Exceptions to the Warrants Rule
Consent Searches
Bumper v. North Carolina (1968)
391 U.S. 543 (1968)
Vote: 7-2
Decision: Reversed and remanded
Plurality: Stewart, joined by Brennan, Douglas, Fortas, Harlan, Marshall, and Warren
Concurrence: Harlan
Dissent: Black
Dissent: White
MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner was brought to trial in a North Carolina court upon a charge of rape, an offense punishable in that State by death unless the jury recommends life imprisonment. Among the items of evidence introduced … was a .22-caliber rifle allegedly used in the commission of the crime. The jury found the petitioner guilty, but recommended a sentence of life imprisonment. The trial court-imposed that sentence, and the Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed the judgment. We granted certiorari to consider two separate constitutional claims pressed unsuccessfully by the petitioner. … First, the petitioner argues that his constitutional right to an impartial jury was violated in this capital case when the prosecution was permitted to challenge for cause all prospective jurors who stated that they were opposed to capital punishment or had conscientious scruples against imposing the death penalty. Secondly, the petitioner contends that the .22-caliber rifle introduced in evidence against him was obtained by the State in a search and seizure violative of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
In Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968), we have held that a death sentence cannot constitutionally be executed if imposed by a jury from which have been excluded for cause those who, without more, are opposed to capital punishment or have conscientious scruples against imposing the death penalty. Our decision in Witherspoon does not govern the present case, because here, the jury recommended a sentence of life imprisonment. … The petitioner adduced no evidence to support the claim that a jury selected as this one was is necessarily “prosecution prone,” and the materials referred to in his brief are no more substantial than those brought to our attention in Witherspoon. Accordingly, we decline to reverse the judgment of conviction upon this basis.
The petitioner lived with his grandmother, Mrs. Hattie Leath. … Two days after the alleged offense, but prior to the petitioner’s arrest, four white law enforcement officers … went to this house and found Mrs. Leath there. … She met the officers at the front door. One of them announced, “I have a search warrant to search your house.” Mrs. Leath responded, “Go ahead,” and opened the door. In the kitchen the officers found the rifle that was later introduced in evidence at the petitioner’s trial after a motion to suppress had been denied.
At the hearing on this motion, the prosecutor informed the court that he did not rely upon a warrant to justify the search, but upon the consent of Mrs. Leath. She testified at the hearing, stating, among other things: “Four of them came. I was busy about my work, and they walked into the house and one of them walked up and said, ‘I have a search warrant to search your house,’ and I walked out and told them to come on in. … He just told me he had a search warrant, but he didn’t read it to me. He did tell me he had a search warrant.”
” … He said he was the law and had a search warrant to search the house, why I thought he could go ahead. I believed he had a search warrant. I took him at his word. … ”
Upon the basis of Mrs. Leath’s testimony, the trial court found that she had given her consent to the search, and denied the motion to suppress. The Supreme Court of North Carolina approved the admission of the evidence on the same basis.
The issue thus presented is whether a search can be justified as lawful on the basis of consent when that “consent” has been given only after the official conducting the search has asserted that he possesses a warrant. We hold that there can be no consent under such circumstances.
When a prosecutor seeks to rely upon consent to justify the lawfulness of a search, he has the burden of proving that the consent was, in fact, freely and voluntarily given. This burden cannot be discharged by showing no more than acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority. A search conducted in reliance upon a warrant cannot later be justified on the basis of consent if it turns out that the warrant was invalid. The result can be no different when it turns out that the State does not even attempt to rely upon the validity of the warrant, or fails to show that there was, in fact, any warrant at all.
When a law enforcement officer claims authority to search a home under a warrant, he announces in effect that the occupant has no right to resist the search. The situation is instinct with coercion. … Where there is coercion, there cannot be consent.
We hold that Mrs. Leath did not consent to the search, and that it was constitutional error to admit the rifle in evidence against the petitioner. Because the rifle was plainly damaging evidence against the petitioner with respect to all three of the charges against him, its admission at the trial was not harmless error.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of North Carolina is, accordingly, reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK, dissenting.
This case, like Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968), decided today, was brought to this Court primarily to decide the question whether the constitutional rights of a criminal defendant are violated when prospective jurors who state they are opposed to capital punishment or who have conscientious scruples against imposing the death penalty are excluded for cause. As the Court in Witherspoon limited its holding to the question of punishment, and not of guilt, the jury issue became moot in this case. … Passing over the jury issue, the Court still reverses the conviction in this case and sends it back for a new trial on the ground that the rifle, which the record shows was used to shoot the victims, and which is held by the majority to have been obtained through an unconstitutional search and seizure, was admitted into evidence at petitioner’s trial. One of the reasons that I cannot agree with the Court’s reversal is because I believe the searching officers had valid permission to conduct their search. The facts surrounding the search are these: Petitioner had been raised by his grandmother, Mrs. Hattie Leath, with whom he was living at the time the rape and assaults were committed. Shortly after the victims were able to recount to the police what had happened to them, the county sheriff, with two of his deputies and a state police officer, went to Mrs. Leath’s house. One of the deputies went up on the porch of the house and stated to Mrs. Leath, who was standing inside the screen door, that he had a warrant to search her house. … Mrs. Leath’s immediate response, without mentioning anything about a warrant or asking to see it or read it or have it read to her, was to tell the deputy “to come on in.” At the trial, Mrs. Leath described her reaction to the visit of the law officers as follows:
“. … I let them search, and it was all my own free will. Nobody forced me at all.”
My study of the record in this case convinces me that Mrs. Leath voluntarily consented to this search, and in fact that she actually wanted the officers to search her house — to prove to them that she had nothing to hide. Mrs. Leath’s readiness to permit the search was the action of a person so conscious of her innocence, so proud of her own home, that she was not going to require a search warrant, thus indicating a doubt about the rectitude of her household. There are such people in this world of ours, and the evidence in this case causes me to believe Mrs. Leath is one of them. As she herself testified, “I just give them a free will to look, because I felt like the boy wasn’t guilty.”
Despite the statements of Mrs. Leath cited above, and despite the clear finding of consent by the trial judge, who personally saw and heard Mrs. Leath testify, this Court, refusing to accept Mrs. Leath’s sworn testimony that she did freely consent and, overruling the trial judge’s findings, concludes on its own that she did not consent. I do not believe the Court should substitute what it believes Mrs. Leath should have said for what she actually said — “it was all my own free will.” I cannot accept what I believe to be an unwarranted conclusion by the Court.
Florida v. Bostick (1991)
501 U.S. 429 (1991)
Vote: 6-3
Decision: Reversed and remanded
Majority: O’Connor, joined by Kennedy, Rehnquist, Scalia, Souter, and White
Dissent: Marshall, joined by Blackmun, and Stevens
Dissent: White
JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
We have held that the Fourth Amendment permits police officers to approach individuals at random in airport lobbies and other public places to ask them questions and to request consent to search their luggage, so long as a reasonable person would understand that he or she could refuse to cooperate. This case requires us to determine whether the same rule applies to police encounters that take place on a bus.
. …
In this case, two officers discovered cocaine when they searched a suitcase belonging to Terrance Bostick. The underlying facts of the search are in dispute, but the Florida Supreme Court, whose decision we review here, stated explicitly the factual premise for its decision:
“‘Two officers, complete with badges, insignia and one of them holding a recognizable zipper pouch, containing a pistol, boarded a bus bound from Miami to Atlanta during a stopover in Fort Lauderdale. Eyeing the passengers, the officers admittedly without articulable suspicion, picked out the defendant passenger and asked to inspect his ticket and identification. The ticket, from Miami to Atlanta, matched the defendant’s identification and both were immediately returned to him … [h]owever, the two police officers persisted, and explained their presence as narcotics agents on the lookout for illegal drugs. In pursuit of that aim, they then requested the defendant’s consent to search his luggage. Needless to say, there is a conflict in the evidence about whether the defendant consented to the search of the second bag in which the contraband was found and as to whether he was informed of his right to refuse consent. … ‘”
Two facts are particularly worth noting. First, the police specifically advised Bostick that he had the right to refuse consent. Bostick appears to have disputed the point, but, as the Florida Supreme Court noted explicitly, the trial court resolved this evidentiary conflict in the State’s favor. Second, at no time did the officers threaten Bostick with a gun. The Florida Supreme Court indicated that one officer carried a zipper pouch containing a pistol — the equivalent of carrying a gun in a holster — but the court did not suggest that the gun was ever removed from its pouch, pointed at Bostick, or otherwise used in a threatening manner. …
Bostick was arrested and charged with trafficking in cocaine. He moved to suppress the cocaine on the grounds that it had been seized in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The trial court denied the motion, but made no factual findings. Bostick subsequently entered a plea of guilty, but reserved the right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress.
The Florida District Court of Appeal affirmed, but considered the issue sufficiently important that it certified a question to the Florida Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reasoned that Bostick had been seized because a reasonable passenger in his situation would not have felt free to leave the bus to avoid questioning by the police. …
The sole issue presented for our review is whether a police encounter on a bus of the type described above necessarily constitutes a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The State concedes … that the officers lacked the reasonable suspicion required to justify a seizure and that, if a seizure took place, the drugs found in Bostick’s suitcase must be suppressed as tainted fruit.
Our cases make it clear that a seizure does not occur simply because a police officer approaches an individual and asks a few questions. So long as a reasonable person would feel free “to disregard the police and go about his business,” California v. Hodari D (1991), the encounter is consensual, and no reasonable suspicion is required. The encounter will not trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny unless it loses its consensual nature. The Court made precisely this point in Terry v. Ohio (1968):
“Obviously, not all personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves ‘seizures’ of persons. Only when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a ‘seizure’ has occurred.”
. …
There is no doubt that, if this same encounter had taken place before Bostick boarded the bus or in the lobby of the bus terminal, it would not rise to the level of a seizure. The Court has dealt with similar encounters in airports, and has found them to be “the sort of consensual encounter[s] that implicat[e] no Fourth Amendment interest.” Florida v. Rodriguez (1984). We have stated that even when officers have no basis for suspecting a particular individual, they may generally ask questions of that individual; ask to examine the individual’s identification; and request consent to search his or her luggage — as long as the police do not convey a message that compliance with their requests is required.
Bostick insists that this case is different because it took place in the cramped confines of a bus. … Bostick claims to find support in language from Michigan v. Chesternut (1988) … indicating that a seizure occurs when a reasonable person would believe that he or she is not “free to leave.” Bostick maintains that a reasonable bus passenger would not have felt free to leave under the circumstances of this case because there is nowhere to go on a bus. …
The Florida Supreme Court found this argument persuasive, so much so that it adopted a per se rule prohibiting the police from randomly boarding buses as a means of drug interdiction. The state court erred, however, in focusing on whether Bostick was “free to leave,” rather than on the principle that those words were intended to capture. …
Here, for example, the mere fact that Bostick did not feel free to leave the bus does not mean that the police seized him. Bostick was a passenger on a bus that was scheduled to depart. He would not have felt free to leave the bus even if the police had not been present. Bostick’s movements were “confined” in a sense, but this was the natural result of his decision to take the bus; it says nothing about whether or not the police conduct at issue was coercive.
In this respect, the Court’s decision in INS v. Delgado, supra, is dispositive. At issue there was the INS’ practice of visiting factories at random and questioning employees to determine whether any were illegal aliens. Several INS agents would stand near the building’s exits, while other agents walked through the factory questioning workers. The Court acknowledged that the workers may not have been free to leave their worksite, but explained that this was not the result of police activity:
“Ordinarily, when people are at work, their freedom to move about has been meaningfully restricted, not by the actions of law enforcement officials, but by the workers’ voluntary obligations to their employers.”
The present case is analytically indistinguishable from Delgado. Like the workers in that case, Bostick’s freedom of movement was restricted by a factor independent of police conduct — i.e., by his being a passenger on a bus. Accordingly, the “free to leave” analysis on which Bostick relies is inapplicable. In such a situation, the appropriate inquiry is whether a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. … We have said before that the crucial test is whether, taking into account all of the circumstances surrounding the encounter, the police conduct would “have communicated to a reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business.” Chesternut, supra. Where the encounter takes place is one factor, but it is not the only one. And, as the Solicitor General correctly observes, an individual may decline an officer’s request without fearing prosecution. …
. … Here, the facts recited by the Florida Supreme Court indicate that the officers did not point guns at Bostick or otherwise threaten him, and that they specifically advised Bostick that he could refuse consent.
Nevertheless, we refrain from deciding whether or not a seizure occurred in this case. The trial court made no express findings of fact, and the Florida Supreme Court rested its decision on a single fact — that the encounter took place on a bus — rather than on the totality of the circumstances. We remand so that the Florida courts may evaluate the seizure question under the correct legal standard. We do reject, however, Bostick’s argument that he must have been seized because no reasonable person would freely consent to a search of luggage that he or she knows contains drugs. This argument cannot prevail because the “reasonable person” test presupposes an innocent person.
… [T]his Court is not empowered to forbid law enforcement practices simply because it considers them distasteful. The Fourth Amendment proscribes unreasonable searches and seizures; it does not proscribe voluntary cooperation. The cramped confines of a bus are one relevant factor that should be considered in evaluating whether a passenger’s consent is voluntary. We cannot agree, however, with the Florida Supreme Court that this single factor will be dispositive in every case.
We adhere to the rule that, in order to determine whether a particular encounter constitutes a seizure, a court must consider all the circumstances surrounding the encounter to determine whether the police conduct would have communicated to a reasonable person that the person was not free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. That rule applies to encounters that take place on a city street or in an airport lobby, and it applies equally to encounters on a bus. The Florida Supreme Court erred in adopting a per se rule.
The judgment of the Florida Supreme Court is reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Stoner v. California (1964)
376 U.S. 483 (1964)
Vote: 8-1
Decision: Reversed
Majority: Stewart, joined by Black, Brennan, Clark, Douglas, Goldberg, Warren, and White
Concurrence/Dissent: Harlan
MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner was convicted of armed robbery after a jury trial in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, California. At the trial, several articles which had been found by police officers in a search of the petitioner’s hotel room during his absence were admitted into evidence over his objection. A District Court of Appeal of California affirmed the conviction, and the Supreme Court of California denied further review. We granted certiorari, limiting review “to the question of whether evidence was admitted which had been obtained by an unlawful search and seizure.” For the reasons which follow, we conclude that the petitioner’s conviction must be set aside.
The essential facts are not in dispute. On the night of October 25, 1960, the Budget Town Food Market … was robbed by two men, one of whom was described by eyewitnesses as carrying a gun and wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a grey jacket. Soon after the robbery, a checkbook belonging to the petitioner was found in an adjacent parking lot … [and] [t]wo of the stubs in the checkbook indicated that checks had been drawn to the order of the Mayfair Hotel in Pomona, California. Pursuing this lead, the officers learned from the Police Department of Pomona that the petitioner had a previous criminal record, and they obtained from the Pomona police a photograph of the petitioner. They showed the photograph to the two eyewitnesses to the robbery, who both stated that the picture looked like the man who had carried the gun. On the basis of this information, the officers went to the Mayfair Hotel in Pomona … on the night of October 27. They had neither search nor arrest warrants. There then transpired the following events, as later recounted by one of the officers:
“We approached the desk, the night clerk, and asked him if there was a party by the name of Joey L. Stoner living at the hotel. He checked his records and stated, ‘Yes, there is.’ And we asked him what room he was in. He stated he was in Room 404, but he was out at this time.”
“We asked him how he knew that he was out. He stated that the hotel regulations required that the key to the room would be placed in the mail box each time they left the hotel. The key was in the mail box, that he therefore knew he was out of the room.”
“We asked him if he would give us permission to enter the room, explaining our reasons for this.”
“Q. What reasons did you explain to the clerk?”
“A. We explained that we were there to make an arrest of a man who had possibly committed a robbery … and that we were concerned about the fact that he had a weapon. He stated ‘In this case, I will be more than happy to give you permission, and I will take you directly to the room.'”
“Q. Is that what the clerk told you?”
“A. Yes, sir.”
“Q. What else happened?”
“A. We left one detective in the lobby, and Detective Oliver, Officer Collins, and myself, along with the night clerk, got on the elevator and proceeded to the fourth floor, and went to Room 404. The night clerk placed a key in the lock, unlocked the door, and says, ‘Be my guest.'”
The officers entered, and made a thorough search of the room and its contents. They found a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a grey jacket in the room, and a .45-caliber automatic pistol with a clip and several cartridges. … The petitioner was arrested two days later in Las Vegas, Nevada. … The gun, the cartridges and clip, the horn-rimmed glasses, and the grey jacket were all used as evidence against him at his trial.
The search of the petitioner’s room by the police officers was conducted without a warrant of any kind, and it therefore “can survive constitutional inhibition only upon a showing that the surrounding facts brought it within one of the exceptions to the rule that a search must rest upon a search warrant. Jones v. United States (1958); United States v. Jeffers (1951).” The District Court of Appeal thought the search was justified as an incident to a lawful arrest. But a search can be incident to an arrest only if it is substantially contemporaneous with the arrest, and is confined to the immediate vicinity of the arrest.
Whatever room for leeway there may be in these concepts, it is clear that the search of the petitioner’s hotel room in Pomona, California, on October 27 was not incident to his arrest in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 29. The search was completely unrelated to the arrest, both as to time and as to place.
. … Accordingly, the respondent has made no argument that the search can be justified as an incident to the petitioner’s arrest. Instead, the argument is made that the search of the hotel room, although conducted without the petitioner’s consent, was lawful because it was conducted with the consent of the hotel clerk. We find this argument unpersuasive.
Even if it be assumed that a state law which gave a hotel proprietor blanket authority to authorize the police to search the rooms of the hotel’s guests could survive constitutional challenge, there is no intimation in the California cases cited by the respondent that California has any such law. Nor is there any substance to the claim that the search was reasonable because the police, relying upon the night clerk’s expressions of consent, had a reasonable basis for the belief that the clerk had authority to consent to the search. Our decisions make clear that the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment are not to be eroded by strained applications of the law of agency or by unrealistic doctrines of “apparent authority.”
. …
It is important to bear in mind that it was the petitioner’s constitutional right which was at stake here, and not the night clerk’s nor the hotel’s. It was a right, therefore, which only the petitioner could waive by word or deed, either directly or through an agent. It is true that the night clerk clearly and unambiguously consented to the search. But there is nothing in the record to indicate that the police had any basis whatsoever to believe that the night clerk had been authorized by the petitioner to permit the police to search the petitioner’s room.
At least twice this Court has explicitly refused to permit an otherwise unlawful police search of a hotel room to rest upon consent of the hotel proprietor. Lustig v. United States (1949); United States v. Jeffers (1951). In Lustig, the manager of a hotel allowed police to enter and search a room without a warrant in the occupant’s absence, and the search was held unconstitutional. In Jeffers, the assistant manager allowed a similar search, and that search was likewise held unconstitutional.
It is true, as was said in Jeffers, that, when a person engages a hotel room, he undoubtedly gives “implied or express permission” to “such persons as maids, janitors or repairmen” to enter his room “in the performance of their duties.” But the conduct of the night clerk and the police in the police in the present case was of an entirely different order. In a closely analogous situation, the Court has held that a search by police officers of a house occupied by a tenant invaded the tenant’s constitutional right, even though the search was authorized by the owner of the house, who presumably had not only apparent, but actual, authority to enter the house for some purposes, such as to “view waste.” Chapman v. United States (1961). The Court pointed out that the officers’ purpose in entering was not to view waste, but to search for distilling equipment, and concluded that to uphold such a search without a warrant would leave tenants’ homes secure only in the discretion of their landlords.
No less than a tenant of a house, or the occupant of a room in a boarding house, McDonald v. United States (1948), a guest in a hotel room is entitled to constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Johnson v. United States (1948). That protection would disappear if it were left to depend upon the unfettered discretion of an employee of the hotel.
It follows that this search without a warrant was unlawful. Since evidence obtained through the search was admitted at the trial, the judgment must be reversed.
It is so ordered.
United States v. Matlock (1974)
415 U.S. 164 (1974)
Vote: 6-3
Decision: Reversed and remanded
Majority: White, joined by Blackmun, Burger, Powell, Rehnquist, Stewart, and White
Dissent: Douglas
Dissent: Brennan, joined by Marshall
MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), the Court reaffirmed the principle that the search of property, without warrant and without probable cause, but with proper consent voluntarily given, is valid under the Fourth Amendment. The question now before us is whether the evidence presented by the United States with respect to the voluntary consent of a third party to search the living quarters of the respondent was legally sufficient to render the seized materials admissible in evidence at the respondent’s criminal trial.
Respondent Matlock was indicted in February, 1971, for the robbery of a federally insured bank in Wisconsin. … A week later, he filed a motion to suppress evidence seized by law enforcement officers from a home … in which he had been living. Suppression hearings followed. As found by the District Court … respondent was arrested in the yard in front of the … home on November 12, 1970. … Living in the home were … Mrs. Gayle Graff, Gayle’s three-year-old son, and respondent. Although the officers were aware at the time of the arrest that respondent lived in the house, they did not ask him which room he occupied or whether he would consent to a search. Three of the arresting officers went to the door of the house and were admitted by Mrs. Graff. … it was found that she consented voluntarily to the search of the house, including the east bedroom on the second floor which she said was jointly occupied by Matlock and herself. The east bedroom was searche[d], and the evidence at issue here, $4,995 in cash, was found in a diaper bag. … The issue came to be whether Mrs. Graff’s relationship to the east bedroom was sufficient to make her consent to the search valid against respondent Matlock.
The District Court ruled that, before the seized evidence could be admitted at trial, the Government had to prove, first, that it reasonably appeared to the searching officers, “just prior to the search, that facts exist which will render the consenter’s consent binding on the putative defendant,” and, second, that, “just prior to the search, facts do exist which render the consenter’s consent binding on the putative defendant.” … it was sufficient to show her authority to consent in her own right by reason of her relationship to the premises. The first requirement was held satisfied because of respondent’s presence in the yard of the house at the time of his arrest, because of Gayle Graff’s residence in the house for some time and her presence in the house just prior to the search, and because of her statement to the officers that she and the respondent occupied the east bedroom.
The District Court concluded, however, that the Government had failed to satisfy the second requirement and had not satisfactorily proved Mrs. Graff’s actual authority to consent to the search. … [T]he District Court held that, although Gayle Graff’s statements to the officers that she and the respondent occupied the east bedroom were admissible to prove the good faith belief of the officers, they were nevertheless extrajudicial statements inadmissible to prove the truth of the facts. … The same was true of Mrs. Graff’s additional statements to the officers later on November 12 that she and the respondent had been sleeping together in the east bedroom regularly … and that she and respondent shared the use of a dresser in the room. There was also testimony that both Gayle Graff and respondent … had made statements that they were wife and husband. These statements were deemed inadmissible to prove that respondent and Gayle Graff were married. … Having excluded these declarations, the District Court then concluded that the remaining evidence was insufficient to prove
“to a reasonable certainty, by the greater weight of the credible evidence, that, at the time of the search, and for some period of reasonable length theretofore, Gayle Graff and the defendant were living together in the east bedroom.”
The remaining evidence, briefly stated, was that Mrs. Graff and respondent had lived together … in Florida from April to August, 1970; that they lived at the Marshall home … from August to November 12, 1970; that they were several times seen going up or down stairs in the house together; and that the east bedroom, which respondent was shown to have rented from Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, contained evidence that it was also lived in by a man and a woman. The District Court thought these items of evidence created an “inference” or at least a “mild inference” that respondent and Gayle Graff at times slept together in the east bedroom, but it deemed them insufficient to satisfy the Government’s burden of proof. The District Court also rejected the Government’s claim that it was required to prove only that, at the time of the search, the officers could reasonably have concluded that Gayle Graff’s relationship to the east bedroom was sufficient to make her consent binding on respondent.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the District Court in all respects.
. …
It has been assumed by the parties and the courts below that the voluntary consent of any joint occupant of a residence to search the premises jointly occupied is valid against the co-occupant, permitting evidence discovered in the search to be used against him at a criminal trial. This basic proposition was accepted by the Seventh Circuit in this case … and has generally been applied in similar circumstances by other courts of appeals, and various state courts. This Court left open, in Amos v. United States (1921), the question whether a wife’s permission to search the residence in which she lived with her husband could “waive his constitutional rights,” but more recent authority here clearly indicates that the consent of one who possesses common authority over premises or effects is valid as against the absent, nonconsenting person. …
More generally, in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), we noted that our prior recognition of the constitutional validity of “third party consent” searches in cases like Frazier and Coolidge v. New Hampshire (1971), supported the view that a consent search is fundamentally different in nature from the waiver of a trial right. These cases at least make clear that, when the prosecution seeks to justify a warrantless search by proof of voluntary consent, it is not limited to proof that consent was given by the defendant, but may show that permission to search was obtained from a third party who possessed common authority over or other sufficient relationship to the premises or effects sought to be inspected. …
The District Court excluded from evidence at the suppression hearings, as inadmissible hearsay, the out-of-court statements of Mrs. Graff with respect to her and respondent’s joint occupancy and use of the east bedroom, as well as the evidence that both respondent and Mrs. Graff … had represented themselves as husband and wife. The Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling. Both courts were in error.
. …
There is, therefore, much to be said for the proposition that, in proceedings where the judge himself is considering the admissibility of evidence, the exclusionary rules, aside from rules of privilege, should not be applicable; and the judge should receive the evidence and give it such weight as his judgment and experience counsel. However that may be, certainly there should be no automatic rule against the reception of hearsay evidence in such proceedings, and it seems equally clear to us that the trial judge should not have excluded Mrs. Graff’s statements in the circumstances present here.
In the first place, the court was quite satisfied that the statements had, in fact, been made.
Second, there is nothing in the record to raise serious doubts about the truthfulness of the statements themselves. Mrs. Graff harbored no hostility or bias against respondent that might call her statements into question. Indeed, she testified on his behalf at the suppression hearings. Mrs. Graff responded to inquiry at the time of the search that she and respondent occupied the east bedroom together. A few minutes later, having led the officers to the bedroom, she stated that she and respondent shared the one dresser in the room and that the woman’s clothing in the room was hers. Later the same day, she stated to the officers that she and respondent had slept together regularly in the room, including the early morning of that very day. These statements were consistent with one another. They were also corroborated by other evidence received at the suppression hearings: Mrs. Graff and respondent had lived together in Florida for several months immediately prior to coming to Wisconsin, where they lived in the house in question and where they were seen going upstairs together in the evening; respondent was the tenant of the east bedroom, and that room bore every evidence that it was also occupied by a woman; respondent indicated in prior statements to various people that he and Mrs. Graff were husband and wife. Under these circumstances, there was no apparent reason for the judge to distrust the evidence and to exclude Mrs. Graff’s declarations from his own consideration for whatever they might be worth in resolving, one way or another, the issues raised at the suppression hearings.
If there is remaining doubt about the matter, it should be dispelled by another consideration: cohabitation out of wedlock would not seem to be a relationship that one would falsely confess. Respondent and Gayle Graff were not married, and cohabitation out of wedlock is a crime in the State of Wisconsin. Mrs. Graff’s statements were against her penal interest, and they carried their own indicia of reliability. This was sufficient in itself, we think, to warrant admitting them to evidence for consideration by the trial judge. …
It appears to us, given the admissibility of Mrs. Graff’s and respondent’s out-of-court statements, that the Government sustained its burden of proving by the preponderance of the evidence that Mrs. Graff’s voluntary consent to search the east bedroom was legally sufficient to warrant admitting into evidence the $4,995 found in the diaper bag. … The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals with directions to remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Georgia v. Randolph (2006)
547 U.S. 103 (2006)
Vote: 5-3
Decision: Affirmed
Majority: Souter, joined by Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Stevens
Not Participating: Alito
Concurrence: Stevens
Concurrence: Breyer
Dissent: Roberts, joined by Scalia
Dissent: Scalia
Dissent: Thomas
MR. JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Fourth Amendment recognizes a valid warrantless entry and search of premises when police obtain the voluntary consent of an occupant who shares, or is reasonably believed to share, authority over the area in common with a co-occupant who later objects to the use of evidence so obtained. The question here is whether such an evidentiary seizure is likewise lawful with the permission of one occupant when the other, who later seeks to suppress the evidence, is present at the scene and expressly refuses to consent. We hold that, in the circumstances here at issue, a physically present co-occupant’s stated refusal to permit entry prevails, rendering the warrantless search unreasonable and invalid as to him.
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On the morning of July 6, [Janet Randolph] complained to the police that after a domestic dispute her husband took their son away, and … told them that her husband was a cocaine user whose habit had caused financial troubles. … Shortly after the police arrived, Scott Randolph returned … denied cocaine use, and countered that it was in fact his wife who abused drugs and alcohol.
One of the officers, Sergeant Murray, went with Janet Randolph to reclaim the child … [who] also volunteered that there were “‘items of drug evidence’” in the house. Sergeant Murray asked Scott Randolph for permission to search the house, which he unequivocally refused.
The sergeant turned to Janet Randolph for consent to search, which she readily gave. She led the officer upstairs to a bedroom that she identified as Scott’s, where the sergeant noticed a section of a drinking straw with a powdery residue he suspected was cocaine. He then left the house to get an evidence bag from his car and to call the district attorney’s office, which instructed him to stop the search and apply for a warrant. When Sergeant Murray returned to the house, Janet Randolph withdrew her consent. The police took the straw to the police station, along with the Randolphs. After getting a search warrant, they returned to the house and seized further evidence of drug use, on the basis of which Scott Randolph was indicted for possession of cocaine.
He moved to suppress the evidence, as products of a warrantless search of his house unauthorized by his wife’s consent over his express refusal. The trial court denied the motion, ruling that Janet Randolph had common authority to consent to the search.
The Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed, and was itself sustained by the State Supreme Court, principally on the ground that “the consent to conduct a warrantless search of a residence given by one occupant is not valid in the face of the refusal of another occupant who is physically present at the scene to permit a warrantless search.”. … The State Supreme Court stressed that the officers in Matlock had not been “faced with the physical presence of joint occupants, with one consenting to the search and the other objecting.” It held that an individual who chooses to live with another assumes a risk no greater than “‘an inability to control access to the premises during [his] absence,’” and does not contemplate that his objection to a request to search commonly shared premises, if made, will be overlooked.
We granted certiorari to resolve a split of authority on whether one occupant may give law enforcement effective consent to search shared premises, as against a co-tenant who is present and states a refusal to permit the search. We now affirm.
To the Fourth Amendment rule ordinarily prohibiting the warrantless entry of a person’s house as unreasonable … one “jealously and carefully drawn” exception, Jones v. United States (1958), recognizes the validity of searches with the voluntary consent of an individual possessing authority. That person might be the householder against whom evidence is sought, Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), or a fellow occupant who shares common authority over property, when the suspect is absent, Matlock (1974), and the exception for consent extends even to entries and searches with the permission of a co-occupant whom the police reasonably, but erroneously, believe to possess shared authority as an occupant. None of our co-occupant consent-to-search cases, however, has presented the further fact of a second occupant physically present and refusing permission to search, and later moving to suppress evidence so obtained. The significance of such a refusal turns on the underpinnings of the co-occupant consent rule, as recognized since Matlock.
The defendant in that case was arrested in the yard of a house where he lived with Mrs. Graff … and was detained in a squad car parked nearby. When the police went to the door, Mrs. Graff admitted them and consented to a search of the house. In resolving the defendant’s objection to use of the evidence taken in the warrantless search, we said that “the consent of one who possesses common authority over premises or effects is valid as against the absent, nonconsenting person with whom that authority is shared.”
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The constant element in assessing Fourth Amendment reasonableness in the consent cases, then, is the great significance given to widely shared social expectations, which are naturally enough influenced by the law of property, but not controlled by its rules. … Matlock accordingly not only holds that a solitary co-inhabitant may sometimes consent to a search of shared premises, but stands for the proposition that the reasonableness of such a search is in significant part a function of commonly held understanding about the authority that co-inhabitants may exercise in ways that affect each other’s interests.
. … Although we have not dealt directly with the reasonableness of police entry in reliance on consent by one occupant subject to immediate challenge by another, we took a step toward the issue in an earlier case dealing with the Fourth Amendment rights of a social guest arrested at premises the police entered without a warrant or the benefit of any exception to the warrant requirement. Minnesota v. Olson (1990), held that overnight houseguests have a legitimate expectation of privacy in their temporary quarters because “it is unlikely that [the host] will admit someone who wants to see or meet with the guest over the objection of the guest.” If that customary expectation of courtesy or deference is a foundation of Fourth Amendment rights of a houseguest, it presumably should follow that an inhabitant of shared premises may claim at least as much, and it turns out that the co-inhabitant naturally has an even stronger claim.
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Since the co-tenant wishing to open the door to a third party has no recognized authority in law or social practice to prevail over a present and objecting co-tenant, his disputed invitation, without more, gives a police officer no better claim to reasonableness in entering than the officer would have in the absence of any consent at all. Accordingly, in the balancing of competing individual and governmental interests entailed by the bar to unreasonable searches, Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco (1967), the cooperative occupant’s invitation adds nothing to the government’s side to counter the force of an objecting individual’s claim to security against the government’s intrusion into his dwelling place. Since we hold to the “centuries-old principle of respect for the privacy of the home,” Wilson v. Layne (1999), “it is beyond dispute that the home is entitled to special protection as the center of the private lives of our people,” Minnesota v. Carter (1998) (Kennedy, J., concurring). We have, after all, lived our whole national history with an understanding of “the ancient adage that a man’s home is his castle [to the point that the poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown,” Miller v. United States (1958).
Disputed permission is thus no match for this central value of the Fourth Amendment, and the State’s other countervailing claims do not add up to outweigh it. …
… [N]othing in social custom or its reflection in private law argues for placing a higher value on delving into private premises to search for evidence in the face of disputed consent, than on requiring clear justification before the government searches private living quarters over a resident’s objection. We therefore hold that a warrantless search of a shared dwelling for evidence over the express refusal of consent by a physically present resident cannot be justified as reasonable as to him on the basis of consent given to the police by another resident.
There are two loose ends, the first being the explanation given in Matlock for the constitutional sufficiency of a co-tenant’s consent to enter and search: it “rests … on mutual use of the property by persons generally having joint access or control for most purposes, so that it is reasonable to recognize that any of the co-inhabitants has the right to permit the inspection in his own right … .” If Matlock’s co-tenant is giving permission “in his own right,” how can his “own right” be eliminated by another tenant’s objection? The answer appears in the very footnote from which the quoted statement is taken: the “right” to admit the police to which Matlock refers is not an enduring and enforceable ownership right as understood by the private law of property, but is instead the authority recognized by customary social usage as having a substantial bearing on Fourth Amendment reasonableness in specific circumstances. Thus, to ask whether the consenting tenant has the right to admit the police when a physically present fellow tenant objects is not to question whether some property right may be divested by the mere objection of another. It is, rather, the question whether customary social understanding accords the consenting tenant authority powerful enough to prevail over the co-tenant’s objection. The Matlock Court did not purport to answer this question … the Court described the co-tenant’s consent as good against “the absent, nonconsenting” resident.”
The second loose end is the significance of Matlock and Rodriguez after today’s decision. Although the Matlock defendant was not present with the opportunity to object, he was in a squad car not far away; the Rodriguez defendant was actually asleep in the apartment, and the police might have roused him with a knock on the door before they entered with only the consent of an apparent co-tenant. If those cases are not to be undercut by today’s holding, we have to admit that we are drawing a fine line; if a potential defendant with self-interest in objecting is in fact at the door and objects, the co-tenant’s permission does not suffice for a reasonable search. …
. … So long as there is no evidence that the police have removed the potentially objecting tenant from the entrance for the sake of avoiding a possible objection, there is practical value in the simple clarity of complementary rules, one recognizing the co-tenant’s permission when there is no fellow occupant on hand, the other according dispositive weight to the fellow occupant’s contrary indication when he expresses it. For the very reason that Rodriguez held it would be unjustifiably impractical to require the police to take affirmative steps to confirm the actual authority of a consenting individual whose authority was apparent, we think it would needlessly limit the capacity of the police to respond to ostensibly legitimate opportunities in the field if we were to hold that reasonableness required the police to take affirmative steps to find a potentially objecting co-tenant before acting on the permission they had already received. … The pragmatic decision to accept the simplicity of this line is, moreover, supported by the substantial number of instances in which suspects who are asked for permission to search actually consent, albeit imprudently, a fact that undercuts any argument that the police should try to locate a suspected inhabitant because his denial of consent would be a foregone conclusion.
This case invites a straightforward application of the rule that a physically present inhabitant’s express refusal of consent to a police search is dispositive as to him, regardless of the consent of a fellow occupant. Scott Randolph’s refusal is clear, and nothing in the record justifies the search on grounds independent of Janet Randolph’s consent. The State does not argue that she gave any indication to the police of a need for protection inside the house that might have justified entry into the portion of the premises where the police found the powdery straw (which, if lawfully seized, could have been used when attempting to establish probable cause for the warrant issued later). Nor does the State claim that the entry and search should be upheld under the rubric of exigent circumstances, owing to some apprehension by the police officers that Scott Randolph would destroy evidence of drug use before any warrant could be obtained.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Georgia is therefore affirmed.
It is so ordered.
