PC 273a Child Endangerment: Penalties, Enhancements, Defenses

Penalties under California Penal Code 273a depend on whether the child endangerment is charged as a felony or a misdemeanor. A felony conviction carries two, four, or six years in state prison and a fine of up to $10,000. A misdemeanor conviction carries up to six months in county jail and a fine of up to $1,000. Both versions can also bring four years of probation with mandatory counseling, a protective order, victim restitution, and serious collateral consequences for custody, immigration status, and professional licensing.

Felony or Misdemeanor: The Fork That Sets the Penalty

PC 273a(a) is a wobbler. The prosecutor can file it as either a felony or a misdemeanor, and the deciding factor is whether the endangerment happened under circumstances likely to produce great bodily harm or death.¹ Great bodily harm means significant or substantial physical injury, not minor bumps or scrapes. Leaving a young child alone in a car during extreme heat, giving a child access to loaded firearms, or driving drunk with a child in the vehicle are the kinds of facts that push a case into felony territory.

The focus is on potential for catastrophic harm, not whether an injury actually happened. If the situation could easily have killed or seriously hurt the child, the felony charge applies even if the child walked away without a scratch.

PC 273a(b), the straight misdemeanor version, covers endangerment that doesn’t rise to that level. A parent leaving a school-age child home alone in neglectful but non-life-threatening circumstances, or failing to keep a reasonably safe home environment, falls here. The conduct still qualifies as willful neglect, but the risk of death or serious injury is low enough that the law treats it less severely.¹

Felony Penalties Under PC 273a(a)

A felony conviction carries a state prison sentence of two, four, or six years. The court selects the term based on aggravating and mitigating factors specific to the case. Prior criminal history, the degree of risk, and the age of the child all factor into the decision.¹

PC 273a doesn’t specify a fine amount, so the court may impose a fine of up to $10,000 under the general felony fine provision in Penal Code 672, which authorizes that amount whenever a felony statute is silent on fines.²

When the wobbler is charged as a misdemeanor instead of a felony, the maximum jail sentence drops to one year in county jail. Prosecutors sometimes offer or agree to misdemeanor treatment on a 273a(a) case when the facts are on the lower end of severity, the defendant has no prior record, or a plea agreement serves the child’s interests better than a felony prosecution.

Misdemeanor Penalties Under PC 273a(b)

A conviction under subsection (b) is a straight misdemeanor. Because that subsection doesn’t specify its own punishment, the default misdemeanor sentencing rule in Penal Code 19 applies: up to six months in county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.³

Six months may sound modest. The collateral consequences of even a misdemeanor child endangerment conviction, including effects on custody disputes, professional licensing, and background checks, can follow you far longer than the jail sentence itself.

Great Bodily Injury Enhancement

When a child is actually injured during the offense, penalties can jump dramatically. Under Penal Code 12022.7, if you personally inflict great bodily injury on a child under the age of five during the commission of a felony, the court must add a consecutive prison term of four, five, or six years on top of the base sentence. For older child victims, the standard enhancement adds three consecutive years.⁴

These enhancements are served consecutively, stacking on top of the two-, four-, or six-year base term under 273a(a). A defendant convicted of felony child endangerment with a great bodily injury enhancement involving a child under five could face up to twelve years in state prison. The enhancement only applies when the defendant personally caused the injury during the felony; it doesn’t attach to misdemeanor convictions or injuries caused by a third party.⁴

Victim Restitution

California law requires the court to order full restitution to the victim in every criminal case, and the defendant’s inability to pay doesn’t excuse the obligation. In child endangerment cases, restitution commonly includes medical expenses, mental health counseling costs, and any rehabilitation expenses the child needs as a result of the offense.⁵

Restitution is separate from any fine the court imposes. In practice, the restitution amount can far exceed the statutory fine cap because it is tied to the child’s actual costs. Ongoing therapy alone can run into tens of thousands of dollars over time.

Mandatory Probation Conditions

When the court grants probation instead of a full custodial sentence, PC 273a(c) imposes a strict set of minimum requirements:¹

Probation must run for at least 48 months.
You must complete at least one year of a child abuser’s treatment program approved by the probation department. Enrollment is required immediately upon the grant of probation, with proof of enrollment filed with the court within 30 days and quarterly progress reports after that.
The court issues a criminal protective order shielding the child from further violence or threats. The order can include stay-away conditions or require you to move out of the residence.
If the offense involved drugs or alcohol, you must abstain entirely during probation and submit to random drug testing.

Probation cannot be lifted until all counseling program fees are paid in full, though the court can reduce or waive fees if your financial circumstances change. The court technically has authority to waive any of these conditions, but only if it finds the waiver serves the best interests of justice and states its reasons on the record. In practice, judges rarely waive the treatment requirement.¹

Collateral Consequences Beyond the Sentence

Immigration

For non-citizens, the immigration stakes depend heavily on which version of the statute you’re convicted under. A misdemeanor conviction under PC 273a(b) has generally been held not to be a deportable crime of child abuse under federal immigration law and is not considered a crime involving moral turpitude. The safest plea for immigration purposes is one that specifies negligent rather than intentional conduct.

A felony conviction under PC 273a(a) is different. It will likely be treated as a deportable crime of child abuse under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i), and it may also be classified as a crime involving moral turpitude. Either classification can result in removal from the United States. If you aren’t a U.S. citizen, this distinction between the felony and misdemeanor version can be the single most consequential aspect of your case.

CPS and Family Court

A criminal child endangerment charge almost always triggers a parallel investigation by Child Protective Services, and these two tracks move independently. Even if the criminal case is dismissed, CPS can pursue its own proceedings in family court. Under Welfare and Institutions Code 300, a child can be declared a dependent of the court when they have suffered serious physical harm or face a substantial risk of it due to a parent’s conduct, a standard that overlaps significantly with the conduct covered by PC 273a.⁶

In dependency proceedings, the child welfare agency can seek removal of the child from the home, mandatory family reunification services, or in extreme cases involving severe abuse, termination of parental rights. The burden of proof in family court is lower than in a criminal case, preponderance of the evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt. A parent can lose custody even after being acquitted of criminal charges.

Expungement After Probation

California Penal Code 1203.4 allows a person who has completed probation to petition the court to withdraw their guilty plea and have the case dismissed. PC 273a convictions, both felony and misdemeanor, aren’t among the offenses excluded from this relief. You become eligible once you have finished your probation term, paid all fines and fees, and are not currently serving a sentence, on probation, or charged with another offense.⁷

An expungement under 1203.4 releases you from most penalties and disabilities of the conviction, which helps with employment background checks and professional licensing. It doesn’t restore firearm rights lost due to a felony conviction, and it won’t erase the conviction for immigration purposes. An unpaid restitution order cannot be used as grounds to deny the petition.⁷

1
California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 273a
2
California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 672
3
California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 19
4
California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 12022.7
5
California Victim Compensation Board. Adult Restitution Order Guide
6
California Legislative Information. California Welfare and Institutions Code 300
7
California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1203.4