Court Opinion

ID: 9759033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:00:49.494834+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:58.241818
License: Public Domain

ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
I join in the Dissenting Opinion of Mr. Justice Flaherty. I disagree only to the extent that the “reasonable accommodation” relied upon by Mr. Justice Flaherty can be interpreted as permitting the Commonwealth to negotiate the disclosure of less than all of those convictions which bear on the determination of the reliability of the confidential informant. On the peculiar facts before us, the informant’s reliability should be assessed only by reference to the two convictions attributable to information the informant supplied to the affiant. The other two convictions were not within the personal knowledge of the affiant, but were simply hearsay about the claims of a fellow police officer, included to bolster the affiant’s assertion that the informant was reliable. I would find the statements about the informant’s help in securing these convictions to be extraneous information without any weight in the probable cause determination. It follows that if these third-hand assertion’s of the informant’s reliability can neither enhance nor detract from the probable cause determination, the Commonwealth’s failure to disclose further information about them is of no moment. It would be futile for a defendant to *138challenge information which should have had no bearing on the determination.
As to the two convictions which the affiant himself knew had been obtained with the assistance of the informant, cross-examination of the affiant and disclosure of the names of those convicted was required. The controlling precept is that a finding of probable cause can be based on second-hand information presented to a magistrate by an affiant if an adequate basis is also presented to establish that the unnamed supplier of the information is worthy of belief. An assertion that this same person has proven reliable on previous occasions can suffice, but unless the specifics of those occasions are subject to investigation and challenge the affiant’s own assessment that his informant is reliable stands as the only evidence on this point. As Mr. Justice Flaherty and our previous cases make clear, it is unacceptable that allegations made to support a determination of probable cause, which is in the first instance ex parte, should forever be placed beyond the realm of testing.