Every witness before testifying shall take an oath or make an affirmation or declaration in the form provided by law, except that a child under the age of 10 or a dependent person with a substantial cognitive impairment, in the court’s discretion, may be required only to promise to tell the truth.
Cal. Evid. Code § 710
Oath and Confrontation
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case 174 Cal. App. 4th 142 - People v. Sisneros (2009)
Most recently applied in 221 Cal. App. 4th 943 - People v. Johnson (November 2013)
Amended by Stats. 2004, Ch. 823, Sec. 3
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.