Superior Court 3/3/08 - COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. BRIAN PAUL BAKER

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. BRIAN PAUL BAKER
No. 2311 EDA 2006 2008 PA Super 27 Atlantic: n/a Filed: 3/3/2008
Appeal from the Order entered August 24, 2006 in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Criminal Division, at No. CP-02-CR-0002577 of 2006.
Before: MUSMANNO, ORIE MELVIN and KELLY, JJ.
Opinion by: ORIE MELVIN, J.
This is an appeal by the Commonwealth from the Order granting suppression of all evidence derived from the search warrant due to the Commonwealth’s decision not to produce the confidential informant whose information was related in the affidavit of probable cause. After careful review, we reverse.

" If we were to conclude that the instant evidence was sufficient to satisfy the threshold burden articulated in Bonasorte, every suspect subject to a search warrant under analogous circumstances would be able to assert that a controlled buy with a CI never occurred and thereby request production of the CI knowing the Commonwealth’s reluctance to expose its confidential informants, thereby hoping that the Commonwealth either withdraws the charge or suffers suppression so as to protect its witness from possible harm.

As this Court has repeatedly noted, there is an important “public interest in protecting the free flow of information” in furtherance of effective law enforcement. See Bonasorte, supra, 486 A.2d at 1372 (discussing the seminal balancing test of Roviaro v. U.S., 353 U.S. 53 (1957)). Without any good faith basis for believing that the informant’s identity would have been helpful to the defense, there are no grounds for production of the CI. Therefore, we find that the trial court abused its discretion in concluding that Appellee had met his burden that the affiant included intentional misstatements in the affidavit of probable cause. "