CONFIDENTIAL INFORMANT CASES TRIAL
Often, these police tactics are constitutionally questionable and could result in evidence being excluded from a criminal trial if properly challenged. Law enforcement officers are known to use whatever tricks they can to gather evidence of criminal activity against a defendant. As a result of the appellate ruling, the conviction against the defendant and his prison sentence will stand. Because the informant had been reliable in the past, the court found that his tip was reliable enough to justify the police actions in detaining the defendant. The court relied heavily on the fact that the informat in question had previously given accurate information to the detective and that he had cooperated in controlled buys before. The court found that in this instance, reasonable suspicion existed. The court agreed that tips from confidential informants must exhibit some indicia of reliability to constitute reasonable suspicion for a stop. The defendant appealed the trial court ruling to the Virginia Court of Appeals, where the court accepted the trial court’s reasoning. As a result of the decision, the defendant was convicted of the drug offenses and sentenced to three years in prison. The trial court determined that the tip from the confidential informant was reliable enough to give the officers reasonable suspicion to detain him and wait for the dog to arrive. Under Virginia and federal law, police are only required to show reasonable suspicion when making an investigatory stop. The trial court determined that the defendant’s detention was not an arrest and was instead an investigatory stop. He argued that the police did not have reasonable suspicion or probable cause to detain him while waiting for the drug dog to arrive. The defendant challenged the admission of the drugs at trial against him. After the canine signaled to police that the man was in possession of narcotics, a search was performed, and police found drugs on him. The defendant was handcuffed and made to wait with the police when a canine drug detection unit arrived. Based on the tip from the informant that a man matching the description of the defendant was selling drugs on the street, detectives stopped the defendant for questioning. In the recently decided case, the defendant was arrested and charged with dealing drugs after police were notified of his activity by a confidential informant. The Court of Appeals of Virginia recently ruled in favor of the state after a defendant challenged the legality of his detention based on a tip from a confidential informant that he was involved in commercial drug activity.
State and federal constitutional protections still play a role in determining the legality of police interactions with the public, even when reliable tips from informants are involved. Tips given to law enforcement officers by confidential informants are often used to establish reasonable suspicion for a detention or probable cause for a search or arrest.
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