Fried

An information charged defendants Gordon Barry Fried and Brian Donald Sellers with constructive possession of cocaine pursuant to Health and Safety Code section 11350, subdivision (a). The superior court granted their motions to set aside the information under Penal Code section 995, finding that the magistrate erred in conducting an in camera hearing to disclose the identity of a confidential informant without requiring the informant’s personal appearance at that proceeding. The People appeal. We reverse.

The evidence adduced at the preliminary hearing established that on or about November 19, 1987, Detective David Kempton of the Los Angeles Police Department received information by telephone from an unidentified informant that defendants were selling cocaine and marijuana from their home and that they “had been arrested for the same thing a couple of years ago.” Although he did not act immediately on that information, Kempton verified that defendants had been arrested on narcotic charges in 1986, and subsequently diverted. Some five days later, on November 24, 1987, he and several other officers proceeded to defendants’ residence for the ostensible purpose of serving…