If, after hearing the proofs, it appears either that no public offense has been committed or that there is not sufficient cause to believe the defendant guilty of a public offense, the magistrate shall order the complaint dismissed and the defendant to be discharged, by an indorsement on the depositions and statement, signed by the magistrate, to the following effect: “There being no sufficient cause to believe the within named A. B. guilty of the offense within mentioned, I order that the complaint be dismissed and that he or she shall be discharged.”
Cal. Penal Code § 871
Examination of the Case, and Discharge of the Defendant, or Holding Him to Answer
Applied in 16 court decisions — leading case Rivera-Puig v. Garcia-Rosario (1992)
Most recently applied in People v. Esmaili (February 2013)
Amended by Stats. 1980, Ch. 938, Sec. 3.
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.