People v. Superior Court (Robinson)

In People v. Superior Court (Robinson) (1977) 75 Cal.App.3d 76, the court upheld the validity of a search warrant where the lack of signature of the magistrate was not discovered until the time of trial. Testimony by the magistrate at the suppression hearing confirmed the fact that she intended that the warrant be issued, had signed the affidavit for the warrant, but had inadvertently failed to sign the warrant. The levying officer, under the impression that the original warrant had been signed, gave a xeroxed copy of the document to the petitioner before searching the premises, and there was no comment made about the lack of the judge's signature. ( Id., at pp. 78-79.) The Court in Robinson found that the magistrate's clerical error did not make the warrant legally insufficient. Moreover, the court also determined that the householder did not notice the mistake and that the officers' good faith execution eliminated any reason to apply the exclusionary rule. ( Robinson, supra, at pp. 79-80.)