Opinion ID: 1180163
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Magistrate's Examination of the Informant

Text: (1) Defendant's first contention is that the magistrate issued the search warrant without complying with the mandatory provisions of Penal Code section 1526. [2] Section 1525 of the code makes clear that a search warrant cannot be issued other than on affidavit. [3] Section 1526, subdivision (a), permits a magistrate to examine orally and under oath the person seeking the warrant and any witnesses who might be produced. It does require, however, that an affidavit or affidavits be taken. Under section 1526, subdivision (b), an oral statement, if properly recorded and transcribed, is deemed to be an affidavit. Here, the magistrate conducted an oral examination of the undisclosed informer; more importantly, the informer and Officer Celmer each submitted to the court a written affidavit. Defendant has not urged that the affidavits on their face are defective. [4] Thus, Dunn v. Municipal Court (1963) 220 Cal. App.2d 858, 873-874 [34 Cal. Rptr. 251] is not helpful. There the court held that the affidavit in question was insufficient and that the oral examination of the witness was also insufficient to support the issuance of the warrant. Likewise, Powelson v. Superior Court (1970) 9 Cal. App.3d 357, 360-362 [88 Cal. Rptr. 8], also relied upon by defendant, is inapposite. There, in order to establish probable cause, the magistrate took extensive sworn testimony from said officers in the presence of a court reporter, but no affidavits were subscribed. The court, in voiding the three search warrants involved, traced the history of section 1526, which prior to 1957 required the magistrate to take the deposition of the complainant, and any witnesses he may produce before issuing a warrant. (Stats. 1851, ch. 29, § 645, at p. 284.) The 1957 amendment replaced the word deposition with the word affidavit to make clear that a sworn statement of facts contained in an affidavit (not a question and answer type of proceeding) was required. This amendment indicates that the Legislature placed importance on the requirement that a written signed document containing facts tending to establish probable cause be available before the magistrate could issue the warrant. The 1957 amendment also placed within the discretion of the magistrate the question of whether also to examine, under oath, the person seeking the warrant. Prior to this amendment, the magistrate was required to examine the person under oath. The problem here presented is not one of `technicalities without substance' but one of clear legislative command. (9 Cal. App.3d at p. 361; first italics added.) In the case at bar, the magistrate exercised his discretion to examine the undisclosed informant orally. This examination did not produce an oral statement properly recorded and transcribed within the meaning of section 1526, subdivision (b). Hence, the fruits of the examination cannot be considered an affidavit. However, the magistrate did in fact take affidavits of the informant and Officer Celmer. We are not, therefore, presented with a situation in which, for example, an affidavit fails to comply with the second prong of the test enunciated in Aguilar v. Texas (1964) 378 U.S. 108, 114 [12 L.Ed.2d 723, 729, 84 S.Ct. 1509], requiring the affidavit to contain underlying facts from which the magistrate can reasonably conclude that the informant was reliable, and instead the magistrate seeks to gather such information by unreported and unsubscribed questioning of the informant. Here, the affidavits are valid on their face. The magistrate, notwithstanding the fact that he had before him two properly subscribed affidavits, opted in addition to conduct an oral examination of the informant pursuant to the discretion afforded to him by section 1526, subdivision (a). As part of his observations, he took handwritten notes. There is no policy which bars magistrates from taking additional measures to ensure that probable cause exists even when an affidavit on its face supports the issuance of a warrant. Indeed such a procedure indicates a thoroughness which merits approbation. [5]