Case Title: Glenn v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 070796

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2008-01-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
PRESENT:  All the Justices 
 
KEITH I. GLENN 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 OPINION BY 
v. Record Number 070796  
 
 
JUSTICE G. STEVEN AGEE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   January 11, 2008 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
Keith I. Glenn appeals from the judgment of the Court of 
Appeals of Virginia, which affirmed his convictions for robbery 
and conspiracy to commit robbery in violation of Code §§ 18.2-58 
and 18.2-22.  On appeal, Glenn contends the denial of his motion 
to suppress certain evidence obtained in a search of his 
grandfather's house was reversible error.  For the reasons set 
forth below, we will affirm the judgment of the Court of 
Appeals. 
I. RELEVANT FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW 
 
On January 8, 2004, a magistrate issued a warrant for 
Glenn’s arrest in relation to a robbery in the City of Colonial 
Heights.  The following day, officers of the Colonial Heights 
Police Department and the Sussex County Sheriff's Office 
attempted to execute the warrant at the address listed on the 
warrant.  The occupants of the residence at that address 
directed the officers to another location, the home of Glenn's 
grandparents.  Responding to the officers’ knock, Glenn answered 
the front door of his grandparents’ home and was immediately 
 
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arrested and advised of his Miranda rights.  The officers then 
entered the living room and asked Glenn's grandfather, Ernest 
Brooks, if he owned the home.  Brooks, unable to speak because 
of previous strokes, nodded in affirmation.  The officers 
similarly determined from Brooks that Glenn was living in the 
home but did not pay rent.  After obtaining this information, 
the officers asked Brooks for permission to search the house, 
which Brooks again granted with a nod of his head.1  The officers 
did not ask for Glenn’s consent, but he was detained in the 
living room with Brooks during the officers’ conversation and 
the subsequent search. 
 
After Brooks consented to the search of his house, Glenn 
identified to the officers the bedroom where Glenn slept.  The 
door to that room was open and unlocked.  An officer searched 
the room and found, among other things, three mattresses propped 
against a wall and boxes of women's clothing, but no evidence 
relating to the robbery.  As the officer left the room, he 
looked down the hallway, where a second bedroom was located.  
Glenn then stated, "Oh, yeah, I sleep in that bedroom as well."  
The officer then entered the second bedroom, which was also open 
and unlocked, and saw a pair of pants on the bed and a closed 
backpack on the floor.  The backpack had no outward indicia of 
                     
1 Glenn presents no challenge to the grandfather’s capacity 
to knowingly and intelligently grant voluntary consent for the 
search. 
 
3
ownership such as a nametag or monogram and had no locking 
device. 
The officer opened the backpack and discovered the robbery 
victim's cellular telephone and a wallet containing Glenn’s 
identification and $45.  Officers then escorted Glenn to the 
second bedroom where he identified the backpack as his own and 
volunteered that he found the cellular telephone on the ground 
in Colonial Heights.  Glenn remained “calm” throughout the 
search and did not protest the search of the rooms or any 
containers in those rooms.  
 
Prior to trial in the Circuit Court of the City of Colonial 
Heights, Glenn filed a motion to suppress the evidence found in 
the backpack, contending that neither his “grandfather nor any 
third party is capable to assent and/or waive” Glenn’s Fourth 
Amendment rights regarding his personal property in a closed 
container in his bedroom.  Glenn's grandmother testified at the 
hearing that Glenn lived in the home without paying rent, but 
that Glenn had keys to the home.  She further testified that she 
could enter the two rooms searched at any time and that the 
women's clothes found in Glenn's bedroom belonged to her.  
Glenn's grandmother also testified that the backpack belonged 
exclusively to Glenn and was never used by her or Brooks.  
 
The circuit court found that Brooks consented to the search 
of his house “without reservation or qualification” and that 
 
4
“[Glenn] was present at the search, observed the search and took 
no action to countermand his grandfather’s permission by 
advising the police that he objected to the search of that 
portion of the residence he later claimed he occupied.”  The 
circuit court then denied the motion to suppress.  Glenn 
subsequently entered a conditional guilty plea pursuant to Code 
§ 19.2-254, reserving his right to appeal the issues raised in 
his suppression motion.  The circuit court accepted the plea, 
found Glenn guilty, and sentenced him to seven years’ active 
incarceration. 
On appeal in the Court of Appeals, a divided panel of that 
court reversed his convictions, holding that the circuit court 
erred by not granting Glenn’s motion to suppress.  Glenn v. 
Commonwealth, 48 Va. App. 556, 563, 633 S.E.2d 205, 209 (2006).  
However, on rehearing en banc, Glenn's convictions were 
affirmed.  Glenn v. Commonwealth, 49 Va. App. 413, 416, 642 
S.E.2d 282, 283 (2007).  The court held that "the police 
officers had reasonable grounds to believe that the 
grandfather's consent to search his house included permission to 
open a backpack found on the floor in one of the rooms."  Id. at 
422, 642 S.E.2d at 286.  This conclusion was based in part on 
the fact that “[n]othing about the backpack itself put the 
officers on notice that Glenn claimed an exclusive privacy 
interest in it.”  Id. at 423, 642 S.E.2d at 286 (emphasis in 
 
5
original).  Although the police had no “positive knowledge that 
the closed container” was Brooks’, they did not have “reliable 
information that the container” was not under Brooks’ control.  
Id. at 420, 642 S.E.2d at 285.  The Court of Appeals also found 
support for its conclusion in the United States Supreme Court's 
decision in Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103 (2006), because 
Glenn was present at the time of the search, but failed to 
object.  We awarded Glenn this appeal. 
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW 
Appellate review of a trial court's denial of a defendant's 
motion to suppress is de novo when the defendant claims that the 
evidence sought to be suppressed was seized in violation of the 
Fourth Amendment.  Murphy v. Commonwealth, 264 Va. 568, 573, 570 
S.E.2d 836, 838 (2002).  In performing this review, we consider 
the evidence "in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth," 
McCain v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 483, 490, 545 S.E.2d 541, 545 
(2001), and "accord the Commonwealth the benefit of all 
inferences fairly deducible from the evidence."  Riner v. 
Commonwealth, 268 Va. 296, 303, 601 S.E.2d 555, 558 (2004); see 
also Burns v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 307, 313-14, 541 S.E.2d 872, 
877-78 (2001).  The defendant bears the burden of establishing 
that the denial of his suppression motion was reversible error.  
Murphy, 264 Va. at 573, 570 S.E.2d at 838. 
III. ANAYLSIS 
 
6
 
The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to 
be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against 
unreasonable searches and seizures.”  U.S. Const. amend. IV.  
Warrantless searches and seizures in a person's home are 
presumptively unreasonable.  Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 
586 (1980).  However, courts recognize exceptions to this 
general rule in several circumstances, including when a party 
voluntarily consents to the search.  Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 
412 U.S. 218, 219 (1973) (“It is . . . well settled that one of 
the specifically established exceptions to the requirements of 
. . . a warrant and probable cause is a search that is conducted 
pursuant to consent.”).  As in any Fourth Amendment review, the 
touchstone of our analysis is the reasonableness of the search 
under the circumstances.  E.g., United States v. Knights, 534 
U.S. 112, 118-19 (2001); Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 
185 (1990); Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 803-04 (1971)). 
Depending on the circumstances, a search may be deemed 
reasonable when conducted pursuant to voluntary consent offered 
not by the defendant himself but by a third party who shares 
access to the premises or object being searched with the 
defendant. 
The authority which justifies the third-party consent 
. . . rests . . . on mutual use of the property by 
persons generally having joint access or control for 
most purposes, so that it is reasonable to recognize 
that any of the co-inhabitants has the right to permit 
 
7
the inspection in his own right and that the others 
have assumed the risk that one of their number might 
permit the common area to be searched. 
 
United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 171 n.7 (1974); see also 
Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 245; Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 740 
(1969).   
Brooks, as the owner of the home, possessed the authority 
to consent to a search of his house, including a search of the 
rooms used by Glenn, a houseguest.  On appeal, Glenn does not 
challenge Brooks’ authority to consent to a search of the entire 
house, including the room in which the backpack was located.2  
Rather, Glenn contends the Court of Appeals and circuit court 
erred in denying the motion to suppress because the third party, 
Brooks, had no authority to give consent to a search of a closed 
container of Glenn’s personal property.  As the search of the 
fixed premises, the home, was proper, the issue before us is 
narrowed to whether there was a constitutionally valid consent 
for the search of a closed container within that house that the 
evidence later established belonged to Glenn rather than his 
grandfather.  In other words, regardless of Brooks’ authority to 
                     
2 See United States v. Block, 590 F.2d 535 (4th Cir. 1978), 
in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth 
Circuit determined that a mother "clearly had authority to 
permit inspection" of her son's bedroom because the son was "a 
mere guest occupant of the room in his mother's home, and the 
mother had the normal free access that heads of household 
commonly exercise in respect of the rooms of family member 
occupants."  Id. at 541. 
 
8
authorize the search of his house, did that authority extend to 
closed containers located therein? 
Although involving the search of an automobile and not a 
home, the Supreme Court enunciated basic Fourth Amendment 
principles applicable to the search of a closed container in the 
seminal case of United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798 (1982): 
A lawful search of fixed premises generally extends to 
the entire area in which the object of the search may 
be found and is not limited by the possibility that 
separate acts of entry or opening may be required to 
complete the search. . . .  When a legitimate search 
is under way . . . nice distinctions between closets, 
drawers, and containers, in the case of a home . . . 
must give way to the interest in the prompt and 
efficient completion of the task at hand. 
 
Id. at 820-21. 
 
In Rodriguez, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the 
search of an apartment when the officers incorrectly executed 
the search but acted with objective reasonableness based on the 
facts known to them at the time of the search. 
[I]n order to satisfy the reasonableness requirement 
of the Fourth Amendment, what is generally demanded of 
the many factual determinations that must regularly be 
made by . . . the police officer conducting a search 
or seizure under one of the exceptions to the warrant 
requirement [] is not that they always be correct, but 
that they always be reasonable. 
 
. . . . 
 
As with other factual determinations bearing upon 
search and seizure, determination of consent to enter 
must be judged against an objective standard:  would 
the facts available to the officer at the moment . . . 
 
9
warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that 
the consenting party had authority over the premises? 
 
Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 185, 188 (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 
1, 21-22 (1968) (internal quotation marks omitted). 
Glenn’s argument on appeal is essentially that any 
conclusion by the police that Brooks had the authority to 
consent to searching the backpack was objectively unreasonable 
as a matter of law.  This is so, Glenn argues, because the 
police had no specific or direct knowledge, at the time of the 
search, that the backpack either belonged to Brooks or that 
Brooks had access to it.  Glenn contends this is particularly 
relevant because he told the police that he used the room in 
which they found the backpack.  In Glenn’s view, even if Brooks 
did voluntarily consent to a search which included the backpack, 
that consent was a nullity because Brooks had no authority over 
that item. 
Glenn’s argument points to the distinction, recognized by 
the Court of Appeals, that a person authorizing a search by 
consent can be either a person with actual or apparent authority 
over the object of the search. 
A third party has actual authority to consent to 
a search if that third party has either (1) mutual use 
of the property by virtue of joint access, or (2) 
control for most purposes.  Even where actual 
authority is lacking, however, a third party has 
apparent authority to consent to a search when an 
officer reasonably, even if erroneously, believes the 
third party possesses authority to consent. 
 
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Whether apparent authority exists is an 
objective, totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry into 
whether the facts available to the officers at the 
time they commenced the search would lead a reasonable 
officer to believe the third party had authority to 
consent to the search. 
 
United States v. Andrus, 483 F.3d 711, 716-17 (10th Cir. 2007) 
(internal quotation marks and citations omitted).  Had Brooks 
been the only occupant of his residence, this distinction would 
be irrelevant.  However, because there were multiple occupants, 
each with his or her own potentially distinct privacy interests, 
the question of authority is directly relevant to the 
reasonableness of the police search. 
 
As the evidence at trial reflected, Brooks did not, in 
fact, have actual authority over the backpack.  But that 
determination of a lack of actual authority after the search is 
not dispositive of the reasonableness inquiry.  If the 
consenting party had the apparent authority to consent to the 
search, as it appeared to an objectively reasonable police 
officer, then the consent is valid for Fourth Amendment purposes 
as to another holder of a privacy interest in the object to be 
searched.  Andrus, 483 F.3d at 722.  In other words, if Brooks 
reasonably appeared to have the authority to consent to a search 
of the backpack, that apparent authority is sufficient to 
vitiate any Fourth Amendment claim by Glenn. 
 
11
Glenn is correct that the police did not affirmatively know 
that Brooks owned or used the backpack at the time of the 
search.  On the other hand, nothing in the record shows the 
police knew that Brooks did not own or use the backpack.  Had 
the backpack borne Glenn’s name or other identifying marks, or 
had the backpack been locked or secreted among possessions which 
were exclusively Glenn’s, there would likely be few 
circumstances where an objectively reasonable police officer 
could conclude Brooks had the authority to consent to a search 
of the bag.  However, none of those circumstances exist in this 
case.  In fact, the opposite is true.  The backpack bore no 
indicia of ownership, evidenced no limitations on access, had no 
characteristics that reflected a use by reason of age or gender, 
and was located in a place open to all occupants of the house. 
The circumstance facing the police officer who found the 
backpack in a room to which he was directed by Glenn, without 
any objection to a search of its contents, was whether Brooks’ 
consent to search reasonably included the bag.  We hold it was 
objectively reasonable for the police officer to conclude 
Brooks’ consent to search included the authority to consent to a 
search of the backpack. 
In reaching our decision, we are cognizant that some 
ambiguity attended the ownership and ability to access the 
backpack as the police officer seized and searched it.  As noted 
 
12
above, it bore no identifying indicia and could as logically 
have belonged to Brooks as it could to Glenn.  The backpack was 
located in a room that the police knew Glenn used, but which was 
also open to the grandparents.  The fact that evidence at the 
suppression hearing reflected that the backpack belonged to 
Glenn has no effect on determining the reasonableness of the 
grandfather’s apparent authority for the search at the time the 
police first found the backpack as none of those facts were 
known by the police at the time of the search. 
The question becomes whether the latent ambiguity about who 
could access the backpack renders a search unreasonable until 
all ambiguity is removed.  We find the Court of Appeals’ 
reference to the reasoning of the United States Court of Appeals 
for the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Melgar, 227 F.3d 
1038 (7th Cir. 2000), convincing.  That court’s analysis is 
instructive as that case also involved the authority to search a 
closed container belonging to a person other than the one who 
authorized a general search of the premises where the container 
was located. 
In Melgar, police obtained consent from Rita Velasquez to 
search the hotel room she rented.  At the time of the search, 
several other persons were in the room, including the defendant, 
Ms. Melgar.  Police found and searched a purse in the room which 
“had no personalized markings on the outside.”  The contents 
 
13
showed the purse belonged to Melgar and contained incriminating 
items that led to her arrest.  Melgar claimed her Fourth 
Amendment rights were violated because Velasquez had no 
authority to consent to a search of her purse.  Id. at 1040. 
Even though the police did not affirmatively know the purse 
belonged to Melgar at the time of the search, the court 
concluded it was not objectively unreasonable for the police to 
conclude that Velasquez, the renter of the room, had the 
authority to authorize not only a search of the room, but of the 
unmarked purse. 
[T]he real question for closed container searches is 
which way the risk of uncertainty should run.  Is such 
a search permissible only if the police have positive 
knowledge that the closed container is also under the 
authority of the person who originally consented to 
the search (Melgar’s view), or is it permissible if 
the police do not have reliable information that the 
container is not under the authorizer’s control.  We 
are not aware of any case that has taken the strict 
view represented by the first of these possibilities. 
 
. . . . 
 
[W]e conclude that the scope of [the renter’s] consent 
encompassed [a] right to look into this container. 
A contrary rule would impose an impossible burden 
on the police.  It would mean that they could never 
search closed containers within a dwelling (including 
hotel rooms) without asking the person whose consent 
is being given ex ante about every item they might 
encounter.  We note that there is no possibility of 
such a rule for automobile searches, because the 
Supreme Court has already authorized this type of 
container search in that context.  Our conclusion here 
rests in part on the discussion in Houghton that 
indicates that the container rule rests on general 
 
14
principles of Fourth Amendment law that do not depend 
on the special attributes of automobile searches. 
 
Id. at 1041 (citing Ross, 456 U.S. at 820-821 and Wyoming v. 
Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 302 (1999)) (emphasis in original). 
 
The rationale in Melgar reflects a correct balancing of the 
competing interests involved in determining the reasonableness 
of a search in a Fourth Amendment context.  Like the hotel room 
in Melgar, there was a valid consent to search the Brooks’ house 
in the case at bar.  It was as objectively reasonable for the 
police to believe Velasquez had the authority to authorize a 
search of the unmarked purse in her room as it was for the 
police to believe Brooks had the authority to consent to a 
search of the unmarked backpack in his house.  The police had no 
basis to believe that the backpack did not belong to Brooks or 
that he did not use it, just as they had no basis to believe the 
purse did not belong to Velasquez.  Contrary to Glenn’s 
implication that the police should infer the backpack was the 
possession of the younger person, nothing in the record as of 
the time of the search would support that inference.  To the 
contrary, it would be common knowledge that the elderly, such as 
the disabled grandfather, utilize backpacks or similar devices 
on their wheelchairs, walkers, or otherwise as an aid for their 
 
15
infirmities.3  It was no less likely for the police to reasonably 
conclude the unidentified, unlocked, backpack was as open to 
Brooks in his own house as it was to Glenn, the houseguest.  As 
did the court in Melgar, we conclude it was objectively 
reasonable for the police to conclude that the person consenting 
to the search of the premises, Brooks, appeared to have the 
authority to authorize the search of the backpack within the 
rooms open to him in his own home. 
 
Our conclusion is further bolstered by the recent decision 
of the United States Supreme Court in Georgia v. Randolph, 547 
U.S. 103 (2006).  While Randolph did not involve the search of a 
closed container, that case established important Fourth 
Amendment parameters in determining the reasonableness of 
consent to search where more than one person appears to have 
                     
3 Glenn’s citation to the decision of the Indiana Supreme 
Court in Krise v. State, 746 N.E.2d 957 (2001), does not support 
his position.  In that case, a boyfriend and girlfriend occupied 
the same apartment.  Police removed the girlfriend on an 
unrelated warrant and obtained consent from the boyfriend to 
search the apartment.  During the search, the police discovered 
a purse and seized contraband in it and charged the girlfriend 
with its possession.  The Indiana Supreme Court correctly held 
police could not have reasonably believed the boyfriend had the 
authority to consent to a search of the girlfriend’s purse.  “We 
also find that the [prosecution] failed to justify the search on 
the basis of apparent authority. At the time [the officer] 
decided to search Krise's purse, he knew that the handbag was a 
woman's purse and that Krise was the only woman living in the 
house.”  Id. at 971. 
 
No such identifying factor is present in the case at bar to 
affect the determination of the reasonableness of the appearance 
of Brooks’ authority to consent to a search of the backpack. 
 
16
some authority or reasonable expectation of privacy in the 
premises to be searched.  While Matlock had established that a 
co-occupant could grant voluntary consent to a search of 
premises over which she had material rights with an absent co-
occupant, Randolph verified such a consent was ineffective if 
the other co-occupant was indeed present and objected.  The 
Supreme Court then further explained that if the search is 
otherwise objectively reasonable, a potential objector who 
raises no objection to the search when he has the opportunity to 
do so “loses out.” 
[W]e have to admit that we are drawing a fine line; 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 invited 
to take part in the threshold colloquy, loses out. 
 
This is the line we draw, and we think the 
formalism is justified. . . .  [W]e think it would 
needlessly limit the capacity of the police to respond 
to ostensibly legitimate opportunities in the field if 
we were to hold that reasonableness required the 
police to take affirmative steps to find a potentially 
objecting co-tenant before acting on the permission 
they had already received. 
 
Id. at 121-22. 
 
The Supreme Court’s Randolph analysis aptly applies on the 
facts of this case.  Glenn could have objected to the search of 
either of the bedrooms, but failed to do so even though he was 
in conversation with the police officers before and during the 
search.  In fact, it was Glenn who directed the police to the 
 
17
bedroom in which the backpack was located, but without any hint 
of an objection to its being searched.4  Insomuch as Brooks’ 
apparent authority to consent to the search was otherwise 
objectively reasonable, Glenn “loses out” due to his failure to 
make any objection despite ample opportunity to do so.5 
IV. CONCLUSION 
The facts available to the officers at the time of the 
search of the Brooks house were sufficient to lead an 
objectively reasonable police officer to believe that Brooks had 
authority to consent to a search of the backpack.  Accordingly, 
there was no error in denying Glenn’s motion to suppress. 
We will therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of 
Appeals. 
Affirmed. 
                     
4 Cf. United States v. Jones, 356 F.3d 529, 534-35 (4th Cir. 
2004) (“[T]he scope of a consent search is not limited only to 
those areas or items for which specific verbal permission is 
granted. Consent may be supplied by non-verbal conduct as well. 
. . .  [The defendant] confirmed the propriety of the search by 
not objecting . . . .”). 
5 Glenn’s citation to Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91 
(1990), is without merit.  Olson stands for the proposition that 
a houseguest, like Glenn, has standing to raise a Fourth 
Amendment challenge to the search of his property within the 
premises where he has guest privileges.  Id. at 100.  Glenn’s 
standing is not at issue in this case; he clearly has standing 
to raise the Fourth Amendment issue he argues, notwithstanding 
any potential waiver of that argument under Randolph.  However, 
Glenn’s standing has no relevance to a decision on the merits as 
to whether it was objectively reasonable to conclude Brooks had 
apparent authority to consent to a search of the backpack.