◆ SpookStack

Nos. 77-1698, 77-1210 & 77-1870 65 defenses,”*! the “possible significance” of the informa- tion, and “the seriousness of the litigation.” Jd. at 771. The trial judge never attempted to apply the Roviaro balancing test or to determine whether disclosure was essential to a fair determination of plaintiffs’ cause of action. The judge, in fact, resisted plaintiffs’ efforts to develop a record on these issues. Ordinarily, we would remand the disclosure issue to the trial court for adjudication under the appropriate legal standards. In this case, however, enough evidence relevant to the validity of Groth’s assertion of informeér’s privilege has been amassed throughout the trial to make such a remand unnecessary. A considerable amount of evidence was introduced leading to the conclusion that either Groth did not have an informant and merely repeated information he had received from Jalovec in the affidavit for the warrant or that O’Neal was Groth’s informant as well as the ultimate source for Jalovec’s information. First, Groth had no record of payments to his informant since, according to Groth, the informant’s information was provided for advancement in other areas. Groth never elaborated what these incentives were. Further, the similarity of the content and the timing of the information received by Jalovec and Groth is striking: Each said that on December 2 his informant told him about the weapons, inhabitants and visitors to the apartment, the apart- ment’s layout, and the BPP meeting on December 3. And while, as the state defendants correctly indicate, this could mean simply that the reports provided by two different sources were corroborated, the fact that each report was similarly incorrect about the number of sawed-off shotguns in the apartment casts doubt on this explanation. Groth’s destruction of all the information he received from his informant, including the floorplan he allegedly constructed based on his informant’s descrip- tion of the apartment, also undermines Groth’s claim that he had an independent source. More importantly, Jalovec asked Mitchell after the raid if he cared 41 And, conversely, the relevance to the establishment of a cause of action.