Kilpatrick

Defendant appeals from a judgment rendered in a non-jury trial finding him guilty of violating Penal Code section 12220 (possession of a machine gun) and Penal Code section 12021 (ex-felon in possession of a concealable firearm).

The weapons which defendant was charged with possessing were discovered by law enforcement agents in an “attic type compartment” behind a bedroom wall panel during the search of a house leased and occupied by defendant in Torrance, California. (A list of the weapons is affixed as Appendix “A.”) The search was conducted by authority of a warrant directing a search for narcotics and dangerous drugs and which was issued on the strength of information provided by a confidential reliable informant. The defendant was named in the warrant. (That portion of the affidavit setting out the information given by the informant is affixed as Appendix "B.")

Defendant’s principal attack on the judgment of conviction is an assertion that the trial court erroneously refused to compel disclosure of the identity of the informant. Since the correctness of the trial court’s ruling turns on the informant’s status, or lack of it, as a material witness on the issue of…