Opinion ID: 575288
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motion to Suppress: Items Found in Mejia's House and Mejia's Own Statements

Text: 20 Mejia also contends that the evidence seized at his house and the statements he made must be suppressed because his wife's consent to enter the house was the direct product of an unlawful seizure, namely, the seizure of the contraband from the tractor trailers. Whatever might have been the merits of this contention, it, too, fails because the seizure of the contraband was not unlawful. 21 Mejia further contends that the evidence and statements from his house must be suppressed for other reasons. He argues that the scope of Cajigas's consent did not permit the officers to enter his bedroom. Alternatively, Mejia argues that the officers' presence in his bedroom constituted an illegal arrest, the fruits of which could not be admitted into evidence. Moreover, he argues that the government failed to prove that Mejia's subsequent consent to search the house was freely given. Each of these arguments is now considered. 22
23 Mejia correctly asserts that consent to enter one's threshold for the limited purpose of talking about an investigation does not include permission to enter a bedroom occupied by a sleeping spouse. Thus, Cajigas's invitation to enter the house did not, without more, give the officers permission to enter every room in the house. 24 However, once the officers were in the house, Cajigas gave a subsequent implied consent to let them enter the bedroom by not objecting when the officers followed her into the bedroom. Presumably, a reasonable person who objected to the officers' following her would have said so. The officers could reasonably interpret Cajigas's behavior to mean that she was leading them to her husband in response to their request. No evidence was presented to indicate that the officers engaged in any inappropriate behavior, or that they in any way coerced Cajigas. The trial court did not commit clear error by finding that Cajigas consented to the officers' presence in the bedroom. 25 Mejia points to this court's statement in United States v. Shaibu that free and voluntary consent cannot be found by a showing of mere acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority. United States v. Shaibu, 920 F.2d 1423, 1426 (9th Cir.1990) (citation omitted). He argues that Cajigas's mere acquiescence to the officers' accompanying her to the bedroom was not sufficient to amount to consent. However, Shaibu is distinguishable. It involved the issue of implied consent to enter a dwelling, rather than the issue of implied consent to enter a room within that dwelling after express consent to enter the dwelling had been given. The Shaibu court based its holding on the principle that the right of a person to retreat into his or her own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion stands at the core of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 1425 (citing Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511, 81 S.Ct. 679, 682, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961)). While the question of what constitutes unreasonable governmental intrusion is present here, there was no retreat here. Cajigas did not retreat to the bedroom. She entered and was followed by two officers without any indication that they were not expected to do so. 26 Mejia objects that a holding that a person may give implied consent to enter a room impermissibly shifts to the defendant the burden of proving the absence of unequivocal and specific consent. Id. at 1427-28 (quoting United States v. Page, 302 F.2d 81, 83 (9th Cir.1962)). That is not so. If, as a matter of law, implied consent to search may be given, the defendant's protest at that time, or its absence, is simply a fact to be considered in determining whether the government has established implied consent. Here, Cajigas may have felt uncomfortable objecting to the officers' following her into the bedroom; we simply do not know. It is also possible that she felt no discomfort; again, we do not know. The overt manifestations of consent existed. That is all we know. That is enough. The government met its evidentiary burden. Unlike Shaibu, this was not a case where the government attempted to justify entry by consent and consent by entry. Id. at 1427. 27 Mejia asserts that the trial court should not have based its finding of consent on a mere police report, but should have put the investigating officers on the witness stand. This argument is unpersuasive. True, the government had the burden of proving by convincing evidence that the officers exerted no express or implied coercion. Id. at 1426. However, the purpose of an evidentiary hearing (and by implication, of obtaining the testimony of particular witnesses at such a hearing) is to resolve contested issues of fact going to the validity of the search. See Center Art Galleries--Hawaii, Inc. v. United States, 875 F.2d 747, 754 (9th Cir.1989). Here, the contest is over the legal significance of undisputed facts rather than over the facts themselves. No doubt the officers, had they testified, would have relied on the police reports to refresh their recollection. The trial court's choice to rely on the police report was not an abuse of discretion. 28
29 Mejia asserts that the officers' entry into his bedroom constituted a baseless arrest, and that therefore his subsequent consent to let the officers search the house was, presumptively, fruit of the poisonous tree. He argues that a person who is awakened in his bedroom at 9:30 P.M. and finds two plainclothes investigators who identify themselves as police would believe that he was not free to leave. Given that the officers had permission to enter the bedroom, this argument fails. Cajigas, not the officers, awoke Mejia. The officers did not draw guns or use coercion. A reasonable person in Mejia's position would have felt free to leave, or, more reasonably, to have asked the officers to leave the bedroom or to leave the house. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 502, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1326, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) (a person who reasonably feels free to leave is not seized for purposes of the Fourth Amendment). Mejia did none of these things. The officers' presence in Mejia's bedroom did not constitute an arrest. 30 Mejia's reliance on Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 89 S.Ct. 1095, 22 L.Ed.2d 311 (1969), is misplaced. In Orozco, four police officers arrived at the defendant's boarding house, were admitted by an unidentified woman, and were told that the defendant was asleep in the bedroom. The officers entered the bedroom and began to question the defendant. The Supreme Court held that the interrogation was custodial in nature for purposes of the Fifth Amendment, so that the defendant was entitled to receive Miranda warnings before interrogation. Orozco 's analysis did not focus on the issue of arrest. In particular, the Court did not face the question whether the defendant would reasonably have felt free to leave or to ask the officers to leave, but relied on officers' testimony that the defendant was under arrest and not free to leave. Id. at 327, 89 S.Ct. at 1097. 1 Moreover, Orozco is factually distinguishable from Mejia's case. Whereas in Orozco the officers began interrogating the defendant while still in his bedroom, the officers here waited until Mejia had arisen and all parties had moved into the kitchen before beginning their questioning. This strongly suggests that Mejia would have felt more free to leave or to refuse questioning than the defendant in Orozco would have felt. In sum, Orozco does not stand for the proposition that being awakened at night in one's room in the presence of officers necessarily constitutes arrest. 31