Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

Cal. Evid. Code § 1237

Prior Statements of Witnesses

Applied in 30 court decisions — leading case 1 Cal. 4th 324 - People v. Price (1991)

Most recently applied in 7 Cal. 5th 14 - People v. Sanchez (April 2019)

Enacted by Stats. 1965, Ch. 299.

How often courts cite this section

196719701980199020002010201920
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(a) Evidence of a statement previously made by a witness is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule if the statement would have been admissible if made by him while testifying, the statement concerns a matter as to which the witness has insufficient present recollection to enable him to testify fully and accurately, and the statement is contained in a writing which:

(1) Was made at a time when the fact recorded in the writing actually occurred or was fresh in the witness’ memory;

(2) Was made (i) by the witness himself or under his direction or (ii) by some other person for the purpose of recording the witness’ statement at the time it was made;

(3) Is offered after the witness testifies that the statement he made was a true statement of such fact; and

(4) Is offered after the writing is authenticated as an accurate record of the statement.

(b) The writing may be read into evidence, but the writing itself may not be received in evidence unless offered by an adverse party.

Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.