Whenever the proffered evidence is claimed to be privileged under Section 940, the person claiming the privilege has the burden of showing that the proffered evidence might tend to incriminate him; and the proffered evidence is inadmissible unless it clearly appears to the court that the proffered evidence cannot possibly have a tendency to incriminate the person claiming the privilege.
Cal. Evid. Code § 404
Preliminary Determinations on Admissibility of Evidence
Applied in 17 court decisions — leading case 2 Cal. 3d 415 - In Re Lifschutz (1970)
Most recently applied in 10 Cal. 5th 195 - People v. Silveria and Travis (August 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.