A writing may be authenticated by evidence that the writing refers to or states matters that are unlikely to be known to anyone other than the person who is claimed by the proponent of the evidence to be the author of the writing.
Cal. Evid. Code § 1421
Means of Authenticating and Proving Writings
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case 2 Cal. 5th 52 - People v. Landry (2016)
Most recently applied in 10 Cal. 5th 686 - People v. Flinner (November 2020)
Enacted by Stats. 1965, Ch. 299.
How often courts cite this section
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.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.