People v. Glenn

In People v. Glenn (1997) 56 Cal. App. 4th 886, the court evaluated whether, under the amended provisions of subdivision (j), the prosecution could dismiss and refile to relitigate a motion to suppress when the defendant's first motion to suppress was granted at a hearing after arraignment in superior court. The defendant argued the "special hearing" referred to in subdivision (j)'s dismissal and refiling procedure should be narrowly interpreted as limited to special hearings sought by the prosecution to relitigate a defendant's motion previously granted at a preliminary hearing. From this predicate, he argued that because his motion to suppress was first granted in a superior court postarraignment hearing, which was not a special hearing sought by the prosecution, the dismissal and refiling procedures of subdivision (j) were inapplicable. (Glenn, at pp. 889-890.) Glenn rejected the argument for two reasons. First, section 1538.5 1 does not use the term "special hearing" exclusively to refer to hearings sought by the prosecution to relitigate preliminary hearing motions, but also uses the term "special hearing" in subdivision (i) to describe the hearing in superior court after arraignment at which a defendant makes his or her initial motion to suppress. Glenn also rejected the defendant's interpretation of that term because it would produce inconsistencies with subdivision (p); if special hearings were limited to those hearings sought by the prosecution to relitigate a defendant's previously granted motion, the refiling procedures would never be operable because of the two-litigation limitation of subdivision (p). Accordingly, Glenn concluded the term "special hearing," as used in section 1538.5, meant hearings in superior court, whether initiated by the defendant or by the prosecution. (Glenn, at pp. 889-890.)