California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Flack v. Municipal Court for Anaheim-Fullerton JudicialDist. of Orange County, 429 P.2d 192, 59 Cal.Rptr. 872, 66 Cal.2d 981 (Cal. 1967):
Thus, in Marcus v. Search Warrants (1961) supra, 367 U.S. 717, 81 S.Ct. 1708, a Missouri statutory scheme permitting the search for and seizure of allegedly obscene publications without a prior determination of obscenity was held to infringe upon those safeguards which the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment demands to assure constitutional protection to nonobscene material. Under the Missouri scheme, the warrant for a search and seizure of obscene material issued on a sworn complaint filed with a judge or magistrate. If issued upon a proper complaint, the warrant required that the described articles be brought immediately before the issuing magistrate, who them set a date, not less than five nor more than 20 days [66 Cal.2d 987] after the seizure, for a hearing to determine whether the seized material was obscene. The owner of the material was entitled to appear at such hearing and defend against the charge. If the judge found the material obscene, he was required to order it to be publicly destroyed; if he found it was not obscene, he ordered its return to its owner.
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