention for mental health evaluation, not a criminal arrest, and it does not create a criminal record. Police or a designated clinician can place someone on a hold when there is probable cause to believe the person is a danger to themselves or others, or gravely disabled, because of a mental health disorder. It can last up to 72 hours and can be extended by a facility. Its lasting legal consequence is a five-year firearm prohibition under Welfare and Institutions Code 8103, which can be challenged in court.
Is assisted suicide legal in California?
Medical aid in dying is, under narrow conditions. The End of Life Option Act, Health and Safety Code 443 and following, allows a mentally capable adult with a terminal illness and a six-month prognosis to request a prescription from a physician, with a second physician's confirmation, waiting periods, and a self-administration requirement. Outside that process, helping someone end their life remains a felony under Penal Code 401, no matter the person's wishes or condition.
Related reading from our attorneys
- California's Good Samaritan law
- Welfare checks and firearm searches
- Exigent circumstances: when police can enter a home
A legal question about a death or an attempt? We can answer it
The Bulldog Law's defense attorneys handle Penal Code 401 investigations, 5150 firearm prohibition petitions, and the collateral charges that occasionally follow a crisis, across California, with the care these cases require. Visit our criminal defense page, call (888) 928-1609, or reach us online.
If you or someone you know is in crisis right now, call or text 988. The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day.