## Facts

- John Joseph Price, Jr. sold methamphetamine to an undercover agent and avoided arrest for over two years.
- When arrested at work, a search incident to arrest found plastic bags with methamphetamine residue and pH papers associated with methamphetamine production.
- Officers went to Price’s home, where he lived with his common-law wife, Debbie Fischer, and requested consent to search for evidence of methamphetamine production.
- Fischer verbally consented to a search of the house and property; officers searched shared areas and a bedroom, finding glass pipes and a bag containing a chemical used in methamphetamine manufacturing.
- Fischer then told the officers to stop searching inside the house; the parties disputed whether her consent included the basement.
- Officers entered the basement by picking its lock and observed chemicals associated with methamphetamine production.
- Fischer refused to sign a written consent form; officers secured the premises and obtained a search warrant.
- Pursuant to the warrant, officers seized numerous methamphetamine-manufacturing items from the basement.
- Price was charged with methamphetamine manufacturing and possession offenses; he entered a conditional guilty plea preserving his right to appeal the partial denial of his suppression motion.

## Issues

1. Whether basement evidence should have been suppressed because officers exceeded or continued past the scope of a co-occupant’s consent and thereby tainted the later warrant.
2. Whether the government’s refusal to move for the additional one-level acceptance-of-responsibility reduction under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(b) was reviewable and reversible.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment.
- The court upheld denial of suppression as to the basement evidence because the later warrant provided an independent basis for seizure.
- The court found no “miscarriage of justice” in the government’s decision not to move for the § 3E1.1(b) additional one-level reduction and declined to compel the motion.

## Legal Principles

- A co-occupant with common authority may consent to a warrantless search of shared premises, but the search remains limited by the scope of consent and any revocation.
- Evidence need not be suppressed when it is ultimately obtained under a valid warrant that supplies an independent basis for the search and seizure, notwithstanding alleged earlier unlawful conduct.
- The government’s decision to move for the additional one-level reduction under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(b) is discretionary; absent unconstitutional motive or comparably improper grounds, courts generally will not override the refusal.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit held that the basement evidence was admissible because the subsequently obtained warrant independently supported the search and seizure, and it affirmed that the prosecution’s refusal to request the additional § 3E1.1(b) reduction was not subject to judicial compulsion on this record.


United States v. Price, 558 F.3d 270 (3d Cir. 2009)