Parker v. State

ADKINS, Judge.

This case illustrates the risk inherent in admitting an informant’s statement implicating the defendant through the testimony of a police officer, purportedly for a non-hearsay purpose. The trial court allowed a police detective to testify at a jury trial that he received a tip from a confidential informant that a black male wearing a blue baseball cap and a black hooded sweatshirt was selling heroin at a particular intersection. Appellant Kelvin Parker was convicted by a jury of possession of heroin and sentenced to four years imprisonment. We shall hold that the testimony was…