§ 2094.Oath, affirmation, or declaration; form

This section supplies the actual words used to place a witness under oath. Subdivision (a) offers two scripted questions, and administering the oath is as simple as getting an affirmative answer to one of them. The first invokes a traditional religious oath, asking the witness to solemnly state that the testimony will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help the witness God. The second drops the religious framing and asks the witness to make the same solemn statement under penalty of perjury instead, giving a witness who is uncomfortable swearing to a deity a secular option that carries the identical legal weight.

Subdivision (b) adds flexibility beyond those two scripts. A court may administer an oath, affirmation, or declaration in any manner calculated to awaken the person’s conscience and impress upon the person the duty to tell the truth, which allows for forms suited to a particular witness’s beliefs or circumstances rather than forcing every witness into one of the two set questions. That flexibility comes with a safeguard: whatever form is used, the court has to satisfy itself that the person testifying understands that the testimony is being given under penalty of perjury, since that exposure to perjury liability is what gives any version of the oath its legal force.