Except as otherwise provided by statute, a married person has a privilege not to testify against his spouse in any proceeding.
Cal. Evid. Code § 970
Privilege Not to Testify Against Spouse
Applied in 21 court decisions — leading case 1 Cal. 3d 475 - People v. Gilbert (1969)
Most recently applied in 233 Cal. App. 4th 1113 - People v. Cannata (January 2015)
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.