Aday

— Petitioners, book publishers and distributors whose principal place of business is Fresno, applied to the District Court of Appeal for a writ of mandamus to compel the Superior Court of Alameda County to return to them property taken under an assertedly invalid search warrant. Relief was denied without opinion, and following a petition to this court for hearing we issued an alternative writ.

On September 16, 1960, Charles Ryken, a police officer from Alameda County, requested the Honorable Dan B. Eymann, Judge of the Municipal Court for the Fresno Judicial District, to issue a search warrant, and the officer executed an affidavit stating that petitioners committed a felony in Alameda, San Francisco, and Fresno Counties in that they conspired to wilfully and lewdly publish, print, and sell “obscene and indecent writings, papers and books, to wit, 1 10:04 Sgt. Thorne, ’ also known as 1 Sex Life of a Cop, ’ and ‘Joy Killer,’ among others’’ (Pen. Code, §§ 182, 311, subd. 3). 1 *793 Copies of the two named books were attached to and made part of the affidavit, and it was stated that they had been purchased in Hayward by a police officer of that city. The affidavit also contained…