City of San Jose v. Superior Court

The City of San Jose (City) seeks writs of prohibition and mandate to nullify certain of respondent court’s orders in three criminal prosecutions presenting similar stipulated facts. In each case, City police officers seized funds during drug-related arrests of real parties (defendants in the criminal cases) and then, without permission of the superior court and in violation of the mandate of Penal Code section 1536 requiring retention of custody of the seized property, the police turned the money over to federal drug enforcement agents (DEA’s). The trial court granted real parties’ nonstatutory motions for return of property, ordering the City and finance director to deliver to the clerk of the superior court for Santa Clara County sums totalling $58,440 to be held in trust pending further order. To avoid being cited for contempt, the City has paid this money into court. We stayed further proceedings on real parties’ motions for return of the funds, because an order to turn the funds over to real parties would have made the money difficult or impossible to resecure.

We have determined the superior court had no jurisdiction within the confines of the criminal law and…