Georgia v. Randolph

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Contents 1 Title 2 Summary 3 Opinion 4 Concurring Opinions 4.1 Concurrence 1 4.2 Concurrence 2 5 Dissenting Opinions 5.1 Dissent 1 5.2 Dissent 2 5.3 Dissent 3 6 Footnotes

[edit] Title

GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

certiorari to the supreme court of georgia

No. 04-1067. Argued November 8, 2005--Decided March 22, 2006

[edit] Summary

Respondent's estranged wife gave police permission to search the marital residence for items of drug use after respondent, who was also present, had unequivocally refused to give consent. Respondent was indicted for possession of cocaine, and the trial court denied his motion to suppress the evidence as products of a warrantless search unauthorized by consent. The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed. In affirming, the State Supreme Court held that consent given by one occupant is not valid in the face of the refusal of another physically present occupant, and distinguished United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164, which recognized the permissibility of an entry made with the consent of one co-occupant in the other's absence.

Held: In the circumstances here at issue, a physically present co-occupant's stated refusal to permit entry renders warrantless entry and search unreasonable and invalid as to him. Pp. 4-19.

(a) The Fourth Amendment recognizes a valid warrantless entry and search of a premises when the police obtain the voluntary consent of an occupant who shares, or is reasonably believed to share, common authority over the property, and no present co-tenant objects. Matlock, supra, at 170; Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177, 186. The constant element in assessing Fourth Amendment reasonableness in such cases is the great significance given to widely shared social expectations, which are influenced by property law but not controlled by its rules. Thus, Matlock not only holds that a solitary co-inhabitant may sometimes consent to a search of shared premises, but also stands for the proposition that the reasonableness of such a search is in significant part a function of commonly held understandings about the authority that co-inhabitants may exercise in ways that affect each other's interests. Pp. 4-6.

(b) Matlock's example of common understanding is readily apparent. The assumption tenants usually make about their common authority when they share quarters is that any one of them may admit visitors, with the consequence that a guest obnoxious to one may be admitted in his absence. Matlock placed no burden on the police to eliminate the possibility of atypical arrangements, absent reason to doubt that the regular scheme was in place. Pp. 6-8.

(c) This Court took a step toward addressing the issue here when it held in Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U. S. 91, that overnight houseguests have a legitimate expectation of privacy in their temporary quarters. If that customary expectation is a foundation of a houseguest's Fourth Amendment rights, it should follow that an inhabitant of shared premises may claim at least as much. In fact, a co-inhabitant naturally has an even stronger claim. No sensible person would enter shared premises based on one occupant's invitation when a fellow tenant said to stay out. Such reticence would show not timidity but a realization that when people living together disagree over the use of their common quarters, a resolution must come through voluntary accommodation, not by appeals to authority. Absent some recognized hierarchy, e.g., parent and child, there is no societal or legal understanding of superior and inferior as between co-tenants. Pp. 8-10.

(d) Thus, a disputed invitation, without more, gives an officer no better claim to reasonableness in entering than the officer would have absent any consent. Disputed permission is no match for the Fourth Amendment central value of "respect for the privacy of the home," Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 610, and the State's other countervailing claims do not add up to outweigh it.

A co-tenant who has an interest in bringing criminal activity to light or in deflecting suspicion from himself can, e.g., tell the police what he knows, for use before a magistrate in getting a warrant. This case, which recognizes limits on evidentiary searches, has no bearing on the capacity of the police, at the invitation of one tenant, to enter a dwelling over another tenant's objection in order to protect a resident from domestic violence. Though alternatives to disputed consent will not always open the door to search for evidence that the police suspect is inside, nothing 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. Pp. 10-16.

(e) There are two loose ends. First, while Matlock's explanation for the constitutional sufficiency of a co-tenant's consent to enter and search recognized a co-inhabitant's "right to permit the inspection in his own right," 415 U. S., at 171, n. 7, the right to admit the police is not a right as understood under property law. It is, instead, the authority recognized by customary social usage as having a substantial bearing on Fourth Amendment reasonableness in specific circumstances. The question here is whether customary social understanding accords the consenting tenant authority to prevail over the co-tenant's objection, a question Matlock did not answer. Second, a fine line must be drawn to avoid undercutting Matlock--where the defendant, though not present, was in a squad car not far away--and Rodriguez--where the defendant was asleep in the apartment and could have been roused by a knock on the door; 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, whereas the potential objector, nearby but not part of the threshold colloquy, loses out. Such formalism is justified. So long as there is no evidence that the police have removed the potentially objecting tenant from the entrance specifically to avoid a possible objection, there is practical value in the simple clarity of complementary rules, one recognizing the co-tenant's permission when no fellow occupant is on hand, the other according dispositive weight to the fellow occupant's expressed contrary indication. Pp. 16-18.

(f) Here, respondent's refusal is clear, and nothing in the record justifies the search on grounds independent of his wife's consent. Pp. 18-19.

278 Ga. 614, 604 S. E. 2d 835, affirmed.

Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., and Breyer, J., filed concurring opinions. Roberts, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia, J., joined. Scalia, J., and Thomas, J., filed dissenting opinions. Alito, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

[edit] Opinion

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. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177 (1990); United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164 (1974). 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.

[edit] Concurring Opinions

[edit] Concurrence 1

Justice Stevens, concurring.

The study of history for the purpose of ascertaining the original understanding of constitutional provisions is much like the study of legislative history for the purpose of ascertaining the intent of the lawmakers who enact statutes. In both situations the facts uncovered by the study are usually relevant but not necessarily dispositive. This case illustrates why even the most dedicated adherent to an approach to constitutional interpretation that places primary reliance on the search for original understanding would recognize the relevance of changes in our society.

At least since 1604 it has been settled that in the absence of exigent circumstances, a government agent has no right to enter a "house" or "castle" unless authorized to do so by a valid warrant. See Semayne's Case, 5 Co. Rep. 91a, 77 Eng. Rep. 194 (K.B.). Every occupant of the home has a right--protected by the common law for centuries and by the Fourth Amendment since 1791--to refuse entry. When an occupant gives his or her consent to enter, he or she is waiving a valuable constitutional right. To be sure that the waiver is voluntary, it is sound practice--a practice some Justices of this Court thought necessary to make the waiver voluntary1--for the officer to advise the occupant of that right.^[1] The issue in this case relates to the content of the advice that the officer should provide when met at the door by a man and a woman who are apparently joint tenants or joint owners of the property.

In the 18th century, when the Fourth Amendment was adopted, the advice would have been quite different from what is appropriate today. Given the then-prevailing dramatic differences between the property rights of the husband and the far lesser rights of the wife, only the consent of the husband would matter. Whether "the master of the house" consented or objected, his decision would control. Thus if "original understanding" were to govern the outcome of this case, the search was clearly invalid because the husband did not consent. History, however, is not dispositive because it is now clear, as a matter of constitutional law, that the male and the female are equal partners. Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971).

In today's world the only advice that an officer could properly give should make it clear that each of the partners has a constitutional right that he or she may independently assert or waive. Assuming that both spouses are competent, neither one is a master possessing the power to override the other's constitutional right to deny entry to their castle.

With these observations, I join the Court's opinion.

[edit] Concurrence 2

Justice Breyer, concurring.

If Fourth Amendment law forced us to choose between two bright-line rules, (1) a rule that always found one tenant's consent sufficient to justify a search without a warrant and (2) a rule that never did, I believe we should choose the first. That is because, as The Chief Justice's dissent points out, a rule permitting such searches can serve important law enforcement needs (for example, in domestic abuse cases) and the consenting party's joint tenancy diminishes the objecting party's reasonable expectation of privacy.

But the Fourth Amendment does not insist upon bright-line rules. Rather, it recognizes that no single set of legal rules can capture the ever changing complexity of human life. It consequently uses the general terms "unreasonable searches and seizures." And this Court has continuously emphasized that "[r]easonableness ... is measured ... by examining the totality of the circumstances." Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U. S. 33, 39 (1996); see also Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U. S. 119, 136 (2000) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); Florida v. Bostick, 501 U. S. 429, 439 (1991); Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U. S. 567, 572-573 (1988); Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 506 (1983) (plurality opinion).

The circumstances here include the following: The search at issue was a search solely for evidence. The objecting party was present and made his objection known clearly and directly to the officers seeking to enter the house. The officers did not justify their search on grounds of possible evidence destruction. Cf. Thornton v. United States, 541 U. S. 615, 620-622 (2004); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 623 (1989); Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 770-771 (1966). And, as far as the record reveals, the officers might easily have secured the premises and sought a warrant permitting them to enter. See Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U. S. 326 (2001). Thus, the "totality of the circumstances" present here do not suffice to justify abandoning the Fourth Amendment's traditional hostility to police entry into a home without a warrant.

I stress the totality of the circumstances, however, because, were the circumstances to change significantly, so should the result. The Court's opinion does not apply where the objector is not present "and object[ing]." Ante, at 17.

Moreover, the risk of an ongoing crime or other exigent circumstance can make a critical difference. Consider,

for example, instances of domestic abuse. See ante, at 13. "Family disturbance calls . . . constitute the largest single category of calls received by police departments each year." Mederer & Gelles, Compassion or Control: Intervention in Cases of Wife Abuse, 4 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 25 (Mar. 1989) (emphasis deleted); see also, e.g., Office of the Attorney General, California Criminal Justice Statistics Center, Domestic Violence Related Calls for Assistance, 1987-2003, County by Year, http://ag.ca.gov/cjsc/publications/misc/dvsr/tabs/ 8703.pdf (as visited Mar. 1, 2006, and available in Clerk of Court's case file) (providing data showing that California police received an average of 207,848 domestic violence related calls each year); Cessato, Defenders Against Domestic Abuse, Washington Post, Aug. 25, 2002, p. B8 ("In the District [of Columbia], police report that almost half of roughly 39,000 violent crime calls received in 2000 involved domestic violence"); Zorza, Women Battering: High Costs and the State of the Law, Clearinghouse Review, p. 385 (Special Issue 1994) ("One-third of all police time is spent responding to domestic disturbance calls"). And, law enforcement officers must be able to respond effectively when confronted with the possibility of abuse.

If a possible abuse victim invites a responding officer to enter a home or consents to the officer's entry request, that invitation (or consent) itself could reflect the victim's fear about being left alone with an abuser. It could also indicate the availability of evidence, in the form of an immediate willingness to speak, that might not otherwise exist. In that context, an invitation (or consent) would provide a special reason for immediate, rather than later, police entry. And, entry following invitation or consent by one party ordinarily would be reasonable even in the face of direct objection by the other. That being so, contrary to the The Chief Justice's suggestion, post, at 13, today's decision will not adversely affect ordinary law enforcement practices.

Given the case-specific nature of the Court's holding, and with these understandings, I join the Court's holding and its opinion.

[edit] Dissenting Opinions

[edit] Dissent 1

Chief Justice Roberts, with whom Justice Scalia joins, dissenting.

The Court creates constitutional law by surmising what is typical when a social guest encounters an entirely atypical situation. The rule the majority fashions does not implement the high office of the Fourth Amendment to protect privacy, but instead provides protection on a random and happenstance basis, protecting, for example, a co-occupant who happens to be at the front door when the other occupant consents to a search, but not one napping or watching television in the next room. And the cost of affording such random protection is great, as demonstrated by the recurring cases in which abused spouses seek to authorize police entry into a home they share with a nonconsenting abuser.

The correct approach to the question presented is clearly mapped out in our precedents: The Fourth Amendment protects privacy. If an individual shares information, papers, or places with another, he assumes the risk that the other person will in turn share access to that information or those papers or places with the government. And just as an individual who has shared illegal plans or incriminating documents with another cannot interpose an objection when that other person turns the information over to the government, just because the individual happens to be present at the time, so too someone who shares a place with another cannot interpose an objection when that person decides to grant access to the police, simply because the objecting individual happens to be present.

A warrantless search is reasonable if police obtain the voluntary consent of a person authorized to give it. Co-occupants have "assumed the risk that one of their number might permit [a] common area to be searched." United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164, 171, n. 7 (1974). Just as Mrs. Randolph could walk upstairs, come down, and turn her husband's cocaine straw over to the police, she can consent to police entry and search of what is, after all, her home, too.

[edit] Dissent 2

Justice Scalia, dissenting.

I join the dissent of The Chief Justice, but add these few words in response to Justice Stevens' concurrence.

It is not as clear to me as it is to Justice Stevens that, at the time the Fourth Amendment was adopted, a police officer could enter a married woman's home over her objection, and could not enter with only her consent. Nor is it clear to me that the answers to these questions depended solely on who owned the house. It is entirely clear, however, that if the matter did depend solely on property rights, a latter-day alteration of property rights would also produce a latter-day alteration of the Fourth Amendment outcome--without altering the Fourth Amendment itself.

Justice Stevens' attempted critique of originalism confuses the original import of the Fourth Amendment with the background sources of law to which the Amendment, on its original meaning, referred. From the date of its ratification until well into the 20th century, violation of the Amendment was tied to common-law trespass. See Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 31-32 (2001); see also California v. Acevedo, 500 U. S. 565, 581, 583 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). On the basis of that connection, someone who had power to license the search of a house by a private party could authorize a police search. See 1 Restatement of Torts §167, and Comment b (1934); see also Williams v. Howard, 110 S. C. 82, 96 S. E. 251 (1918); Fennemore v. Armstrong, 29 Del. 35, 96 A. 204 (Super. Ct. 1915). The issue of who could give such consent generally depended, in turn, on "historical and legal refinements" of property law. United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164, 171, n. 7 (1974). As property law developed, individuals who previously could not authorize a search might become able to do so, and those who once could grant such consent might no longer have that power. But changes in the law of property to which the Fourth Amendment referred would not alter the Amendment's meaning: that anyone capable of authorizing a search by a private party could consent to a warrantless search by the police.

There is nothing new or surprising in the proposition that our unchanging Constitution refers to other bodies of law that might themselves change. The Fifth Amendment provides, for instance, that "private property" shall not "be taken for public use, without just compensation"; but it does not purport to define property rights. We have consistently held that "the existence of a property interest is determined by reference to 'existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law.' " Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 524 U. S. 156, 164 (1998) (quoting Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 577 (1972)). The same is true of the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause's protection of "property." See Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U. S. ___, ___ (2005). This reference to changeable law presents no problem for the originalist. No one supposes that the meaning of the Constitution changes as States expand and contract property rights. If it is indeed true, therefore, that a wife in 1791 could not authorize the search of her husband's house, the fact that current property law provides otherwise is no more troublesome for the originalist than the well established fact that a State must compensate its takings of even those property rights that did not exist at the time of the Founding.

In any event, Justice Stevens' panegyric to the equal rights of women under modern property law does not support his conclusion that "[a]ssuming ... both spouses are competent, neither one is a master possessing the power to override the other's constitutional right to deny entry to their castle." Ante, at 2-3. The issue at hand is what to do when there is a conflict between two equals. Now that women have authority to consent, as Justice Stevens claims men alone once did, it does not follow that the spouse who refuses consent should be the winner of the contest. Justice Stevens could just as well have followed the same historical developments to the opposite conclusion: Now that "the male and the female are equal partners," ante, at 2, and women can consent to a search of their property, men can no longer obstruct their wishes. Men and women are no more "equal" in the majority's regime, where both sexes can veto each other's consent, than on the dissent's view, where both sexes cannot.

Finally, I must express grave doubt that today's decision deserves Justice Stevens' celebration as part of the forward march of women's equality. Given the usual patterns of domestic violence, how often can police be expected to encounter the situation in which a man urges them to enter the home while a woman simultaneously demands that they stay out? The most common practical effect of today's decision, insofar as the contest between the sexes is concerned, is to give men the power to stop women from allowing police into their homes--which is, curiously enough, precisely the power that Justice Stevens disapprovingly presumes men had in 1791.

[edit] Dissent 3

Justice Thomas, dissenting.

The Court has long recognized that "[i]t is an act of responsible citizenship for individuals to give whatever information they may have to aid in law enforcement." Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 477-478 (1966). Consistent with this principle, the Court held in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443 (1971), that no Fourth Amendment search occurs where, as here, the spouse of an accused voluntarily leads the police to potential evidence of wrongdoing by the accused. Id., at 486-490. Because Coolidge squarely controls this case, the Court need not address whether police could permissibly have conducted a general search of the Randolph home, based on Mrs. Randolph's consent. I respectfully dissent.

In the instant case, Mrs. Randolph told police responding to a domestic dispute that respondent was using a substantial quantity of cocaine. Upon police request, she consented to a general search of her residence to investigate her statements. However, as the Court's recitation of the facts demonstrates, ante, at 2, the record is clear that no such general search occurred. Instead, Sergeant Brett Murray asked Mrs. Randolph where the cocaine was located, and she showed him to an upstairs bedroom, where he saw the "piece of cut straw" on a dresser. Corrected Tr. of Motion to Suppression Hearing in Case No. 2001R-699 (Super. Ct. Sumter Cty., Ga., Oct. 3, 2002), pp. 8-9. Upon closer examination, Sergeant Murray observed white residue on the straw, and concluded the straw had been used for ingesting cocaine. Id., at 8. He then collected the straw and the residue as evidence. Id., at 9.

Sergeant Murray's entry into the Randolphs' home at the invitation of Mrs. Randolph to be shown evidence of respondent's cocaine use does not constitute a Fourth Amendment search. Under this Court's precedents, only the action of an agent of the government can constitute a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, because that Amendment "was intended as a restraint upon the activities of sovereign authority, and was not intended to be a limitation upon other than governmental agencies." Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U. S. 465, 475 (1921) (emphasis added). See also Coolidge, 403 U. S., at 487. Applying this principle in Coolidge, the Court held that when a citizen leads police officers into a home shared with her spouse to show them evidence relevant to their investigation into a crime, that citizen is not acting as an agent of the police, and thus no Fourth Amendment search has occurred. Id., at 488-498.

Review of the facts in Coolidge clearly demonstrates that it governs this case. While the police interrogated Coolidge as part of their investigation into a murder, two other officers were sent to his house to speak with his wife. Id., at 485. During the course of questioning Mrs. Coolidge, the police asked whether her husband owned any guns. Id., at 486. Mrs. Coolidge replied in the affirmative, and offered to retrieve the weapons for the police, apparently operating under the assumption that doing so would help to exonerate her husband. Ibid. The police accompanied Mrs. Coolidge to the bedroom to collect the guns, as well as clothing that Mrs. Coolidge told them her husband had been wearing the night of the murder. Ibid.

Before this Court, Coolidge argued that the evidence of the guns and clothing should be suppressed as the product of an unlawful search because Mrs. Coolidge was acting as an " 'instrument,' " or agent, of the police by complying with a " 'demand' " made by them. Id., at 487. The Court recognized that, had Mrs. Coolidge sought out the guns to give to police wholly on her own initiative, "there can be no doubt under existing law that the articles would later have been admissible in evidence." Ibid. That she did so in cooperation with police pursuant to their request did not transform her into their agent; after all, "it is no part of the policy underlying the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to discourage citizens from aiding to the utmost of their ability in the apprehension of criminals." Id., at 488. Because the police were "acting normally and properly" when they asked about any guns, and questioning Mrs. Coolidge about the clothing was "logical and in no way coercive," the Fourth Amendment did not require police to "avert their eyes" when Mrs. Coolidge produced the guns and clothes for inspection.^[2] Id., at 488-489.

This case is indistinguishable from Coolidge, compelling the conclusion that Mrs. Randolph was not acting as an agent of the police when she admitted Sergeant Murray into her home and led him to the incriminating evidence.^[3] Just as Mrs. Coolidge could, of her own accord, have offered her husband's weapons and clothing to the police without implicating the Fourth Amendment, so too could Mrs. Randolph have simply retrieved the straw from the house and given it to Sergeant Murray. Indeed, the majority appears to concede as much. Ante, at 11-12 ("The co-tenant acting on his own initiative may be able to deliver evidence to the police, Coolidge, supra, at 487-489 ... , and can tell the police what he knows, for use before a magistrate in getting a warrant"). Drawing a constitutionally significant distinction between what occurred here and Mrs. Randolph's independent production of the relevant evidence is both inconsistent with Coolidge and unduly formalistic.^[4]

Accordingly, the trial court appropriately denied respondent's motion to suppress the evidence Mrs. Randolph provided to the police and the evidence obtained as a result of the consequent search warrant. I would therefore reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Georgia.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ↑ Such advice is surely preferable to an officer's expression of his or her desire to enter and to search in words that may be construed either as a command or a question. See id., at 275-276 (Douglas, J., dissenting) (noting that " '[u]nder many circumstances a reasonable person might read an officer's "May I" as the courteous expression of a demand backed by force of law.' " (quoting Bustamonte v. Schneckloth, 448 F. 2d 669, 701 (CA9 1971))).
2. ↑ Although the Court has described Coolidge as a "third-party consent" case, United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164, 171 (1974), the Court's opinion, by its own terms, does not rest on its conception of Mrs. Coolidge's authority to consent to a search of her house or the possible relevance of Mr. Coolidge's absence from the scene. Coolidge, 403 U. S., at 487 ("[W]e need not consider the petitioner's further argument that Mrs. Coolidge could not or did not 'waive' her husband's constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures"). See also Walter v. United States, 447 U. S. 649, 660-661, n. 2 (1980) (White, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) ("Similarly, in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, the Court held that a wife's voluntary action in turning over to police her husband's guns and clothing did not constitute a search and seizure by the government").
3. ↑ The Courts of Appeals have disagreed over the appropriate inquiry to be performed in determining whether involvement of the police transforms a private individual into an agent or instrument of the police. See United States v. Pervaz, 118 F. 3d 1, 5-6 (CA1 1997) (summarizing approaches of various Circuits). The similarity between this case and Coolidge avoids any need to resolve this broader dispute in the present case.
4. ↑ That Sergeant Murray, unlike the officers in Coolidge, may have intended to perform a general search of the house is inconsequential, as he ultimately did not do so; he viewed only those items shown to him by Mrs. Randolph. Nor is it relevant that, while Mrs. Coolidge intended to aid the police in apprehending a criminal because she believed doing so would exonerate her husband, Mrs. Randolph believed aiding the police would implicate her husband.