Evid. Code, § 1237 · Article 3. Prior Statements of Witnesses
Evid. Code, § 1237
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Evidence of a statement previously made by a witness is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule if the statement would have been admissible if made by him while testifying, the statement concerns a matter as to which the witness has insufficient present recollection to enable him to testify fully and accurately, and the statement is contained in a writing which:
(1) Was made at a time when the fact recorded in the writing actually occurred or was fresh in the witness’ memory;
(2) Was made (i) by the witness himself or under his direction or (ii) by some other person for the purpose of recording the witness’ statement at the time it was made;
(3) Is offered after the witness testifies that the statement he made was a true statement of such fact; and
(4) Is offered after the writing is authenticated as an accurate record of the statement.
(b) The writing may be read into evidence, but the writing itself may not be received in evidence unless offered by an adverse party.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Enacted by Stats. 1965, Ch. 299.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=EVID§ionNum=1237.
- Text hash
- sha256 94051fafe969f0129df7138e87130d813bdab7ed0981333fab3ba18a27866fae
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.