Opinion ID: 461235
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Confidential Informants

Text: 39 Defendants also complain about the district court's failure to grant them pretrial access to the CIs involved in making this arrest. Defendants claim that a pretrial interview with the CIs would have helped them prove their defenses of government overreaching and entrapment. We have no problem in dismissing this complaint. 40 The United States Supreme Court addressed the government's obligation to disclose the identity and whereabouts of government informers in Roviaro v. United States, 353 U.S. 53, 77 S.Ct. 623, 1 L.Ed.2d (1957). Roviaro recognized that no fixed rule with respect to disclosure is justifiable and that [t]he problem is one that calls for balancing the public interest in protecting the flow of information against the individual's right to prepare his defenses. 353 U.S. at 62, 77 S.Ct. 628. Two principal factors in striking the balance are the degree of participation exercised by the informant, United States v. Alonzo, 571 F.2d 1384 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 847, 99 S.Ct. 147, 58 L.Ed.2d 149 (1978); Alvarez v. United States, 525 F.2d 980 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 995, 96 S.Ct. 2209, 48 L.Ed.2d 820 (1976), and the probative value of the informant's probable testimony in relation to the defendant's defense. United States v. Davis, 487 F.2d 1249, 1251 (5th Cir.1973); United States v. Acosta, 411 F.2d 627, 630 (5th Cir.1969). At an ancillary hearing before a magistrate, the court found that the informants were not active participants in the transactions in question and denied defendants' motion for disclosure of the informants' identities and whereabouts. 41 Nonetheless, after much prodding by defense counsel, the government disclosed the identities of the informants and produced the two principal informants at trial, where they testified as defense witnesses. The record does not reveal whether the whereabouts of the informants had been disclosed before trial. In its appellate brief, the government asserts that the informants were made available to defense counsel for a pretrial interview but that the informants chose not to speak with counsel for defendants. 12 42 In United States v. Fischel, 686 F.2d 1082 (5th Cir.1982) we held that the government must have some valid reason for withholding an informant's address when the informant may have information pertinent to the defendant's theory of defense. Id. at 1092-93. The government in this action opposed such disclosure on the ground that the informants were not actively involved in the transactions in question. 13 While the accuracy of this finding is dubious in light of the consistent presence of the informants at all the significant meetings between the DEA agents and the defendants, we do not find any prejudicial error in the defendants' failure to get a pretrial interview with the informants. 14 The defendants placed not only the two principal informants on the witness stand but the ex-girlfriend of one of the informants and her roommate as well, who were both privy to much of the informants' activities. Even assuming, however, that the defendants were wrongfully denied pretrial access to the informants, our review of their testimony convinces us that there was no information that the CI's could have revealed to the defendants that would have helped them make a showing of government overreaching or entrapment.