Case Citator › Spinelli v. United States

Spinelli v. United States

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Overruled in part
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
393 U.S. 410
Decided
Confirmed treatments
7
Flagged citations read
224 of 224
Citing cases (total)
6,222
Treatment dates
1971–2008
Overruled in part
A reviewed court has overruled part of this case’s holding. Spinelli v. United States is overruled in part. All 224 flagged citations have been read, and the seven confirmed treatments are listed below.
More on how this was screened

Illinois v. Gates abandoned Spinelli's rigid two-pronged probable-cause test in favor of a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis while retaining its underlying concern for informant trustworthiness. The other citing opinions either imposed narrower adverse treatments, applied Spinelli or state-law versions of its framework, rejected attacks on it, or merely reported Gates's act.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

6,222 later cases cite Spinelli v. United States; 224 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 Spinelli v. United States?

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 in part

  • The Supreme Court overruled Spinelli in part by abandoning its rigid two-pronged probable-cause test and replacing it with a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis.

    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.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Limited

  • The Second Circuit confined Spinelli's informant-reliability requirements to professional informers and declined to apply them woodenly to alleged victims or witnesses.

    United States v. Burke · Second Circuit · filed

    Apart from the question of the precise standing of Spinelli after United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 581-83, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971) (qualification of Spinelli by Chief Justice Burger in portion of opinion joined by Justices Black and Blackmun), 585-86, 91 S.Ct. 2075 (Justice Black would overrule both Aguilar and Spinelli; Justice Blackmun would overrule Spinelli), see United States v. Unger, 469 F.2d 1283, 1286 (7 Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 920, 93 S.Ct. 1546, 36 L.Ed.2d 313 (1973), 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.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Oregon Supreme Court confined the Aguilar-Spinelli standard to affidavits relying on unnamed informants.

    State v. Farrar · Oregon Supreme Court · 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. The express terms of ORS 133.545, which codified the Aguilar/Spinelli test, specifically limit its application to unnamed informants. ORS 133.545 does not apply to named informants.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Washington Court of Appeals declined to extend the Aguilar-Spinelli test from probable-cause determinations to the lower reasonable-suspicion standard governing Terry stops.

    State v. Lee · Washington Court of Appeals, Division One · filed

    For over 25 years, when determining whether police have a reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify an investigatory detention, or Terry stop, under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I, section 7 of our state constitution, courts have applied the totality of the circumstances test, rather than the Aguilar-Spinelli test.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Questioned

  • The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts questioned Spinelli's continuing validity on whether an affidavit must reveal the basis for the affiant's belief.

    Commonwealth v. Haefeli · Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts · filed

    We note that in any event the Spinelli decision is of questionable validity on this point in view of the United States Supreme Court’s later comments about that decision in United States v. Harris, 403 U. S. 573, 581-583, and concurring opinions, 585-586.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Declined to follow

  • The Supreme Court declined to follow Spinelli to the extent it barred a magistrate from considering an officer's knowledge of a suspect's reputation alongside other probable-cause information.

    United States v. Harris · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    We cannot conclude that a policeman’s knowledge of a suspect’s reputation- — something that policemen frequently know and a factor that impressed such a “legal technician” as Mr. Justice Frankfurter — is not a “practical consideration of everyday life” upon which an officer (or a magistrate) may properly rely in assessing the reliability of an informant’s tip. To the-extent that Spinelli prohibits the use of such probative information, it has no support in our prior cases, logic, or experience and we decline to apply it to preclude a magistrate from relying on a law enforcement officer’s knowledge ~of a suspect’s reputation.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals declined to retain Spinelli's stricter probable-cause test under the Oklahoma Constitution and instead adopted Gates's totality-of-the-circumstances test.

    Dixon v. State · Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals · filed

    Appellant claims that the Oklahoma Constitution compels us to follow the stricter test outlined by the Supreme Court in Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969), which was overruled by the Court in Gates. We disagree.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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