Opinion ID: 785876
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Harajli's Fourth Amendment claim

Text: 20 Harajli contends that Officers Kostielney and Powell violated the Fourth Amendment by conducting an unreasonable search of his house. 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. In analyzing any Fourth Amendment issue, the threshold question is whether there has been either a search or a seizure. 21 The Supreme Court has explained that a Fourth Amendment search occurs when the government violates a subjective expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable. Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 33, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001). There is no doubt that Harajli had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his home. See Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511, 81 S.Ct. 679, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961) (The Fourth Amendment, and the personal rights which it secures, have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.). An intrusion into Harajli's home by the police would therefore constitute a Fourth Amendment search. 22 Officer Kostielney acknowledged at his deposition that he and Officer Powell entered the garage of Harajli's house, but denied entering the interior. But Nada and her attorney's legal assistant both recalled facts indicating that the officers did enter the house. Because the issue in this case is whether summary judgment was proper, we must view the evidence and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of Harajli as the nonmoving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., 475 U.S. at 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348. We must therefore assume for the purposes of this appeal that the officers entered both the garage and the interior of Harajli's house, thereby conducting a Fourth Amendment search of the entire premises. 23 A search by police, however, does not violate the Fourth Amendment if voluntary consent has been obtained, either from the individual whose property is searched ... or from a third party who possesses common authority over the premises. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 181, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990). Even if the third party does not in fact possess common authority over the premises, the search is still valid under the Fourth Amendment if the police officers reasonably believed that the third party had such authority. Id. at 186, 110 S.Ct. 2793. In evaluating the officers' actions under this objective standard, we must ask: [W]ould the facts available to the officer at the moment ... warrant a man of reasonable caution [to believe] that the consenting party had authority over the premises? Id. at 188, 110 S.Ct. 2793. 24 An analogous case is Rhodes v. McDannel, 945 F.2d 117 (6th Cir.1991) (per curiam), where the police received consent to enter a home from a third party who had previously called the police from that location, occasionally lived there, and referred to the residence as her home address. Id. at 119. This court held that the police reasonably believed that the third party had the authority to consent to their entry. Id. In the present case, the evidence of apparent authority is even stronger than in Rhodes. When Nada provided the police with a written statement after she was allegedly beaten by Harajli, she listed the address of Harajli's house as her place of residence. The police therefore knew that Nada had resided at the house in the recent past. And evidence that Nada still had common authority over the premises was provided by the fact that she possessed a garage-door opener, which she used to gain access to the house. The officers therefore could have reasonably believed that Nada had the authority to consent to their entry inside. 25 One remaining question is whether Nada actually gave consent to the officers' entry. In her deposition, she recalled seeing an officer in the house, but never stated that she expressly gave the officers permission to enter. On the other hand, Nada had requested that the officers accompany her to the house because she was scared to go by myself over there. And Nada apparently never objected to the entry of at least one officer into the interior of the house. As one state supreme court has observed, a search may be lawful even if the person giving consent does not recite the talismanic phrase: `You have my permission to search.' State v. Flippo, 212 W.Va. 560, 575 S.E.2d 170, 178 (W.Va.2002). In the present case, even if Nada did not recite that talismanic phrase, the circumstances clearly indicate that she wanted the officers to accompany her inside the house in order to ensure her safety. The officers' purported entry into Harajli's house therefore did not violate the Fourth Amendment because it was based upon Nada's consent.