Lee Edgar Sartain v. United States

Appellant stands convicted on four counts of an indictment charging him with violations of the federal narcotics laws, 21 U.S.C.A. § 174 and 26 U.S.C.A. § 4704 (a). He alleges the following as error: (1) the denial by the trial court of his motion for a bill of particulars, (2) the trial court’s failure to include on its own motion a special instruction respecting the credibility of a paid government witness, and (3) the refusal to' exclude from evidence certain narcotics discovered in appellant’s briefcase subsequent to his arrest.

The record reveals the following facts. On June 4, 1959, Honolulu police and federal agents were carrying on a narcotics investigation. On that day Officer Wray Straus of the Honolulu Police Department and Agent William H. Grady of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics met by prearrangement with one Eugene Wallace, a special government employee, on Kalakaua Street in Honolulu. The three men immediately adjourned to a nearby service station where Wallace was thoroughly searched and was found at that time to have no narcotics or money on his person. After he was thus searched, Wallace stepped across Kalakaua Street and entered a bar. Officer Straus and Agent…