Cite as: 510 U. S. 266 (1994)
Stevens, J., dissenting
this case suggested any improvement on her record. The substance she described as cocaine turned out to be baking soda. She twice misidentified her alleged vendor before, in response to a leading question, she agreed that petitioner might be he; 4 in fact, she had never had any contact with petitioner. As the Court of Appeals correctly concluded, the commencement of a serious criminal proceeding on such "scanty grounds" was nothing short of "shocking." 5
ant. Allegedly, Moore, addicted to cocaine, lied to Oliver about her under-cover purchases of controlled substances in order to receive the promised payments. During the course of her tenure as an informant, Moore falsely implicated over 50 individuals in criminal activity, resulting each time in a dismissed prosecution.
4 Relying entirely on information provided by Moore, Oliver testified before a grand jury and secured an indictment against a first suspect, John Albright, Jr., for selling a "look-alike" substance in violation of Illinois law. When he attempted to arrest John Albright, Jr., however, Oliver became convinced that he had the wrong man, and substituted the name of a second suspect, Albright's son, on the arrest warrant. Once again, it became clear that Oliver's suspect could not have committed the crime. Oliver then asked Moore whether her vendor might have been a different son of the man she had first identified. When Moore admitted of that possibility, Oliver attested to the criminal information charging petitioner, his third and final suspect, with a felony.
5 "Detective Oliver made no effort to corroborate Veda Moore's unsubstantiated accusation. A heap of baking soda was no corroboration. Her initial misidentification of the seller cast grave doubt on the accuracy of her information. And this was part of a pattern: of fifty persons she reported to Oliver as trafficking in drugs, none was successfully prosecuted for any crime. In the case of 'Albright,' Oliver should have suspected that Moore had bought cocaine either from she knew not whom or from someone she was afraid to snitch on (remember that she had gone to work for Oliver in the first place because she was being threatened by a man to whom she owed money for previous purchases of cocaine), that she had consumed it and replaced it with baking soda, and that she had then picked a name from the phone book at random. The fact that she used her informant's reward to buy cocaine makes this hypothesis all the more plausible. An arrest is a serious business. To arrest a person on the scanty grounds that are alleged to be all that Oliver had to go on is shocking." 975 F. 2d 343, 345 (CA7 1992).
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