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In this case, a federal agent obtained search warrants from two Alameda County Superior Court judges. The first judge authorized the search of a defendant's cell phone. The second judge authorized the use of a cell-site simulator to locate another defendant.

The federal agent should not have sought these warrants from those judges, because California law does not allow California state judges to issue search warrants to federal law enforcement officers. The federal agent should have received training from his employers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Marshals Service, about the limits on his authority under state law. But he received no such training, because apparently his employers were also unaware of these limits. The Alameda County judges may also have been unaware of this limitation on federal involvement in the state's criminal justice system, although it's possible they were simply misled by the papers submitted by the federal agent in support of the search warrants.

As explained in a concurrently-filed unpublished ruling, the evidence obtained from these searches will be suppressed. A federal agent's mistaken belief that he could be issued a…