Can a district attorney be sworn to a criminal complaint?

As this court found over a century ago, "There is nothing in the statute which disqualifies the district attorney from swearing to the complaint. The statute does not prescribe who shall make oath to the complaint. The argument that the defendant could not have and did not have a fair trial because of the fact that the district attorney made the complaint and afterward conducted the trial is without merit. His having made the complaint before the magistrate would not indicate necessarily any greater zeal or interest in the case than the subsequent filing of the information. The fairness of the trial is to be

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judged by what took place at the trial." (People v. Currie (1911) 16 Cal.App. 731, 733-734, italics added.)

Moreover, it is sufficient for a complainant to make an unsworn statement under Code of Civil Procedure section 2015.5 that he or she subscribed the complaint under penalty of perjury. (People v. Salazar (1968) 266 Cal.App.2d 113, 114-115 (Salazar).) In Salazar, "[t]he person who signed the complaint as the 'declarant and complainant' did not do so under oath but, in lieu of so doing, above his signature he made the following statement: 'I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.' " (Id. at p. 113, fn. omitted.) In holding that such was sufficient, the court explained, "A declaration made in accordance with section 2015.5 of the Code of Civil Procedure serves the same function as a sworn statement in that each acts as a vehicle to convey to the magistrate the facts upon which reliance is placed as constituting a showing of probable cause [citation] and each assures that the person stating the facts does so with an awareness of the grave responsibility he has assumed with respect to the truthfulness of his statement." (Id. at pp. 114-115.)