ABSTRACT
In Aguilar v. Texas, 378 US. 108, the US Supreme Court set forth a standard to assist magistrate judges responsible for issuing search warrants in determining whether "probable cause" exists as required by the Fourth Amendment. In Aguilar, the Court held that the affidavit accompanying the application for the warrant must contain information to enable the magistrate not only to understand the facts and circumstances that form the basis of the informant's knowledge, but also to make a determination as to the informant's credibility or reliability. Aguilar objected to the introduction of the evidence seized in the execution of the warrant, arguing that there had not been sufficient probable cause to support issuance of the warrant. The trial court overruled Aguilar's objection and sentenced him to twenty years in prison. The Aguilar-Spinelli test, as the probable-cause standard was called, was the standard for probable-cause determinations.
