Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: the right to face your accuser on secret affidavit for search warrant

You do have the right to confront witnesses against you at trial, but the informant does not have to be one of those witnesses. Your charge is based upon the drugs that were found in your house, and the only necessary witness is the police officer who found them. Nothing the informant could say would change the fact that the drugs were in your bathroom wall when the police got there.

It is usually next to impossible to learn the identity of a confidential informant. Fortunately for you, it sounds like you won't need to do that.

Since you have a specific person in mind as a suspect, you can have him subpoenaed to testify regardless of whether he actually was the informant. You don't need confirmation that he was the informant to bring him to court and ask him about the time he used your restroom, because he could have planted the drugs whether he was the informant or not.

I have a hard time believing the warrant was as incomplete as what you have described. Maybe you only saw the first part of a longer document; they usually do begin with a description of the officer's experience and training but then they say what information he obtained, how he got it, who he suspects of the crime, the basis for this suspicion, where he wants to conduct a search and what he believes he will find. No officer would seek a warrant with an affidavit that only talked about himself, and if he did no judge would sign it. And if somehow that actually is what happened the judge who is assigned to handle your case will see that the search was invalid.

If the warrant was as defective as you have described, your court-appointed attorney would be thrilled because he would almost be assured of a spectacular win. This is yet another reason why I am skeptical.

As for what you can demand by way of evidence, there are rules that say what the police have to give you and when. They are required to turn over all exculpatory evidence as well as all the evidence which they intend to use to prove your guilt, but without more information I can't say whether they should have disclosed this evidence already.

And don't be so hard on your lawyer. Public defenders and court-appointed private counsel are horribly overworked and don't have as much time as their clients would like them to have. This is the main reason why defendants prefer private attorneys. Most public defenders are very good lawyers and very dedicated to their clients. The amount of time he gives you is the system's fault and not his, and if you somehow got him replaced with a different public defender the same thing would happen.