California v. Kidd

After being charged with several felony offenses, defendant-respondent Martell Kidd was twice unsuccessful in having the evidence against him suppressed on motions brought pursuant to Penal Code section 1538.5, first at the preliminary hearing and then after his arraignment on the information. He raised the suppression issue again, however, in a motion to set aside the information pursuant to Penal Code section 995, which was heard by a different superior court judge. This time, Kidd was successful; the section 995 motion was granted on the ground that the evidence against him should have been suppressed as the product of a constitutionally unreasonable search and seizure, resulting in the dismissal of all charges. The State appealed, arguing Kidd’s section 995 motion was an inappropriate request to relitigate a matter that had previously been considered and decided by a different superior court judge, and that it should have been denied on that basis. In the alternative, the People contend the motion should have been denied on its merits. The Court of Appeal rejected these arguments, finding that the suppression issue was properly raised again in Kidd’s section 995 motion. View "California v. Kidd" on Justia Law