Opinion ID: 1774223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pre-trial and Trial Proceedings

Text: Petitioner filed a motion in the trial court seeking to require the state to reveal the identity of the alleged informant... or, in the alternative to require the state to dismiss the indictment because the informant was a participant and his identity and testimony is relevant to defendant's guilt or innocence and the revealing of his identity is essential to a fair trial. [3] On the day of the trial petitioner filed a written motion for an in-camera examination of the alleged informant. He asserts four purposes would be served by this examination, which we summarize: 1. To determine whether there was, in fact, an informant. 2. To determine whether the informant gave the police officer any information that would supply probable cause. 3. To determine whether the alleged informant was a participant. 4. To determine whether the informant's life had been threatened or placed in jeopardy so as to justify a refusal to reveal his identity. Petitioner, in his written motion, further asserted that the credibility of the alleged informant in this case has been a critical issue since the inception of this prosecution. He further asserted that the interests of justice require this inquiry and that it should be made in-camera and in the presence only of the trial judge, the District Attorney General, the official court reporter and counsel for the defendant. These motions were sufficient to raise the critical issues of the existence of an informer, the extent of the information he furnished the police officer, the credibility of the informer, and the good faith of the police officer. These determinations go to the heart of the probable cause issue and, therefore, bear directly upon the legality of the arrest and the constitutionality of the searches and seizures. At the hearing of these motions the State took the position that the informant is not a witness to this crime, and we feel that we do not have to reveal his name. The State called Officer February to the stand and asked him four questions. Responding he gave his name, affirmed that he was the prosecutor, that he had received confidential information, and that that information was as quoted in Section I, infra. It is noteworthy that he did not testify, nor did the State otherwise prove, that the informant was reliable or trustworthy or to any experience in relying upon information obtained from him. The trial judge overruled the motions without significant comment. The petitioner made no motion to suppress nor was there any objection made contemporaneously with any of the pertinent testimony. A motion for an acquittal predicated upon an absence of probable cause and the illegality of the ensuing searches and seizures was made at the conclusion of the State's proof, and overruled. It was renewed at the conclusion of all the proof and again overruled. These issues formed a substantial part of petitioner's motion for a new trial and of his insistence in the Court of Criminal Appeals.