Can a defendant seek to return or suppress as evidence property obtained on grounds that the property was not described in the search warrant?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Glass, B260413 (Cal. App. 2016):

A defendant may move for the return of property or to suppress as evidence property obtained on grounds including the property was not described in the search warrant. ( 1538.5, subd. (a)(1)(B)(ii).)7 Even if not identified in the warrant, however, officers executing the warrant may seize items they discover that are reasonably identifiable as contraband or stolen property: "'When officers, in the course of a bona fide effort to execute a valid search warrant, discover articles which, although not included in the warrant, are reasonably identifiable as contraband, they may seize them whether they are initially in plain sight or come into plain sight subsequently, as the result of the officers' efforts.'" (People v. Diaz (1992) 3 Cal.4th 495, 563.) "To justify such a seizure, the officers must lawfully be in the position from which they view the item; the incriminating character of the item as contraband or evidence of a crime must be immediately apparent; and the officers must have a lawful right of access to the object." (People v. Gallegos (2002) 96 Cal.App.4th 612, 622.) "The incriminating nature of the item is 'immediately apparent' when the police have probable cause to believe it is contraband or evidence of a crime; officers need not know, to a near certainty, that the item is evidence of a crime.'" (Id. at p. 623.)8

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