Court Opinion

ID: 9468562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:17:43.533539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:55.510147
License: Public Domain

SETH, Chief Judge,
concurring:
I generally concur with the majority opinion. My only departure arises from the remand and from what to me is the presence of an unresolved matter. This is whether a constitutional issue was raised in the state trial court and decided by the state court. We have only a question on the cross-examination of a witness as to the name of the informer. The state court on direct appeal did not discuss the compulsory process issue, and it was not developed in initial trial motions. It was raised in the state post-trial proceedings (P.C. 78 — 197) about a year after trial, but was not really considered as a constitutional issue but instead as a matter of trial court discretion.
Thus in my view the question whether the issue was raised properly in the state courts has not been resolved. Further I am unable to find a direct statement by the petitioner that the identity of the informer was unknown to him at the time of trial. It is obvious that the petitioner relied on his alibi defense, but now he asserts his constitutional rights were violated because the witness was not allowed to answer the identity question. If the defendant knew the identity of the informer, there does not seem to be a constitutional issue present. If he asserts now that he did not then know the informer’s identity, there is a fact issue unresolved.
In camera proceedings as to an informant’s participation are useful during the course of ongoing criminal cases, but it is difficult to see how they can be effective in a civil case in another court system with a five-year lapse of time.
It would seem preferable to remand this case to the district court with directions to give the state court an opportunity to consider the several issues of fact and law which were not resolved. It was after all their trial and should be back before the Oklahoma courts.