Facts
- A Dade County police officer overheard Enio Jimeno on a public telephone arranging what the officer believed was a drug transaction.
- The officer followed Jimeno’s car and stopped it after observing a traffic violation (turning right on red without stopping).
- At the stop, the officer stated he suspected Jimeno was carrying narcotics and asked for permission to search the car, advising that consent was not required.
- Jimeno said he had nothing to hide and gave general consent to search the automobile without expressing limits.
- During the search, the officer found a folded brown paper bag on the passenger-side floorboard, opened it, and discovered a kilogram of cocaine.
- Jimeno and a passenger were charged under state law with possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
Issues
- Whether a general consent to search an automobile, given after police state they are looking for narcotics, authorizes opening a closed container inside the car that might reasonably hold narcotics under the Fourth Amendment.
Decision
- The Supreme Court reversed the Florida Supreme Court and held the search did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
- The Court ruled it was objectively reasonable for the officer to understand Jimeno’s general consent to search the car for narcotics as including permission to open containers within the car that could contain narcotics.
- The Court rejected a rule requiring separate, container-by-container requests for consent when general consent to search a vehicle for drugs is given and not limited.
- The case was remanded; suppression of the cocaine was improper.
Legal Principles
- The Fourth Amendment consent-search inquiry turns on objective reasonableness: what a typical reasonable person would have understood from the exchange between the officer and the suspect.
- General, unqualified consent to search a vehicle for a stated object authorizes searching areas and containers within the vehicle where that object could reasonably be found.
- A person granting consent may limit or withdraw consent; absent express limits, officers may search within the reasonably understood scope of permission.
- The Constitution does not require police to obtain separate consent to open each closed container found during a consented-to vehicle search for contraband.
Conclusion
Because the officer told Jimeno he was searching for narcotics and Jimeno gave unqualified consent to search the car, it was objectively reasonable to treat that consent as extending to a paper bag on the floorboard that could hold drugs; opening it and seizing the cocaine was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.