Court Opinion

ID: 9792196
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:25:02.428864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:41.038949
License: Public Domain

DOOLING, J.
I concur in the judgment. However, I want to make perfectly clear my views on the subject of disclosure of the identity of the confidential informant. I agree with the very recent opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Boviaro v. United States (filed March 25, 1957) 353 U.S. 53 [77 S.Ct. 623, 1 L.Ed.2d 639]. Justice Burton, speaking for that court, laid down the general principle in one clear and unequivocal sentence: “Where the disclosure of an informer’s identity, or of the contents of his communication, is relevant and helpful to the defense of an accused, or is essential to a fair determination of a cause, the privilege must give way.” Following this rule we recently held in People v. Lawrence, 149 Cal.App.2d 435 [308 P.2d 821], that the identity of an informant claimed to have been a participant in the crime must be disclosed on the voir dire if his activity or communications are relied on by the officer as furnishing probable cause for the arrest and search of the defendant and must in any event be disclosed on the trial.
So in this case if the information furnished by the confidential informers to the officers had been necessary to establish probable cause for the arrest and search of the defendant it would have been reversible error not to compel the disclosure of their identity. In Roviaro v. United States, supra, the court said on this precise subject: “Most of the federal cases involving this limitation on the scope of the informer’s privilege have arisen where the legality of a search without a warrant is in issue and the communications of an informer are claimed to establish probable cause. In these cases the Government has been required to disclose the identity of the informant unless there was sufficient evidence apart from his confidential information. ’ ’
*137It is because I agree that the conduct of the defendant in fleeing when the officers sought to question him furnished sufficient evidence of probable cause apart from the confidential communications of the undisclosed informers that I concur in the judgment.