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Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5207 · Article 2. Court-Ordered Evaluation for Persons with a Mental Health Condition

Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5207

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

The order for evaluation shall be in substantially the following form:

In the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of _____

______ The People of the State of California Concerning ______ and ______Respondents______ No. _____ Order for Evaluation or Detention

______

The People of the State of California to ______

______ :

(Peace officer, counselor in mental health, or other official appointed by the court)

The petition of ____ has been presented this day to me, a Judge of the Superior Court for the County of ____, State of California, from which it appears that there is now in this county, at ____, a person by the name of ____, who is, as a result of mental disorder, a danger to others, or to himself, or gravely disabled.

Now, therefore, you are directed to notify ____ to submit to an evaluation at ____ on the ____ day of ____, 19_, at __ o’clock __m.

____ shall be permitted to be accompanied by one or more of his relatives, friends, an attorney, a personal physician, or other professional or religious advisor.

The individual or individuals who accompany ____ may be present during the evaluation if so requested by ____.

*Provision for Detention for Evaluation

If the person fails or refuses to appear for evaluation when notified by order of this court, you are hereby directed to detain said ____ or cause him to be detained at ____ for a period no longer than 72 hours, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays if evaluation services are not available on those days, for the purposes of evaluation.

I hereby direct that a copy of this order together with a copy of the petition be delivered to said person and his representative, if any, at the time of his notification; and I further authorize the service of this order at any hour of the day or night.

Witness my hand, this ____ day of ____, 19_

______Judge of the Superior Court______

*This paragraph is applicable only if the person to be evaluated fails or refuses to appear for evaluation after having been properly notified.

Return of Order

I hereby certify that I received the above order for the evaluation of ____ and on the ____ day of ____, 19_, personally served a copy of the order and of the petition on ____ and the professional person in charge of the ____, a facility for treatment and evaluation, or his designee.

Dated: ____, 19_.

______Signature and Title______

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Added by Stats. 1967, Ch. 1667.

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=WIC&sectionNum=5207.
Text hash
sha256 ea1bd550bf25d104e538fa4b6cebce25e1f5fc4f1c39a66be422614088e316a7
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
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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.