District of Columbia v. M. E. K.

FERREN, Associate Judge:

This interlocutory government appeal presents one question: whether the government established probable cause based on an informant’s tip under the two-pronged test set forth in Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 114, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964), and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 413, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969). The informant’s “veracity” is uncontested. The motions judge found, however, that the “basis of knowledge” prong of the Aguilar-Spinelli test had not been met because the arresting officers, upon arriving at the scene, had not observed…