What is the burden of demonstrating the inadmissibility of evidence in a motion to suppress evidence obtained in a search pursuant to a warrant?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Frank, 214 Cal.Rptr. 801, 38 Cal.3d 711, 700 P.2d 415 (Cal. 1985):

As the majority recognizes, because the evidence in question was obtained in a search pursuant to a warrant, defendant bore the burden of demonstrating the inadmissibility of the challenged evidence. (See, e.g., Theodor v. Superior Court (1972) 8 Cal.3d 77, 101, 104 Cal.Rptr. 226, 501 P.2d 234.) In his pretrial motion to suppress, defendant challenged the validity of the search warrant on a number of theories, contending (1) that the information on which it was based was "stale," (2) that the information was, in part, inaccurate, and (3) that the warrant was "overbroad." But while his motion purported to rely, inter alia, on "overbreadth," the motion's discussion of the issue was entirely inadequate to present the issue.

I set out the defendant's entire argument on the overbreadth issue in the margin. 3 Although the argument quoted excerpts from two opinions which [38 Cal.3d 757] held portions of other search warrants to be overbroad, the motion left totally unanswered a number of fundamental and crucial questions. First, it did not indicate which clause or clauses in the warrant defendant was challenging as overbroad. The warrant contained 16 separate clauses, each of varying specificity, authorizing the search for different items and categories of items; defendant left the trial court simply to guess which of these clauses he was attacking. Second, the motion did not make clear whether defendant's challenge was based on the theory that the affidavit did not provide probable cause to support a search for the items referred to in a particular clause or whether it was based, instead, on the theory that the description of items in a particular clause was not sufficiently specific. Third, and finally, the motion did not indicate which of the numerous seized items defendant was seeking to suppress on the basis of the warrant's alleged overbreadth. At least since Aday v. Superior Court (1961) 55 Cal.2d 789, 797, 13 Cal.Rptr. 415, 362 P.2d 47, it has been clear that the invalidity of a portion of a warrant does not invariably taint all of the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant; defendant's motion, however, did not direct the court's attention to the address books or datebook, or--for that matter--to any other particular item, but simply sought the suppression of all evidence seized either with or without a search warrant.

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