Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

First of all, you need an attorney. Your attorney needs to be working to determine whether any search and arrest issues required a warrant, and file the appropriate motions. Your attorney will be the one who makes sure the government does its job correctly, not the government.

There are several possible explanations. One is that the warrant just hasn't been filed yet. Another is that it was filed incorrectly. But it is also possible that there was no warrant, and even that there was no search.

You obviously know more about what happened than we do, so perhaps you know that there was a search. But if you don't have personal knowledge of a search and simply believe one must have happened, you could easily be wrong.

Even if there was a search, and even if there was no warrant, you may still be out of luck. Many searches don't require warrants. And even if this search did require a warrant but there was none, the evidence may get in anyway depending upon the facts. For instance, if the search was of somebody else's home, then it violated only the resident's rights and not yours.

This brings me to your point about a "false warrant". You might mean an actual warrant that was obtained under false pretenses, or you might mean a document the police merely claimed was a warrant when it was actually something else. Either way, you are talking about police misconduct.

Even egregious police misconduct, by itself, rarely justifies dismissing a case. It often justifies suppressing evidence, though, and sometimes the suppressed evidence is so important to a case that it will lead to a dismissal. But if the evidence is not crucial and/or there is a way to have it admitted despite the misconduct that led to it, then the case can proceed.

Whether any of this applies to you will depend upon the facts. You haven't told us what happened, so we can't really assess your case. I agree with Mr. Roach that you should get a lawyer and discuss the details of your case with her. She will be able to tell you whether and how the absence of a warrant from the file might help you.

Good luck.

Search warrant affidavits are often kept in a separate file. Check with the clerk's office. They will be able to find it easier if you know the date of the search and the address of the search. If you received a copy of the search warrant or the inventory, take it with you when you go to the clerk's office.