Court Opinion

ID: 9684501
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:59:14.363426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:56.470496
License: Public Domain

DWYER, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully disagree with the majority in remanding this cause for a new trial.
I can find no abuse of the trial court’s discretion in refusing to order the state agent to divulge the identity of his informant. See Simmons v. State, 198 Tenn. 587, 592, 593, 281 S.W.2d 487. I am satisfied from my purview of this record that the informant who accompanied the agent to defendant’s house and who observed the alleged sale of marihuana, had supplied the agent with the address and information about the illegal activities at the defendant’s abode, and that he was therefore both an informant and an eyewitness to the offense.
The elasticity given by the majority to the facts and circumstances found in Roviaro v. United States, 353 U.S. 53, 77 S.Ct. 623, 1 L.Ed.2d 639, cannot be stretched to cover the facts found in this record. In Rovia.ro the informant was shown to have *267denied knowing or seeing the defendant Roviaro; this denial conflicted with the agent’s testimony that he had overheard conversations between the informant and Roviaro. In that context the informant’s privilege should have given way to allow possible impeachment of the agent’s testimony. No such fact or circumstance may be found in this record. The informant here did not participate in the offense other than by being present at the scene of the indictment offense. In other words, the informant in this record, as opposed to Roviaro, was not directly involved in the action wherein the defendant allegedly sold the agent the illicit drugs, and was not known or shown to have denied any relationship with the agent or the defendant.
The majority opinion reasons that the undisclosed person is a material witness needed by the defense to prove whether or not the crime occurred, in the face of the denial by the defendant and his sister-in-law. This elementary issue has been ventilated by the verdict of the jury. In short, they have resolved the believability of the witnesses as to whether defendant made the sale or not. See Hardin v. State, 210 Tenn. 116, 355 S.W.2d 105. Further, for the sake of argument, the most that could he said for the informant’s testimony is that it would be cumulative. In short, if he testified he witnessed the sale it would be cumulative of the agent’s testimony. If he testified there was no sale it would be cumulative of the defendant and his sister-in-law’s testimony. I can find no reason, under this circumstance, for disturbing the learned trial court's discretion in refusing to order the divulging of the name of the informant.
Even if I agreed that the facts in Roviaro rendered that case applicable to the facts of this case, I would cite, as the controlling principle from that case, that the informer privilege must give way when disclosure of his identity “is essential to the fair determination” of the cause. I cannot agree that this informer-witness was essential to the defense for a fair determination of this cause, because his testimony inevitably would have been cumulative.
The majority reasons that the informant known to the state should have been called as a witness or made known to the defense so that being a material witness he could have been subpoenaed by the defense. It has been the law in this state for almost one hundred years that the state is not compelled to call all available witnesses, see Eason v. State, 65 Tenn. 431, 457 (1873), unless they fall within the exception to the rule found in that case at pages 431 and 457.
Pursuant to Eason, as a matter of course, if there should appear that any advantage had been taken of the accused by preventing his access to testimony favorable to his case, or by any trick or fraud whatever, it would be the duty of the trial court promptly to compel the production of any testimony withheld, and of this court to reverse on failure of the court below to do so.
In the case at hand, (1) no showing was made that any testimony favorable to the defendant was prevented by the court not ordering the informant’s identity to be revealed, and (2) no argument or showing was advanced as to any trick or fraud perpetrated by the state to the defendant’s disadvantage by not revealing the identity of the informant. Thus the Eason exception to the informer privilege rule is not found here.
I further note that in this case there were four eyewitnesses to the alleged offense. Two of them testified: the agent and the defendant. Two did not testify: the informer and the defendant’s brother. Two eyewitnesses are ample proof for the jury to resolve the issue of whether the sale of marihuana was made.
I cannot and would not reverse this conviction on the specious argument that the informant-witness might be a material witness favorable to the defendant.
Finally, Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446, cited by *268the majority here, upholds the constitutionality of a Florida alibi witness discovery statute, and treats the failure of the state to abide by the statute. But that case sheds no direct light on the issue in this case, which involves carving out an exception to the informer privilege rule.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.