In this state, it has been established for quite sometime that an investigating police officer can use hearsay declarations to explain to a jury the reasons why he/she approached a subject or visited a crime scene. The reason behind the rule is to establish that the acts of the police officer were not arbitrary or to explain post-investigation conduct. Thus, a police officer can testify that a tip from an informant precipitated the police officer’s decision to visit an address or to approach a specific suspect.  In the case that initially created this principle the court said, rather clearly, that this type of hearsay information should be preceded by the phrase "upon information received on not from a tip from an informant".  That court also said that it is improper to make a statement that suggests that the third-party source gave the officer evidence of the suspect’s guilt.

In a decision rendered this month, an appellate court was required to test the testimony of an investigating police officer involving the distribution of  drugs/CDS case, where the police officer testified that he came to the site because there were "numerous complaints from residents about open-air narcotics trafficking," and that he knew one of the actors because of "prior contacts in the community." The appellate court rejected defendant’s contention that these comments were improper. The panel concluded that the statements appeared to be innocence and were not conceived to create the suggestion of criminal activity or to imply that the actor was a criminal.