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
- 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.