Court Opinion

ID: 9526879
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:25:30.546579+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:16.137878
License: Public Domain

Supplemental Opinion on Petition for Rehearing. The defendant has filed a petition for rehearing in the instant case wherein he attacks our holding that, under the facts at bar, the disclosure of the informer’s identity was properly refused at the pretrial hearings on motions to suppress evidence. In so holding, we stressed the fact that at each hearing there was sufficient evidence independent of any testimony by the informer to establish probable cause for the arrest and search incident thereto. We cited People v. Shaw, 89 Ill App2d 285, 233 NE2d 73, as factually similar on this issue and went on to say: “It is our opinion that the Shaw decision controls the case before us, and we therefore find no error in the court’s refusal to disclose the informer’s identity at the hearings on motions to suppress.” Subsequent to the filing of the foregoing opinion, the United States Supreme Court in Shaw v. Illinois, 37 USLW 3335 (March 10, 1969) vacated the judgment in People v. Shaw, supra, and remanded the case to the Appellate Court, First District “for further consideration in light of Smith v. Illinois, 390 US 129.” The defendant urges that the vacation and remandment of the Shaw case requires us to reconsider our decision in the instant case. In taking such a position, the defendant ignores some salient distinctions between the Appellate Court’s Shaw decision and our decision in this case when both cases are viewed in their entireties. The Shaw court was confronted with several issues one of which was the identical question presented in this case, namely, whether the informant’s identity need be disclosed at a pretrial hearing on motion to suppress. However another issue in Shaw, which is not present in the case at bar, was whether the defendant was entitled at trial to elicit from a prosecution witness on cross-examination the present address of the informant. Under the particular facts in Shaw, the Appellate Court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion at trial in refusing the disclosure of the informant’s present address. A reading of Smith v. Illinois, supra, unmistakably reveals that the United States Supreme Court, in vacating and remanding Shaw, was directing its attention solely to the issue of trial disclosures since the issue presented to the court was whether the defense, at trial and on cross-examination of the informer in a narcotics case, was entitled to elicit the true name and present address of that informer. Again it must be emphasized that such a question was not before us in the case at bar, and therefore the defendant’s reliance in this case upon the Supreme Court’s order relative to Shaw is misplaced. The disclosure of an informer’s identity at a preliminary hearing to determine the existence of probable cause for arrest or search is governed by different considerations than those that determine the necessity of disclosure when the informer is a material witness on the issue of the guilt or innocence of the defendant at trial. (People v. Williams, 38 Ill2d 150, 230 NE2d 214.) In McCray v. Illinois, 386 US 300 (affg 33 Ill2d 66, 210 NE2d 161) the Supreme Court said at page 312-313: “In sum, the Court in the exercise of its power to formulate evidentiary rules for federal criminal cases has consistently declined to hold that an informer’s identity need always be disclosed in a federal criminal trial, let alone in a preliminary hearing to determine probable cause for an arrest or search. Yet we are now asked to hold that the Constitution somehow compels Illinois to abolish the informer’s privilege from its law of evidence, and to require disclosure of the informer’s identity in every such preliminary hearing where it appears that the officers made the arrest or search in reliance upon facts supplied by an informer they had reason to trust. The argument is based upon the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and upon the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Pointer v. Texas, 380 US 400. We find no support for the petitioner’s position in either of those constitutional provisions.” Likewise, in the instant case, the defendant is urging us to require disclosure of an informant’s identity at a pretrial hearing on motion to suppress to determine probable cause where the officers’ testimony standing alone, if given credence by the trial judge, establishes probable cause for the arrest and search. It must be noted that the police made the arrest and incident search after they personally observed the controlled purchase and after they had conducted a field test which indicated that the content of the packets sold to the informant was heroin. Such a disclosure requirement within the context of such facts would extend well beyond any constitutional mandate and would violate the principles announced in People v. Wolfe, 73 Ill App2d 274, 219 NE2d 634, and in the cases cited therein. We therefore find no reason to reconsider our original opinion in light of the subsequent developments heretofore mentioned. The defendant’s petition for rehearing is denied. Petition for Rehearing Denied.