Respondent was arrested in his apartment and charged with
possession of illegal drugs, which the police had observed in plain
view and seized. The officers did not have an arrest or search
warrant, but gained entry to the apartment with the assistance of
Gail Fischer, who represented that the apartment was "our[s]" and
that she had clothes and furniture there, unlocked the door with
her key, and gave the officers permission to enter. The trial court
granted respondent's motion to suppress the seized evidence,
holding that at the time she consented to the entry Fischer did not
have common authority because she had moved out of the apartment.
The court also rejected the State's contention that, even if
Fischer did not have common authority, there was no Fourth
Amendment violation if the police
reasonably believed at
the time of their entry that she possessed the authority to
consent. The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed.
Held:
1. The record demonstrates that the State has not satisfied its
burden of proving that Fischer had "joint access or control for
most purposes" over respondent's apartment, as is required under
United States v. Matlock, 415 U.
S. 164,
415 U. S. 171,
n. 7, to establish "common authority." Pp.
497 U. S.
181-182.
2. A warrantless entry is valid when based upon the consent of a
third party whom the police, at the time of the entry, reasonably
believe to possess common authority over the premises, but who in
fact does not. Pp.
497 U. S.
182-189.
(a) Because the Appellate Court's opinion does not contain a
"plain statement" that its decision rests on an adequate and
independent state ground, it is subject to review by this Court.
See Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032,
463 U. S.
1040-1042. P.
497 U. S.
182.
(b) What respondent is assured by the Fourth Amendment is not
that no government search of his house will occur unless he
consents; but that no such search will occur that is
"unreasonable." As with the many other factual determinations that
must regularly be made by government agents in the Fourth Amendment
context, the "reasonableness" of a police determination of consent
to enter must be judged not by whether the police were correct in
their assessment, but by the objective
Page 497 U. S. 178
standard of whether the facts available at the moment would
warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that the
consenting party had authority over the premises. If not, then
warrantless entry without further inquiry is unlawful unless
authority actually exists. But if so, the search is valid.
Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483
reconciled. Pp.
497 U. S.
183-189.
(c) On remand, the appellate court must determine whether the
police reasonably believed that Fischer had authority to consent to
the entry into respondent's apartment. P.
497 U. S.
189.
177 Ill.App.3d 1154, 140 Ill.Dec. 583, 550 N.E.2d 65 (1989),
reversed and remanded.
SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
REHNQUIST, C.J., and WHITE, BLACKMUN, O'CONNOR, and KENNEDY, JJ.,
joined. MARSHALL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN
and STEVENS, JJ., joined,
post, p.
497 U. S.
189.
Page 497 U. S. 179
Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.
In
United States v. Matlock, 415 U.
S. 164 (1974), this Court reaffirmed that a warrantless
entry and search by law enforcement officers does not violate the
Fourth Amendment's proscription of "unreasonable searches and
seizures" if the officers have obtained the consent of a third
party who possesses common authority over the premises. The present
case presents an issue we expressly reserved in
Matlock, see
id. at
415 U. S. 177,
n. 14: whether a warrantless entry is valid when based upon the
consent of a third party whom the police, at the time of the entry,
reasonably believe to possess common authority over the premises,
but who in fact does not do so.
I
Respondent Edward Rodriguez was arrested in his apartment by law
enforcement officers and charged with possession of illegal drugs.
The police gained entry to the apartment with the consent and
assistance of Gail Fischer, who had lived there with respondent for
several months. The relevant facts leading to the arrest are as
follows .
On July 26, 1985, police were summoned to the residence of
Dorothy Jackson on South Wolcott in Chicago. They were met by Ms.
Jackson's daughter, Gail Fischer, who showed signs of a severe
beating. She told the officers that she had been assaulted by
respondent Edward Rodriguez earlier that day in an apartment on
South California. Fischer stated that Rodriguez was then asleep in
the apartment, and she consented to travel there with the police in
order to unlock the door with her key so that the officers could
enter and arrest him. During this conversation, Fischer several
times referred to the apartment on South California as "our"
apartment, and said that she had clothes and furniture there. It is
unclear whether she indicated that she currently lived at the
apartment, or only that she used to live there.
Page 497 U. S. 180
The police officers drove to the apartment on South California,
accompanied by Fischer. They did not obtain an arrest warrant for
Rodriguez, nor did they seek a search warrant for the apartment. At
the apartment, Fischer unlocked the door with her key and gave the
officers permission to enter. They moved through the door into the
living room, where they observed in plain view drug paraphernalia
and containers filled with white powder that they believed
(correctly, as later analysis showed) to be cocaine. They proceeded
to the bedroom, where they found Rodriguez asleep and discovered
additional containers of white powder in two open attache cases.
The officers arrested Rodriguez and seized the drugs and related
paraphernalia.
Rodriguez was charged with possession of a controlled substance
with intent to deliver. He moved to suppress all evidence seized at
the time of his arrest, claiming that Fischer had vacated the
apartment several weeks earlier and had no authority to consent to
the entry. The Cook County Circuit Court granted the motion,
holding that, at the time she consented to the entry, Fischer did
not have common authority over the apartment. The Court concluded
that Fischer was not a "usual resident," but rather an "infrequent
visitor" at the apartment on South California, based upon its
findings that Fischer's name was not on the lease, that she did not
contribute to the rent, that she was not allowed to invite others
to the apartment on her own, that she did not have access to the
apartment when respondent was away, and that she had moved some of
her possessions from the apartment. The Circuit Court also rejected
the State's contention that, even if Fischer did not possess common
authority over the premises, there was no Fourth Amendment
violation if the police reasonably believed at the time of their
entry that Fischer possessed the authority to consent.
The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed the Circuit Court in
all respects. The Illinois Supreme Court denied the State's
Petition for Leave to Appeal, 125 Ill. 2d 572, 537
Page 497 U. S. 181
N.E.2d 816 (1989), and we granted certiorari. 493 U.S. 932
(1989).
II
The Fourth Amendment generally prohibits the warrantless entry
of a person's home, whether to make an arrest or to search for
specific objects.
Payton v. New York, 445 U.
S. 573 (1980);
Johnson v. United States,
333 U. S. 10
(1948). The prohibition does not apply, however, to situations in
which voluntary consent has been obtained, either from the
individual whose property is searched,
see Schneckloth v.
Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218
(1973), or from a third party who possesses common authority over
the premises,
see United States v. Matlock, supra, 415
U.S. at
415 U. S. 171.
The State of Illinois contends that that exception applies in the
present case.
As we stated in
Matlock, 415 U.S. at
415 U. S. 171,
n. 7, "[c]ommon authority" rests "on mutual use of the property by
persons generally having joint access or control for most purposes
. . . ." The burden of establishing that common authority rests
upon the State. On the basis of this record, it is clear that
burden was not sustained. The evidence showed that, although
Fischer, with her two small children, had lived with Rodriguez
beginning in December, 1984, she had moved out on July 1, 1985,
almost a month before the search at issue here, and had gone to
live with her mother. She took her and her children's clothing with
her, though leaving behind some furniture and household effects.
During the period after July 1, she sometimes spent the night at
Rodriguez's apartment, but never invited her friends there and
never went there herself when he was not home. Her name was not on
the lease, nor did she contribute to the rent. She had a key to the
apartment, which she said at trial she had taken without
Rodriguez's knowledge (though she testified at the preliminary
hearing that Rodriguez had given her the key). On these facts, the
State has not established that, with respect to the South
California apartment, Fischer had
Page 497 U. S. 182
"joint access or control for most purposes." To the contrary,
the Appellate Court's determination of no common authority over the
apartment was obviously correct.
III
A
The State contends that, even if Fischer did not in fact have
authority to give consent, it suffices to validate the entry that
the law enforcement officers reasonably believed she did. Before
reaching the merits of that contention, we must consider a
jurisdictional objection: that the decision below rests on an
adequate and independent state ground. Respondent asserts that the
Illinois Constitution provides greater protection than is afforded
under the Fourth Amendment, and that the Appellate Court relied
upon this when it determined that a reasonable belief by the police
officers was insufficient.
When a state court decision is clearly based on state law that
is both adequate and independent, we will not review the decision.
Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032,
463 U. S.
1041 (1983). But when "a state court decision fairly
appears to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with
federal law," we require that it contain a "
plain statement'
that [it] rests upon adequate and independent state grounds,"
id. at 463 U. S.
1040, 463 U. S.
1042; otherwise,
"we will accept as the most reasonable explanation that the
state court decided the case the way it did because it believed
that federal law required it to do so."
Id. at
463 U. S.
1041. Here, the Appellate Court's opinion contains no
"plain statement" that its decision rests on state law. The opinion
does not rely on (or even mention) any specific provision of the
Illinois Constitution, nor even the Illinois Constitution
generally. Even the Illinois cases cited by the opinion rely upon
no constitutional provisions other than the Fourth and Fourteenth
Amendments of the United States Constitution. We conclude that the
Appellate Court of Illinois rested its decision on federal law.
Page 497 U. S. 183
B
On the merits of the issue, respondent asserts that permitting a
reasonable belief of common authority to validate an entry would
cause a defendant's Fourth Amendment rights to be "vicariously
waived." Brief for Respondent 32. We disagree.
We have been unyielding in our insistence that a defendant's
waiver of his trial rights cannot be given effect unless it is
"knowing" and "intelligent."
Colorado v. Spring,
479 U. S. 564,
479 U. S.
574-575 (1987);
Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.
S. 458 (1938). We would assuredly not permit, therefore,
evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment to be
introduced on the basis of a trial court's mere "reasonable belief"
-- derived from statements by unauthorized persons -- that the
defendant has waived his objection. But one must make a distinction
between, on the one hand, trial rights that derive from the
violation of constitutional guarantees and, on the other hand, the
nature of those constitutional guarantees themselves. As we said in
Schneckloth:
"There is a vast difference between those rights that protect a
fair criminal trial and the rights guaranteed under the Fourth
Amendment. Nothing, either in the purposes behind requiring a
'knowing' and 'intelligent' waiver of trial rights, or in the
practical application of such a requirement suggests that it ought
to be extended to the constitutional guarantee against unreasonable
searches and seizures."
412 U.S. at
412 U. S.
241.
What Rodriguez is assured by the trial right of the exclusionary
rule, where it applies, is that no evidence seized in violation of
the Fourth Amendment will be introduced at his trial unless he
consents. What he is assured by the Fourth Amendment itself,
however, is not that no government search of his house will occur
unless he consents, but that no such search will occur that is
"unreasonable." U.S. Const., Amdt. 4. There are various elements,
of course,
Page 497 U. S. 184
that can make a search of a person's house "reasonable" -- one
of which is the consent of the person or his cotenant. The essence
of respondent's argument is that we should impose upon this element
a requirement that we have not imposed upon other elements that
regularly compel government officers to exercise judgment regarding
the facts: namely, the requirement that their judgment be not only
responsible, but correct.
The fundamental objective that alone validates all unconsented
government searches is, of course, the seizure of persons who have
committed or are about to commit crimes, or of evidence related to
crimes. But "reasonableness," with respect to this necessary
element, does not demand that the government be factually correct
in its assessment that that is what a search will produce. Warrants
need only be supported by "probable cause," which demands no more
than a proper "assessment of probabilities in particular factual
contexts. . . . "
Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.
S. 213,
462 U. S. 232
(1983). If a magistrate, based upon seemingly reliable but
factually inaccurate information, issues a warrant for the search
of a house in which the sought-after felon is not present, has
never been present, and was never likely to have been present, the
owner of that house suffers one of the inconveniences we all expose
ourselves to as the cost of living in a safe society; he does not
suffer a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Another element often, though not invariably, required in order
to render an unconsented search "reasonable" is, of course, that
the officer be authorized by a valid warrant. Here also we have not
held that "reasonableness" precludes error with respect to those
factual judgments that law enforcement officials are expected to
make. In
Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S.
79 (1987), a warrant supported by probable cause with
respect to one apartment was erroneously issued for an entire floor
that was divided (though not clearly) into two apartments. We
upheld the search of the apartment not properly covered by the
warrant. We said:
Page 497 U. S. 185
"[T]he validity of the search of respondent's apartment pursuant
to a warrant authorizing the search of the entire third floor
depends on whether the officers' failure to realize the overbreadth
of the warrant was objectively understandable and reasonable. Here
it unquestionably was. The objective facts available to the
officers at the time suggested no distinction between [the
suspect's] apartment and the third-floor premises."
Id. at
480 U. S.
88.
The ordinary requirement of a warrant is sometimes supplanted by
other elements that render the unconsented search "reasonable."
Here also we have not held that the Fourth Amendment requires
factual accuracy. A warrant is not needed, for example, where the
search is incident to an arrest. In
Hill v. California,
401 U. S. 797
(1971), we upheld a search incident to an arrest, even though the
arrest was made of the wrong person. We said:
"The upshot was that the officers in good faith believed Miller
was Hill and arrested him. They were quite wrong as it turned out,
and subjective good-faith belief would not in itself justify either
the arrest or the subsequent search. But sufficient probability,
not certainty, is the touchstone of reasonableness under the Fourth
Amendment, and, on the record before us, the officers' mistake was
understandable and the arrest a reasonable response to the
situation facing them at the time."
Id. at
401 U. S.
803-804.
It would be superfluous to multiply these examples. It is
apparent that, in order to satisfy the "reasonableness" requirement
of the Fourth Amendment, what is generally demanded of the many
factual determinations that must regularly be made by agents of the
government -- whether the magistrate issuing a warrant, the police
officer executing a warrant, or the police officer conducting a
search or seizure under one of the exceptions to the warrant
requirement -- is not that they always be correct, but that they
always be reasonable.
Page 497 U. S. 186
As we put it in
Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.
S. 160,
338 U. S. 176
(1949):
"Because many situations which confront officers in the course
of executing their duties are more or less ambiguous, room must be
allowed for some mistakes on their part. But the mistakes must be
those of reasonable men, acting on facts leading sensibly to their
conclusions of probability."
We see no reason to depart from this general rule with respect
to facts bearing upon the authority to consent to a search. Whether
the basis for such authority exists is the sort of recurring
factual question to which law enforcement officials must be
expected to apply their judgment, and all the Fourth Amendment
requires is that they answer it reasonably. The Constitution is no
more violated when officers enter without a warrant because they
reasonably (though erroneously) believe that the person who has
consented to their entry is a resident of the premises than it is
violated when they enter without a warrant because they reasonably
(though erroneously) believe they are in pursuit of a violent felon
who is about to escape.
See Archibald v. Mosel, 677 F.2d 5
(CA1 1982).
*
Page 497 U. S. 187
Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483
(1964), is in our view not to the contrary. There, in holding that
police had improperly entered the defendant's hotel room based on
the consent of a hotel clerk, we stated that "the rights protected
by the Fourth Amendment are not to be eroded . . . by unrealistic
doctrines of
apparent authority.'" Id. at 376 U. S. 488.
It is ambiguous, of course, whether the word "unrealistic" is
descriptive or limiting -- that is, whether we were condemning as
unrealistic all reliance upon apparent authority or whether we were
condemning only such reliance upon apparent authority as is
unrealistic. Similarly ambiguous is the opinion's earlier statement
that
"there [is no] 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."
Ibid. Was there no substance to it because it failed as
a matter of law, or because the facts could not possibly support
it? At one point the opinion does seem to speak clearly.
"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."
Id. at
376 U. S. 489.
But, as we have discussed, what is at issue when a claim of
apparent consent is raised is not whether the right to be free of
searches has been
waived, but whether the right to be free
of
unreasonable searches has been
violated. Even
if one does not think the
Stoner opinion had this subtlety
in mind, the supposed clarity of its foregoing statement is
immediately compromised, as follows:
Page 497 U. S. 188
"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."
Ibid. (emphasis added). The italicized language should
have been deleted, of course, if the statement two sentences
earlier meant that an appearance of authority could never validate
a search. In the last analysis, one must admit that the rationale
of
Stoner was ambiguous -- and perhaps deliberately so. It
is at least a reasonable reading of the case, and perhaps a
preferable one, that the police could not rely upon the obtained
consent because they knew it came from a hotel clerk, knew that the
room was rented and exclusively occupied by the defendant, and
could not reasonably have believed that the former had general
access to or control over the latter. Similarly ambiguous in its
implications (the Court's opinion does not even allude to, much
less discuss the effects of, "reasonable belief") is
Chapman v.
United States, 365 U. S. 610
(1961). In sum, we were correct in
Matlock, 415 U.S. at
415 U. S. 177,
n. 14, when we regarded the present issue as unresolved.
As
Stoner demonstrates, what we hold today does not
suggest that law enforcement officers may always accept a person's
invitation to enter premises. Even when the invitation is
accompanied by an explicit assertion that the person lives there,
the surrounding circumstances could conceivably be such that a
reasonable person would doubt its truth and not act upon it without
further inquiry. As with other factual determinations bearing upon
search and seizure, determination of consent to enter must "be
judged against an objective standard: would the facts available to
the officer at the moment . . .
warrant a man of reasonable
caution in the belief'" that the consenting party had authority
over the premises? Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S.
1, 392 U. S. 21-22
(1968). If not, then warrantless
Page 497 U. S. 189
entry without further inquiry is unlawful unless authority
actually exists. But if so, the search is valid.
"
* * * *"
In the present case, the Appellate Court found it unnecessary to
determine whether the officers reasonably believed that Fischer had
the authority to consent, because it ruled as a matter of law that
a reasonable belief could not validate the entry. Since we find
that ruling to be in error, we remand for consideration of that
question. The judgment of the Illinois Appellate Court is reversed
and remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this
opinion.
So ordered.
* Justice MARSHALL's dissent rests upon a rejection of the
proposition that searches pursuant to valid third-party consent are
"generally reasonable."
Post at
497 U. S. 196.
Only a warrant or exigent circumstances, he contends, can produce
"reasonableness"; consent validates the search only because the
object of the search thereby "limit[s] his expectation of privacy,"
post at
497 U. S. 198,
so that the search becomes not really a search at all. We see no
basis for making such an artificial distinction. To describe a
consented search as a non-invasion of privacy and thus a
non-search, is strange in the extreme. And while it must be
admitted that this ingenious device can explain why consented
searches are lawful, it cannot explain why seemingly consented
searches are "unreasonable," which is all that the Constitution
forbids.
See Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.
S. 648,
440 U. S.
653-654 (1979) ("[t]he essential purpose of the
proscriptions in the Fourth Amendment is to impose a standard of
reasonableness' upon the exercise of discretion by government
officials"). The only basis for contending that the constitutional
standard could not possibly have been met here is the argument that
reasonableness must be judged by the facts as they were, rather
than by the facts as they were known. As we have discussed in text,
that argument has long since been rejected.
Justice MARSHALL, with whom Justice BRENNAN and Justice STEVENS
join, dissenting.
Dorothy Jackson summoned police officers to her house to report
that her daughter, Gail Fischer, had been beaten. Fischer told
police that Ed Rodriguez, her boyfriend, was her assaulter. During
an interview with Fischer, one of the officers asked if Rodriguez
dealt in narcotics. Fischer did not respond. Fischer did agree,
however, to the officers' request to let them into Rodriguez's
apartment so that they could arrest him for battery. The police,
without a warrant and despite the absence of an exigency, entered
Rodriguez's home to arrest him. As a result of their entry, the
police discovered narcotics that the State subsequently sought to
introduce in a drug prosecution against Rodriguez.
The majority agrees with the Illinois Appellate Court's
determination that Fischer did not have authority to consent to the
officers' entry of Rodriguez's apartment.
Ante at
497 U. S.
181-182. The Court holds that the warrantless entry into
Rodriguez's home was nonetheless valid if the officers reasonably
believed that Fischer had authority to consent.
Ante this
page. The majority's defense of this position rests on a
misconception of the basis for third-party consent searches.
That
Page 497 U. S. 190
such searches do not give rise to claims of constitutional
violations rests not on the premise that they are "reasonable"
under the Fourth Amendment,
see ante at
497 U. S.
183-184, but on the premise that a person may
voluntarily limit his expectation of privacy by allowing others to
exercise authority over his possessions.
Cf. Katz v. United
States, 389 U. S. 347,
389 U. S. 351
(1967) ("What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his
home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection").
Thus, an individual's decision to permit another "joint access [to]
or control [over the property] for most purposes,"
United
States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164,
415 U. S. 171,
n. 7 (1974), limits that individual's reasonable expectation of
privacy and, to that extent, limits his Fourth Amendment
protections.
Cf. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.
S. 128,
439 U. S. 148
(1978) (because passenger in car lacked "legitimate expectation of
privacy in the glove compartment," Court did not decide whether
search would violate Fourth Amendment rights of someone who had
such expectation). If an individual has not so limited his
expectation of privacy, the police may not dispense with the
safeguards established by the Fourth Amendment.
The baseline for the reasonableness of a search or seizure in
the home is the presence of a warrant.
Skinner v. Railway Labor
Executives Assn., 489 U. S. 602
(1989). Indeed, "searches and seizures inside a home without a
warrant are presumptively unreasonable."
Payton v. New
York, 445 U. S. 573,
445 U. S. 586
(1980). Exceptions to the warrant requirement must therefore serve
"compelling" law enforcement goals.
Mincey v. Arizona,
437 U. S. 385,
437 U. S. 394
(1978). Because the sole law enforcement purpose underlying
third-party consent searches is avoiding the inconvenience of
securing a warrant, a departure from the warrant requirement is not
justified simply because an officer reasonably believes a third
party has consented to a search of the defendant's home. In holding
otherwise, the majority ignores our longstanding view that
"the informed and deliberate determinations
Page 497 U. S. 191
of magistrates . . . as to what searches and seizures are
permissible under the Constitution are to be preferred over the
hurried action of officers and others who may happen to make
arrests."
United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U.
S. 452,
285 U. S. 464
(1932).
I
The Fourth Amendment provides that "[t]he right of the people to
be secure in their . . . houses . . . shall not be violated." We
have recognized that the "physical entry of the home is the chief
evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is
directed."
United States v. United States District Court,
407 U. S. 297,
407 U. S. 313
(1972). We have further held that
"a search or seizure carried out on a suspect's premises without
a warrant is
per se unreasonable, unless the police can
show that it falls within one of a carefully defined set of
exceptions."
Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.
S. 443,
403 U. S. 474
(1971). Those exceptions must be crafted in light of the warrant
requirement's purposes. As this Court stated in
McDonald v.
United States, 335 U. S. 451
(1948):
"The presence of a search warrant serves a high function. Absent
some grave emergency, the Fourth Amendment has interposed a
magistrate between the citizen and the police. This was done not to
shield criminals nor to make the home a safe haven for illegal
activities. It was done so that an objective mind might weigh the
need to invade that privacy in order to enforce the law. The right
of privacy was deemed too precious to entrust to the discretion of
those whose job is the detection of crime and the arrest of
criminals."
Id. at
335 U. S.
455-456.
The Court has tolerated departures from the warrant requirement
only when an exigency makes a warrantless search imperative to the
safety of the police and of the community.
See, e.g., id.
at
335 U. S. 456
("We cannot be true to that
Page 497 U. S. 192
constitutional requirement and excuse the absence of a search
warrant without a showing by those who seek exemption from the
constitutional mandate that the exigencies of the situation made
that course imperative");
Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.
S. 294 (1967) (hot pursuit);
Chimel v.
California, 395 U. S. 752
(1969) (interest in officers' safety justifies search incident to
an arrest);
Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.
S. 499,
436 U. S. 509
(1978) ("compelling need for official action and no time to secure
a warrant" justifies warrantless entry of burning building). The
Court has often heard, and steadfastly rejected, the invitation to
carve out further exceptions to the warrant requirement for
searches of the home because of the burdens on police investigation
and prosecution of crime. Our rejection of such claims is not due
to a lack of appreciation of the difficulty and importance of
effective law enforcement, but rather to our firm commitment to
"the view of those who wrote the Bill of Rights that the privacy
of a person's home and property may not be totally sacrificed in
the name of maximum simplicity in enforcement of the criminal
law."
Mincey, supra, 437 U.S. at
437 U. S. 393
(citing
United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S.
1,
433 U. S. 6-11
(1977)).
In the absence of an exigency, then, warrantless home searches
and seizures are unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The
weighty constitutional interest in preventing unauthorized
intrusions into the home overrides any law enforcement interest in
relying on the reasonable but potentially mistaken belief that a
third party has authority to consent to such a search or seizure.
Indeed, as the present case illustrates, only the minimal interest
in avoiding the inconvenience of obtaining a warrant weighs in on
the law enforcement side.
Against this law enforcement interest in expediting arrests is
"the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free
from unreasonable governmental intrusion."
Silverman v. United
States, 365 U. S. 505,
365 U. S. 511
(1961). To be sure, in some cases in which police officers
reasonably rely on a
Page 497 U. S. 193
third party's consent, the consent will prove valid, no
intrusion will result, and the police will have been spared the
inconvenience of securing a warrant. But in other cases, such as
this one, the authority claimed by the third party will be false.
The reasonableness of police conduct must be measured in light of
the possibility that the target has not consented. Where
"[n]o reason is offered for not obtaining a search warrant
except the inconvenience to the officers and some slight delay
necessary to prepare papers and present the evidence to a
magistrate,"
the Constitution demands that the warrant procedure be observed.
Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S.
10,
333 U. S. 15
(1948). The concerns of expediting police work and avoiding
paperwork
"are never very convincing reasons and, in these circumstances,
certainly are not enough to by-pass the constitutional
requirement."
Ibid. In this case, as in
Johnson,
"[n]o suspect was fleeing or likely to take flight. The search
was of permanent premises, not of a movable vehicle. No evidence or
contraband was threatened with removal or destruction. . . . If the
officers in this case were excused from their constitutional duty
of presenting their evidence to a magistrate, it is difficult to
think of a case in which it should be required."
Ibid.
Unlike searches conducted pursuant to the recognized exceptions
to the warrant requirement,
see supra at
497 U. S.
191-192, third-party consent searches are not based on
an exigency, and therefore serve no compelling social goal. Police
officers, when faced with the choice of relying on consent by a
third party or securing a warrant, should secure a warrant, and
must therefore accept the risk of error should they instead choose
to rely on consent.
II
Our prior cases discussing searches based on third-party consent
have never suggested that such searches are "reasonable." In
United States v. Matlock, this Court upheld a warrantless
search conducted pursuant to the consent of a
Page 497 U. S. 194
third party who was living with the defendant. The Court
rejected the defendant's challenge to the search, stating that a
person who permits others to have "joint access or control for most
purposes . . . assume[s] the risk that [such persons] might permit
the common area to be searched." 415 U.S. at
415 U. S. 171,
n. 7;
see also Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.
S. 731,
394 U. S. 740
(1969) (holding that defendant who left a duffel bag at another's
house and allowed joint use of the bag "assumed the risk that [the
person] would allow someone else to look inside"). As the Court's
assumption-of-risk analysis makes clear, third-party consent limits
a person's ability to challenge the reasonableness of the search
only because that person voluntarily has relinquished some of his
expectation of privacy by sharing access or control over his
property with another person.
A search conducted pursuant to an officer's reasonable but
mistaken belief that a third party had authority to consent is thus
on an entirely different constitutional footing from one based on
the consent of a third party who in fact has such authority. Even
if the officers reasonably believed that Fischer had authority to
consent, she did not, and Rodriguez's expectation of privacy was
therefore undiminished. Rodriguez accordingly can challenge the
warrantless intrusion into his home as a violation of the Fourth
Amendment. This conclusion flows directly from
Stoner v.
California, 376 U. S. 483
(1964). There, the Court required the suppression of evidence
seized in reliance on a hotel clerk's consent to a warrantless
search of a guest's room. The Court reasoned that the guest's right
to be free of unwarranted intrusion "was a right . . . which only
[he] could waive by word or deed, either directly or through an
agent."
Id. at
376 U. S. 489.
Accordingly, the Court rejected resort to "unrealistic doctrines of
apparent authority'" as a means of upholding the search to
which the guest had not consented. Id. at 488. [Footnote 1]
Page 497 U. S. 195
III
Acknowledging that the third party in this case lacked authority
to consent, the majority seeks to rely on cases suggesting that
reasonable but mistaken factual judgments by police will not
invalidate otherwise reasonable searches. The majority reads these
cases as establishing a "general rule" that
"what is generally demanded of the many factual determinations
that must regularly be made by agents of the government -- whether
the magistrate issuing a warrant, the police officer executing a
warrant, or the police officer conducting a search or seizure under
one of the exceptions to the
Page 497 U. S. 196
warrant requirement -- is not that they always be correct, but
that they always be reasonable."
Ante at
497 U. S.
185-186.
The majority's assertion, however, is premised on the erroneous
assumption that third-party consent searches are generally
reasonable. The cases the majority cites thus provide no support
for its holding. In
Brinegar v. United States,
338 U. S. 160
(1949), for example, the Court confirmed the unremarkable
proposition that police need only probable cause, not absolute
certainty, to justify the arrest of a suspect on a highway. As
Brinegar makes clear, the possibility of factual error is
built into the probable cause standard, and such a standard, by its
very definition, will in some cases result in the arrest of a
suspect who has not actually committed a crime. Because probable
cause defines the reasonableness of searches and seizures outside
of the home, a search is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment
whenever that standard is met, notwithstanding the possibility of
"mistakes" on the part of police.
Id. at
497 U. S. 176.
In contrast, our cases have already struck the balance against
warrantless home intrusions in the absence of an exigency.
See
supra, at
497 U. S.
191-192. Because reasonable factual errors by law
enforcement officers will not validate unreasonable searches, the
reasonableness of the officer's mistaken belief that the third
party had authority to consent is irrelevant. [
Footnote 2]
Page 497 U. S. 197
The majority's reliance on
Maryland v. Garrison,
480 U. S. 79
(1987), is also misplaced. In
Garrison, the police
obtained a valid warrant for the search of the "third floor
apartment" of a building whose third floor in fact housed two
apartments.
Id. at
480 U. S. 80.
Although the police had probable cause to search only one of the
apartments, they entered both apartments because
"[t]he objective facts available to the officers at the time
suggested no distinction between [the apartment for which they
legitimately had the warrant and the entire third floor]."
Id. at
480 U. S. 88.
The Court held that the officers' reasonable mistake of fact did
not render the search unconstitutional.
Id. at
480 U. S. 88-89.
As in
Brinegar, the Court's decision was premised on the
general reasonableness of the type of police action involved.
Because searches based on warrants are generally reasonable, the
officers' reasonable mistake of fact did not render their search
"unreasonable." This reasoning is evident in the Court's conclusion
that little would be gained by adopting additional burdens
"over and above the bedrock requirement that, with the
exceptions we have traced in our cases, the police may conduct
searches only pursuant to a reasonably detailed warrant."
Garrison, supra, at
480 U. S. 89, n.
14.
Garrison, like
Brinegar, thus tells us nothing
about the reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment of a
warrantless arrest in the home based on an officer's reasonable but
mistaken belief that the third party consenting to the arrest was
empowered to do so. The majority's glib assertion that "[i]t would
be superfluous to multiply" its citations to cases like
Brinegar, Hill, and
Garrison, ante at
497 U. S. 185,
is thus correct, but for a reason entirely different than the
majority suggests. Those cases provide no illumination of the issue
raised in this case, and further citation to like cases would
be
Page 497 U. S. 198
as superfluous as the discussion on which the majority's
conclusion presently depends.
IV
Our cases demonstrate that third-party consent searches are free
from constitutional challenge only to the extent that they rest on
consent by a party empowered to do so. The majority's conclusion to
the contrary ignores the legitimate expectations of privacy on
which individuals are entitled to rely. That a person who allows
another joint access over his property thereby limits his
expectation of privacy does not justify trampling the rights of a
person who has not similarly relinquished any of his privacy
expectation.
Instead of judging the validity of consent searches, as we have
in the past, based on whether a defendant has in fact limited his
expectation of privacy, the Court today carves out an additional
exception to the warrant requirement for third-party consent
searches without pausing to consider whether
"'the exigencies of the situation' make the needs of law
enforcement so compelling that the warrantless search is
objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,"
Mincey, 437 U.S. at
437 U. S. 394
(citations omitted). Where this free-floating creation of
"reasonable" exceptions to the warrant requirement will end, now
that the Court has departed from the balancing approach that has
long been part of our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, is unclear.
But by allowing a person to be subjected to a warrantless search in
his home without his consent and without exigency, the majority has
taken away some of the liberty that the Fourth Amendment was
designed to protect.
[
Footnote 1]
The majority insists that the rationale of
Stoner is
"ambiguous -- and perhaps deliberately so" with respect to the
permissibility of third-party searches where the suspect has not
conferred actual authority on the third party.
Ante at
497 U. S. 188.
Stoner itself is clear, however; today's majority
manufactures the ambiguity. When the
Stoner Court stated
that the Fourth Amendment is not to be eroded "by unrealistic
doctrines of
apparent authority,'" 376 U.S. at 376 U. S. 488,
and that "only the petitioner could waive by word or deed" his
freedom from a warrantless search, id. at 376 U. S. 489,
the Court rejected precisely the proposition that the majority
today adopts.
The majority regards
Stoner's rejection of "unrealistic
doctrines of
apparent authority'" as ambiguous on the theory
that the Court might have been referring only to unreasonable
applications of such doctrines, and not to the doctrines
themselves. Ante at 497 U. S. 187.
But Stoner's express description of apparent authority
doctrines as unrealistic cannot be viewed as mere happenstance. The
Court in fact used the word "applications" in the same sentence to
refer to misapplications of the actual authority
doctrine:
"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.'"
376 U.S. at
376 U. S. 488
(emphasis added). The full sentence thus unambiguously confirms
that
Stoner rejected any reliance on
apparent
authority doctrines.
Nor did the
Stoner Court leave open the door for a
police officer to rely on a reasonable but mistaken belief in a
third party's authority to consent when it remarked that
"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."
Id. at
376 U. S. 489.
Stating that a defendant must "by word or deed" waive his rights,
ibid., is not inconsistent with noting that, in a
particular case, the absence of actual waiver is confirmed by the
police's inability to identify any basis for their contention that
waiver had indeed occurred.
[
Footnote 2]
The same analysis applies to
Hill v. California,
401 U. S. 797
(1971), where the Court upheld a search incident to an arrest in
which officers reasonably but mistakenly believed that the person
arrested in the defendant's home was the defendant. The Court
refused to disturb the state court's holding that
"'[w]hen the police have probable cause to arrest one party, and
when they reasonably mistake a second party for the first party,
then the arrest of the second party is a valid arrest.'"
Id. at
401 U. S. 802
(brackets in original) (quoting
People v.
Hill, 69 Cal. 2d
550, 553, 72 Cal. Rptr. 641, 643, 446 P.2d 521, 523 (1968)).
Given that the Court decided
Hill before the extension of
the warrant requirement to arrests in the home,
Payton v. New
York, 445 U. S. 573
(1980),
Hill should be understood no less than
Brinegar as simply a gloss on the meaning of "probable
cause." The holding in
Hill rested on the fact that the
police had probable cause to believe that Hill had committed a
crime. In such circumstances, the reasonableness of the arrest for
which the police had probable cause was not undermined by the
officers' factual mistake regarding the identity of the person
arrested.