aguilar–spinelli test
Aguilar–Spinelli test (ah-gee-lahr spi-nel-ee orag-w[schwa]-lahr).Criminal procedure. A standard for de-termining whether hearsay (such as an informant’s tip) is sufficiently reliable to establish probable cause for an arrest or search warrant. • Under this two-pronged test — which has been replaced by a broader, totali-ty-of-the-circumstances approach — the reliability of both the information and the informant must be assessed independently. Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509 (1964); Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584 (1969). Cf. TOTALITY-OF-THE-CIRCUMSTANCES TEST. [Cases: Criminal Law 211(3); Searches and Seizures 118. C.J.S. Criminal Law §§ 330, 337; Searches and Seizures §§ 160–165, 167.]
