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Cal. Evid. Code § 1251

Statements of Mental or Physical State

Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case 8 Cal. 3d 744 - Crail v. Blakely (1973)

Most recently applied in 54 Cal. 4th 758 - People v. Riccardi (July 2012)

Enacted by Stats. 1965, Ch. 299.

How often courts cite this section

19711980199020002010201210
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.

Subject to Section 1252, evidence of a statement of the declarant’s state of mind, emotion, or physical sensation (including a statement of intent, plan, motive, design, mental feeling, pain, or bodily health) at a time prior to the statement is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule if:

(a) The declarant is unavailable as a witness; and

(b) The evidence is offered to prove such prior state of mind, emotion, or physical sensation when it is itself an issue in the action and the evidence is not offered to prove any fact other than such state of mind, emotion, or physical sensation.

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