## Facts

- Police investigated a violent robbery and were directed to an apartment where the suspect was believed to be located.
- Officers approached the apartment after hearing sounds of fighting and screaming from inside.
- Roxanne Rojas answered the door holding a child and showed visible injuries consistent with a recent altercation.
- Officers sought to conduct a protective sweep; Walter Fernandez appeared at the door and objected to officers entering, asserting they had no right to come in.
- Officers removed Fernandez from the apartment and arrested him based on suspected domestic violence and, shortly thereafter, a robbery identification.
- About an hour later, an officer returned and obtained Rojas’s oral and written consent to search the apartment.
- The warrantless search uncovered items including gang-related materials, weapons, ammunition, clothing linked to the robbery, and a sawed-off shotgun.
- Fernandez moved to suppress the seized evidence, arguing his earlier objection made the consent search unconstitutional.

## Issues

1. Whether police may conduct a warrantless search of a jointly occupied residence based on one occupant’s consent after another occupant previously objected while present but was later lawfully removed for objectively reasonable purposes.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the denial of suppression and upheld the search.
- The Court held that a co-occupant’s prior objection does not bar a consent search when the objector is no longer physically present because he has been lawfully removed for objectively reasonable purposes (such as arrest).
- The Court treated the case as governed by the general co-occupant consent rule rather than the limited exception for a physically present, objecting occupant.

## Legal Principles

- A warrantless search is generally reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when voluntary consent is given by an occupant with common authority over the premises.
- The rule that an objecting co-occupant can block a consent search applies only when the objector is physically present and objecting at the time consent is sought.
- A prior objection does not create a continuing veto once the objector has been lawfully removed for objectively reasonable law-enforcement purposes.
- Fourth Amendment analysis in consent-search cases turns on reasonableness, including workable lines that do not require police to track or honor past objections after lawful removal.

## Conclusion

The Court held that when police lawfully remove an objecting co-occupant for objectively reasonable reasons, the remaining occupant’s consent authorizes a warrantless search, and the removed occupant’s earlier objection does not control.


Fernandez v. California, 571 U.S. 292 (2014)