Opinion ID: 1730903
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: pre-gates law

Text: Prior to Gates, the United States Supreme Court established a probable cause analysis that came to be known as the  Aguilar-Spinelli two-prong test. This analysis was formulated in the decisions in Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964), and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969). At issue in Aguilar was the sufficiency of a search warrant affidavit which stated: Affiants have received reliable information from a credible person and do believe that heroin, marijuana, barbiturates and other narcotics and narcotic paraphernalia are being kept at the above described premises for the purpose of sale and use contrary to the provisions of the law. 378 U.S. at 109, 84 S.Ct. at 1511. The Court found the affidavit inadequate, reasoning: The vice in the present affidavit is at least as great as in Nathanson [ [2] ] and Giordenello. [ [3] ] Here the mere conclusion that petitioner possessed narcotics was not even that of the affiant himself; it was that of an unidentified informant. The affidavit here not only contains no affirmative allegation that the affiant spoke with personal knowledge of the matters contained therein, it does not even contain an affirmative allegation that the affiant's unidentified source spoke with personal knowledge. For all that appears, the source here merely suspected, believed or concluded that there were narcotics in petitioner's possession. The magistrate here certainly could not judge for himself the persuasiveness of the facts relied on ... to show probable cause. He necessarily accepted without question the informant's suspicion, belief or mere conclusion. Although an affidavit may be based on hearsay information and need not reflect the direct personal observations of the affiant, ... the magistrate must be informed of some of the underlying circumstances from which the informant concluded that the narcotics were where he claimed they were, and some of the underlying circumstances from which the officer concluded that the informant, whose identity need not be disclosed, ... was credible or his information reliable. Otherwise, the inferences from the facts which lead to the complaint will be drawn not by a neutral and detached magistrate, as the Constitution requires, but instead, by a police officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime, ... or, as in this case, by an unidentified informant. Id. at 113-15, 84 S.Ct. at 1513-14 (footnotes & citations omitted). This last quoted paragraph contains what became known as  Aguilar's two-pronged test. [4] Under the first or basis of knowledge prong of the Aguilar analysis, facts must be disclosed demonstrating the basis of a police informant's knowledge that evidence of crime would be found. Under the second, veracity prong, facts must be revealed which indicate either the credibility of the informant or the reliability of his information on the particular occasion. Thus, the second or veracity prong was said to have a credibility spur and a reliability spur. 1 Wayne R. Lafave, Search and Seizure § 3.3(a), at 613 (2d ed. 1987). Both prongs of the Aguilar test needed to be satisfied for a finding of probable cause.