Opinion ID: 535568
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Consent Issue

Text: 21 The District Court also concluded that, in allowing the officers to search his bag, Maragh behaved involuntarily. The District Court reached this conclusion on the basis of a mistaken legal determination that the officers improperly stopped Maragh. See Maragh, 695 F.Supp. at 1225. Because the District Court's mistake of law infected its factual finding regarding consent, we are constrained to reverse and remand for further findings on that factual question. See Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 292, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 1792, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982) (stating elementary proposition that where findings are infirm because of an erroneous view of the law, a remand is the proper course unless the record permits only one resolution of the factual issue). 22 The District Court's analysis of the consent issue appears to be mistaken in two respects. First, the court apparently proceeded under the view that consent could cure an unlawful seizure. See Maragh, 695 F.Supp. at 1225. This is an erroneous statement of law. See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). Second, in addition to giving decisive weight to the mistaken conclusion that the officers unlawfully seized Maragh, the District Court also apparently treated the tests for seizure and voluntary consent as identical. Although there is overlap in these tests, they are not identical. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 248-49, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2058-59, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973) (Voluntariness is a question of fact to be determined from all the circumstances....). Indeed, it is because we cannot say, on this record, that a finding of involuntary consent was clearly erroneous--even though we have already concluded that a reasonable person in Maragh's position would have felt free to leave--that we are constrained to remand rather than simply reverse. 23 In assessing voluntariness, the District Court must consider factors such as those articulated by the Supreme Court in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 226, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2047, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973), and United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 558, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1879, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980).