Can a search warrant be suppressed if the warrant was issued on the basis of an illegible version of the warrant?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Wilson, 182 Cal.App.3d 742, 227 Cal.Rptr. 528 (Cal. App. 1986):

Defendants contend that the fruits of the search must be suppressed because the magistrate did not read every word of the attached police reports. They rely on Kaylor v. Superior Court (1980) 108 Cal.App.3d 451, 166 Cal.Rptr. 598. In Kaylor search warrants were issued on the basis of two skeletal affidavits which incorporated 155 pages of xeroxed police reports, some of whose pages were illegible. The magistrate was put on the stand and testified that he did not read all the reports. The court ruled, two to one, that the evidence had to be suppressed because the magistrate must read the entire affidavit and he cannot perform his required role when portions of the affidavits are illegible. The majority found it unnecessary to ask whether the illegible pages in any way detracted from the adequacy of the remaining reports which clearly established probable cause. And, of course, when the fruits of a search are suppressed, the guilty defendant ordinarily goes free rather than merely being remanded for retrial. With commendable restraint, the dissenting justice referred to the majority opinion as "ludicrous" and accused his brethren of engaging in a "seemingly over-zealous quest to find some Constitutional infirmity in the warrant process."

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