Court Opinion

ID: 9447063
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:24:17.744684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:53.055086
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
“Under the principle of Roviaro [Ro-viaro v. United States, 1957, 353 U.S. 53, 77 S.Ct. 623,1 L.Ed.2d 639], the District Court could not properly determine that there was probable cause for petitioner's arrest without requiring disclosure of the identity of the informer whose report was claimed to constitute such cause.”1 The Supreme Court said in Roviaro that although there is a government privilege to withhold the identity of an informer, a “limitation on the applicability of the privilege arises from the fundamental requirements of fairness. Where the disclosure of an informer’s identity * * * 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. * * * 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 communication.” 353 U.S. at pages 60-61, 77 S.Ct. at page 628.
It does not appear that there was any evidence, apart from the confidential communication, to establish probable cause for arresting the present defendant. An informer told the police that the defendant would arrive in Washington by a certain train and would be carrying narcotics. The arresting officer testified that the arrest was “based on that information”, and that he did not have “any other information concerning the defendant, one way or the other.” An investigation of the defendant was under way but is not shown to have turned up anything. It follows that unless the police reasonably believed that the informer was reliable, the arrest was without probable cause and therefore unlawful. In that case the seizure of the narcotics was unlawful and they should not have been admitted in evidence.
Apart from the narcotics, the government had no case against the defendant. It was therefore exceedingly “relevant and helpful to the defense”, and “essential to a fair determination of [the] cause”, that the informer’s identity be disclosed,2 so that his reliability could be “subjected to meaningful judicial scrutiny rather than accepted on a policeman’s word.”3 When the defendant’s trial counsel (not his present counsel) moved to suppress the narcotics on the ground that their seizure was “incident to an arrest without a warrant and without probable cause”, the prosecutor claim*499ed a government privilege not to disclose the informer’s identity. In denying the motion, the court sustained the claim of privilege, and defense counsel acquiesced in the ruling. I think counsel acted on a misunderstanding of law occasioned by the prosecutor and the court.
There may have been, but also there may not have been, probable cause for the arrest. The error of court and counsel left the question wide open. In the interest of the fair administration of criminal justice, I would remand the case to the District Court with directions to hold a supplemental hearing on the defendant’s motion to suppress, at which the informer’s identity will be disclosed, if the defendant wishes to inquire into the informer’s reliability. If the defendant does not wish to inquire, or if inquiry shows that the informer was known to be reliable, appellant’s conviction should stand. But if upon inquiry it is not shown that the informer was known to be reliable, in my opinion the court’s refusal to suppress the narcotics was plain error affecting substantial rights, within the meaning of Fed.R.Crim.P. 52 (b), 18 U.S.C.A., and the defendant is entitled to a new trial.

. Statement of Judge Bazelon alone on the granting by this court (Judges Miller, Bazelon and Burger; Judge Miller dissenting) of leave to appeal in forma pauperis in this case. Jones v. United States, 105 U.S.App.D.C. 326, 266 F.2d 924, 930. No other statement was filed.

. Because the identity of the informer was disclosed in Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327,1 think that case irrelevant.

. Statement of Judge Bazelon, supra, 266 F.2d at page 929.
• Since the question whether the officer had probable cause to arrest the defendant turns on the informer’s reliability as known to the officer at the time of the arrest, the finding of narcotics on the defendant after the arrest seems to me irrelevant. In United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 595, 68 S.Ct. 222, 228, 92 L.Ed. 210, the Supreme Court said: “The Government’s last resort in support of the arrest is to reason from the fruits of the search to the conclusion that the officer’s knowledge at the time gave them grounds for it. We have bad frequent occasion to point out that a search is not to be made legal by what it turns up.”