Aguilar Two-prong VS Illinois V. Gates

Aguilar two-prong VS Illinois v. Gates

One of the things that can affect a criminal case is the process of gathering Evidence, especially the means in which that evidence is obtained. For many people the Fourth Amendment protect people from unlawful seizers/searches in their homes. But the Fourth Amendment does give a free pass to criminals to keep all their illegal activities in their house, a item called a Search Warrant which allows police search a home for evidence. In order for a search warrant to be signed the current information on the possible crime must be presented to a magistrate and probable cause has to be established for the warrant to be signed. But like all legality issues such as anonymous tips or hidden informants could sometimes not be submitted because of privacy or police wanting to protect their contacts. The problem with this in some law professionals is the ambiguity or unclear creditability of the source so that people with ill intentions cannot make frivolous claims. This is where the Aguilar two-prong test comes into play, its centralized goal here is that two requirements must be met for the magistrate to approve a search warrant from information obtained from an anonymous tip or confidential informant. These two guide lines are the magistrate must be informed of the reasons to support the conclusion that such an informant is reliable and credible.(Aguilar-Spinelli Test) The magistrate must be informed of some of the underlying circumstances relied on by the person providing the information.(Aguilar-Spinelli Test) This gave the Magistrate the ability to have to make a unbiased informed decision for probable cause to validate the search warrant. Majority of the Aguilar two-prog test requirements came from Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108 (1964) but a portion of it also came from the Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410 (1969) which said "that the magistrate must be informed of the "underlying circumstances from which the informant had concluded" that a crime had been committed".(Aguilar-Spinelli Test)

The Aguilar two-prong test plays a role in Illinois v. Gates because the manner in which the evidence was procured was affecting the case. Illinois v. Gates was a case where the Bloomingdale, Illinois got anonymous letter that gave detailed instructions talking about illegal activity and possible drug ties.( Illinois v. Gates 2011) The letter was extremely detailed about the business transactions and it also talked about future times to catch them. The police department brought this up to the Magistrate and he granted the search warrant. During the case the ruling of Spinelli v. United States came into play because, the affidavit did not provide enough evidence to establish probable cause, which made the evidence obtained unlawful. On top of that the ruling was upheld by both the Illinois Appellate Courts

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