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certiorari to the supreme court of georgia

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

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.

No. 11–564. Argued October 31, 2012—Decided March 26, 2013

Police took a drug-sniffing dog to Jardines’ front porch, where the dog gave a positive alert for narcotics. Based on the alert, the officers obtained a warrant for a search, which revealed marijuana plants; Jardines was charged with trafficking in cannabis. The Supreme Court of Florida approved the trial court’s decision to suppress the evidence, holding that the officers had engaged in a Fourth Amendment search unsupported by probable cause. 

Held: The investigation of Jardines’ home was a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Pp. 3–10.

(a) When “the Government obtains information by physically intruding” on persons, houses, papers, or effects, “a ‘search’ within the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment” has “undoubtedly occurred.” United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. ___, ___, n. 3. Pp. 3–4. 

(b) At the Fourth Amendment’s “very core” stands “the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreason-able governmental intrusion.”  Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511. The area “immediately surrounding and associated with the home”—the curtilage—is “part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes.”  Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 180. The officers entered the curtilage here: The front porch is the classic exemplar of an area “to which the activity of home life extends.”  Id., at 182, n. 12. Pp. 4–5.

(c) The officers’ entry was not explicitly or implicitly invited. Offi-cers need not “shield their eyes” when passing by a home “on public thoroughfares,” California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213, but “no man can set his foot upon his neighbour’s close without his leave,” Entick v. Carrington, 2 Wils. K. B. 275, 291, 95 Eng. Rep. 807, 817. A police officer not armed with a warrant may approach a home in hopes of speaking to its occupants, because that is “no more than any private citizen might do.”  Kentucky v. King, 563 U. S. ___, ___. But the scope of a license is limited not only to a particular area but also to a specific purpose, and there is no customary invitation to enter the curtilage simply to conduct a search. Pp. 5–8.

(d) It is unnecessary to decide whether the officers violated Jardines’ expectation of privacy under Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347. Pp. 8–10. 

73 So. 3d 34, affirmed.

Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Thomas, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Kagan, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Ginsburg and Sotomayor, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy and Breyer, JJ., joined.

certiorari to the court of appeal of california, second appellate district

No. 12–7822. Argued November 13, 2013—Decided February 25, 2014

Police officers observed a suspect in a violent robbery run into an apartment building, and heard screams coming from one of the apartments. They knocked on the apartment door, which was answered by Roxanne Rojas, who appeared to be battered and bleeding. When the officers asked her to step out of the apartment so that they could conduct a protective sweep, petitioner came to the door and objected. Suspecting that he had assaulted Rojas, the officers removed petitioner from the apartment and placed him under arrest. He was then identified as the perpetrator in the earlier robbery and taken to the police station. An officer later returned to the apartment and, after obtaining Rojas’ oral and written consent, searched the premises, where he found several items linking petitioner to the robbery. The trial court denied petitioner’s motion to suppress that evidence, and he was convicted. The California Court of Appeal affirmed. It held that because petitioner was not present when Rojas consented to the search, the exception to permissible warrantless consent searches of jointly occupied premises that arises when one of the occupants present objects to the search, Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103, did not apply, and therefore, petitioner’s suppression motion had been properly denied.

Held: Randolph does not extend to this situation, where Rojas’ consent was provided well after petitioner had been removed from their apartment. Pp. 5–15.

(a) Consent searches are permissible warrantless searches, Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 228, 231–232, and are clearly reasonable when the consent comes from the sole occupant of the premises. When multiple occupants are involved, the rule extends to the search of the premises or effects of an absent, nonconsenting occupant so long as “the consent of one who possesses common authority over [the] premises or effects” is obtained.  United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 170. However, when “a physically present inhabitan[t]” refuses to consent, that refusal “is dispositive as to him, regardless of the consent of a fellow occupant.”  Randolph, 547 U. S., at 122–123. A controlling factor in Randolph was the objecting occupant’s physical presence. See, e.g., id., at 106, 108, 109, 114. Pp. 5–9.

(b) Petitioner contends that, though he was not present when Rojas consented, Randolph nevertheless controls, but neither of his arguments is sound. Pp. 9–14.

(1) He first argues that his absence should not matter since it occurred only because the police had taken him away. Dictum in Randolph suggesting that consent by one occupant might not be sufficient if “there is evidence that the police have removed the potentially objecting tenant from the entrance for the sake of avoiding a possible objection,” 547 U. S., at 121, is best understood to refer to situations in which the removal of the potential objector is not objectively reasonable. Petitioner does not contest the fact that the police had reasonable grounds for his removal or the existence of probable cause for his arrest. He was thus in the same position as an occupant absent for any other reason. Pp. 9–10.

(2) Petitioner also argues that the objection he made while at the threshold remained effective until he changed his mind and withdrew it. This is inconsistent with Randolph in at least two important ways. It cannot be squared with the “widely shared social expectations” or “customary social usage” upon which Randolph’s holding was based. 547 U. S., at 111, 121. It also creates the sort of practical complications that Randolph sought to avoid by adopting a “formalis[tic]” rule, id., at 121, e.g., requiring that the scope of an objection’s duration and the procedures necessary to register a continuing objection be defined. Pp. 10–14.

(c) Petitioner claims that his expansive interpretation of Randolph would not hamper law enforcement because in most cases where officers have probable cause to arrest a physically present objector they also have probable cause to obtain a warrant to search the premises that the objector does not want them to enter. But he misunderstands the constitutional status of consent searches, which are permissible irrespective of the availability of a warrant. Requiring officers to obtain a warrant when a warrantless search is justified may interfere with law enforcement strategies and impose an unmerited burden on the person willing to consent to an immediate search. Pp. 14–15.

208 Cal. App. 4th 100, 145 Cal. Rptr. 3d 51, affirmed.

Alito, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., and Thomas, J., filed concurring opinions. Ginsburg, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Sotomayor and Kagan, JJ., joined.

Syllabus

Police officers, armed with an arrest warrant but not a search warrant, were admitted to petitioner’s home by his wife, where they awaited petitioner’s arrival. When he entered, he was served with the warrant. Although he denied the officers’ request to “look around,” they conducted a search of the entire house “on the basis of the lawful arrest.” At petitioner’s trial on burglary charges, items taken from his home were admitted over objection that they had been unconstitutionally seized. His conviction was affirmed by the California appellate courts, which held, despite their acceptance of petitioner’s contention that the arrest warrant was invalid, that, since the arresting officers had procured the warrant “in good faith,” and since, in any event, they had had sufficient information to constitute probable cause for the arrest, the arrest was lawful. The courts also held that the search was justified as incident to a valid arrest.

Held: Assuming the arrest was valid, the warrantless search of petitioner’s house cannot be constitutionally justified as incident to that arrest. Pp.  395 U. S. 755-768.

(a) An arresting officer may search the arrestee’s person to discover and remove weapons and to seize evidence to prevent its concealment or destruction, and may search the area “within the immediate control” of the person arrested, meaning the area from which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence. Pp.  395 U. S. 762-763.

(b) For the routine search of rooms other than that in which an arrest occurs, or for searching desk drawers or other closed or concealed areas in that room itself, absent well recognized exceptions, a search warrant is required. P.  395 U. S. 763.

(c) While the reasonableness of a search incident to arrest depends upon “the facts and circumstances — the total atmosphere of the case,” those facts and circumstances must be viewed in the light of established Fourth Amendment principles, and the only reasoned distinction is one between (1) a search of the person arrested and the area within his reach, and (2) more extensive searches. Pp.  395 U. S. 765-766. 

Page 395 U. S. 753

(d) United Ste v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56, and Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145, on their facts, and insofar as the principles they stand for are inconsistent with this decision, are no longer to be followed. P.  395 U. S. 768.

(e) The scope of the search here was unreasonable under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, as it went beyond petitioner’s person and the area from within which he might have obtained a weapon or something that could have been used as evidence against him, and there was no constitutional justification, in the absence of a search warrant, for extending the search beyond that area. P.  395 U. S. 768.

68 Cal. 2d 436, 439 P.2d 333, reversed.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the first circuit

No. 20–157. Argued March 24, 2021—Decided May 17, 2021

During an argument with his wife, petitioner Edward Caniglia placed a handgun on the dining room table and asked his wife to “shoot [him] and get it over with.” His wife instead left the home and spent the night at a hotel. The next morning, she was unable to reach her husband by phone, so she called the police to request a welfare check. The responding officers accompanied Caniglia’s wife to the home, where they encountered Caniglia on the porch. The officers called an ambulance based on the belief that Caniglia posed a risk to himself or others. Caniglia agreed to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation on the condition that the officers not confiscate his firearms. But once Caniglia left, the officers located and seized his weapons. Caniglia sued, claiming that the officers had entered his home and seized him and his firearms without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment to the officers. The First Circuit affirmed, extrapolating from the Court’s decision in Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, a theory that the officers’ removal of Caniglia and his firearms from his home was justified by a “community caretaking exception” to the warrant requirement. 

Held: Neither the holding nor logic of Cady justifies such warrantless searches and seizures in the home. Cady held that a warrantless search of an impounded vehicle for an unsecured firearm did not violate the Fourth Amendment. In reaching this conclusion, the Court noted that the officers who patrol the “public highways” are often called to discharge noncriminal “community caretaking functions,” such as responding to disabled vehicles or investigating accidents. 413 U. S., at 441. But searches of vehicles and homes are constitutionally different, as the Cady opinion repeatedly stressed.  Id., at 439, 440–442. The very core of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee is the right of a person to retreat into his or her home and “there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.”  Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6. A recognition of the existence of “community caretaking” tasks, like rendering aid to motorists in disabled vehicles, is not an open-ended license to perform them anywhere. Pp. 3–4.

953 F.3d 112, vacated and remanded.

Thomas, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Roberts, C. J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Breyer, J., joined. Alito, J., and Kavanaugh, J., filed concurring opinions.