Aguilar v. Texas
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
Illinois v. Gates replaced that federal probable-cause test with a totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry. Aguilar’s requirement that a magistrate receive facts supporting probable cause, rather than bare conclusions, remains relevant. The eight confirmed treatments are listed below: Gates, four limits involving identified or ordinary citizen informants, and three independent state constitutional choices to use Gates. Other states’ decisions retaining Aguilar under their own constitutions are approving treatment.
7,288 later cases cite Aguilar v. Texas; 294 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.
Relying on Aguilar v. Texas?
This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.
Treatments
Overruled
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The Supreme Court abandoned Aguilar’s rigid two-prong test for informant information and replaced it with a totality-of-the-circumstances probable-cause inquiry.
Illinois v. Gates · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
For all these reasons, we conclude that it is wiser to abandon the “two-pronged test” established by our decisions in Aguilar and Spinelli. In its place we reaffirm the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that traditionally has informed probable-cause determinations.
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Limited
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The Fifth Circuit held that Aguilar’s separate credibility-and-reliability showing does not extend to an identified bystander or victim-eyewitness.
United States v. Bell · Fifth Circuit · filed
It is now a well-settled and familiar concept, as enun-dated by Aguilar and Spinelli, that supporting affidavits in an application for a search warrant must attest to the credibility of an informant and the reliability of his information. See also United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971). We have discovered no case that extends this requirement to the identified bystander or victim-eyewitness to a crime, and we now hold that no such requirement need be met. … Thus we conclude that Aguilar and Spinelli requirements are limited to the informant situation only.
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The court confined the Aguilar-Spinelli requirement of a separate showing of informant reliability to professional informants, declining to require the same showing for ordinary victims or eyewitnesses.
United States v. Martin F. Burke · Second Circuit · filed
there has been a growing recognition that the language in Aguilar and Spinelli was addressed to the particular problem of professional informers and should not be applied in a wooden fashion to cases where the information comes from an alleged victim of or witness to a crime.
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The Michigan Court of Appeals held that the Aguilar-Spinelli test does not apply to ordinary citizens reporting medical services they personally received.
In Re Search Warrant on 5000 Northwind Drive · Michigan Court of Appeals · filed
The Aguilar-Spinelli test is inapplicable to information suppied by ordinary citizens. People v Fuller, 106 Mich App 263, 265; 307 NW2d 467 (1981). The informants were ordinary citizens who were in the best possible position to know whether Dr. Ahmed had indeed provided them with the services for which he billed Medicaid. No reason for deception on their part is apparent, and it is presumed that, had Dr. Ahmed provided them with the detailed treatment that he alleged, they would have known Dr. Ahmed by name and face.
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The Supreme Court of Oregon confined the Aguilar-Spinelli test to unnamed informants and held that Oregon statutory and constitutional law did not require it for named informants.
State v. Farrar · Supreme Court of Oregon · filed
The Aguilar and Spinelli cases both involved unnamed informants, and the test derived from their holdings applies only to affidavits based on hearsay statements from unnamed informants. … Where the information in the affidavit is provided by a named informant, as in the instant case, the Aguilar/Spinelli standard is not required by statute or by the Oregon Constitution.
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Declined to Follow
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The Florida court independently chose Gates and refused to apply Aguilar as part of Florida’s constitutional search protection before the 1983 amendments.
State v. Sanchez · Florida Third District Court of Appeal · filed
Although not required to follow Illinois v. Gates, supra, in interpreting Article I, Section 12 of the Florida Constitution (prior to the 1983 amendments), we choose to do so in this case because Florida courts have traditionally considered United States Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Fourth Amendment — here Illinois v. Gates, supra — “very persuasive” in interpreting the above-stated provision of the Florida Constitution. … We further reject the defendant’s contention that Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964) and Spi-nelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969) — overruled by Illinois v. Gates, supra — were ever part of the substantive law of Florida under Article I, Section. 12 of the Florida Constitution.
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The Supreme Court of Connecticut rejected Aguilar’s two prongs as independent, dispositive state constitutional tests and adopted a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis.
State v. Barton · Supreme Court of Connecticut · filed
Upon careful review of that determination, we agree with the conclusion of the United States Supreme Court in Gates that the two prongs of the Aguilar-Spinelli test are highly relevant evidentiary questions that a magistrate issuing the warrant must consider in deciding whether probable cause for a search or seizure exists, but that they are not wholly independent and dispositive constitutional tests for which de novo review exists at a suppression hearing. See Illinois v. Gates, supra, 230.
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The Supreme Court of Tennessee abandoned the Aguilar-Spinelli test for state constitutional probable cause and adopted Gates, overruling its own Jacumin decision.
State v. Tuttle · Supreme Court of Tennessee · filed
Having now reconsidered both tests, we conclude that the time has come to abandon the rigid Aguilar/Spinelli test and adopt the Gates totality-of-the- circumstances analysis. Overruling Jacumin and adopting the Gates totality-of-the-circumstances test is warranted for several reasons. First, the Aguilar/Spinelli test is often applied too rigidly.
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Does this case still carry your argument?
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