To the extent that such privilege exists under the Constitution of the United States or the State of California, a defendant in a criminal case has a privilege not to be called as a witness and not to testify.
Cal. Evid. Code § 930
Privilege of Defendant in Criminal Case
Applied in 28 court decisions — leading case 22 Cal. 3d 584 - Hawkins v. Superior Court (1978)
Most recently applied in 3 Cal. 5th 808 - Briggs v. Brown (August 2017)
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.