California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Hobbs, 12 Cal.App.4th 957, 286 Cal.Rptr. 135 (Cal. App. 1991):
In People v. Seibel (1990) 219 Cal.App.3d 1279, 269 Cal.Rptr. 313 the Attorney General contended that defendant's motions to unseal a search warrant affidavit were not motions to suppress evidence under Penal Code section 1538.5, and that therefore the defendant's guilty plea precluded appealing the denial of those motions. The court held "... that the appeal is properly before us. It is apparent from the procedural history of the case set out above that appellant repeatedly raised the issue of propriety of the sealing of the affidavit at all stages of the proceeding, including the seeking of a writ in this court. Appellant raised the validity of the search warrant by a section 1538.5 motion in which he attacked the warrant on a number of [12 Cal.App.4th 436] bases. It is true that he did not expressly renew his previous motions to unseal the affidavit. However, the issue was implicitly renewed when heargued in support of his suppression motion that the affidavit on its face did not provide sufficient facts to support a finding of probable cause and that appellant had no information from which he could conclude that the sealed portion of the affidavit contained more specific, timely, and reliable information. The issue was expressly renewed in appellant's moving papers when he complained that he had 'been repeatedly denied access to the remaining sealed portions of the warrant affidavit ...,' and when he attacked, as best he could under the circumstances, the veracity of the affidavit by arguing that he had information that he had not sold cocaine within seven days of the date of the affidavit. At no time did the People object to the propriety of appellant's raising a discovery issue by way of a section 1538.5 motion. Accordingly, they should not be heard to object on appeal. [Citations.]" (Id. at p. 1285, 269 Cal.Rptr. 313.)
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