If it appears that the property taken is not the same as that described in the warrant, or that there is no probable cause for believing the existence of the grounds on which the warrant was issued, the magistrate must cause it to be restored to the person from whom it was taken.
Cal. Penal Code § 1540
Of Search Warrants
Applied in 14 court decisions — leading case 64 Cal. 2d 159 - Ballard v. Superior Court of San Diego County (1966)
Most recently applied in Barnett v. State Farm General Insurance (October 2011)
Enacted 1872.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.