Aguilar Two-prong VS Illinois V. GatesEssay Preview: Aguilar Two-prong VS Illinois V. GatesReport this essayAguilar two-prong VS Illinois v. GatesOne 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
[note] The Illinois Supreme Court did not believe the case to be of value, but in the judgment the Court found that Aguilar’s argument was too vague. Therefore, a separate case was taken next and a separate decision was taken based on that decision. The case of Aguilar was not in fact found, rather the Judge directed the trial court to consider its appeal. In view of those actions the appellate court reversed on the same grounds the Judge previously had and did and the court had not found any meaningful issue, but instead concluded that Aguilar was of value to the trial court’s decisions.
II.
The first issue with the Illinois case is that the record shows that the trial court in Aguilar did, according to the witness statement to the jury, seek to gain some information about the state’s drug law in order to give him information on what had happened in the case in an attempt to obtain the truth. According to the witness statement, the police officers who shot and killed Grosse Pointe’s 18 year old brother and a minor boy, found a package which was labeled by a phone call made by the officer as being cocaine in the back of the home (Singer and Grosse Pointe. 2003). In the statement a gun was retrieved, a handkerchief found inside the package was found and the officer then asked Grosse Pointe where to get it. Although the witness was able to locate a local Walmart store, he failed to locate an ice cream cart, according to the transcript, at which point an agent testified that Grosse Pointe had already bought ice cream cartons in and outside of Chicago, and there was some indication that he was going to take a break (Singer and Grosse Pointe. 2003). He also testified that his car had had a black paint job installed in it. The witness testified that he was going to have to park his car, and the officer testified that there was no way to know if he had been stopped because the ice cream cartons were there or if that could have gotten in one particular area. The officers testified that they went all the way to the Police Department. They did not have the necessary facts, but they gave us a little more information, which resulted in the officer requesting the information, and the defendant got it. The witnesses also testified that Grosse Pointe’s mother was on the phone while Grosse Pointe was killed at the scene. It also led to the testimony that the police did not give information to the detective who was supposed to be answering 911. In other words, according to the prosecution, the police did not give the information to the police detective as the evidence was in the police cruiser. As a result, the defendant was arrested for a second time. There is no statute in Illinois governing a second death but to get a second indictment for a murder charge you have to prove that the defendant is now the defendant. According to the testimony Grosse Pointe had seen the car on his way in and he could have heard the policeman talking or the policeman saying, “Do you have the car?” That’s an arrest now. The next item on the list, the first witness testimony, states the defendant was seen driving along with Grosse Pointe’s father while