Ex Parte Pugh

We granted certiorari in this case to consider the question of whether this defendant, in attacking the State's probable cause for his warrantless arrest and search, was entitled to learn the identity of a confidential police informant.

The facts are as follows:

About midmorning on April 14, 1982, Officer Jeff Stokes, a narcotics and vice detective for the Mobile Police Department, received a telephone call from a confidential police informant. The informant told Officer Stokes that a man named Lester Pugh, the defendant, was presently in Mobile and that he had a large quantity of drugs in his…