Opinion ID: 4448517
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Issues Related To Consent

Text: K.C.R. contends that the district court should have granted her a new trial or judgment as a matter of law because there was insufficient evidence for the jury to find that McKinney had consent to enter her home.
Rule 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows a district court to order a new trial based on insufficient evidence, but “only if the verdict is against the clear weight of the evidence or will result in a miscarriage of justice.” Chmielewski v. City of St. Pete Beach, 890 F.3d 942, 948 (11th Cir. 2018) (quotation marks omitted). “Because it is critical that a judge does not merely substitute his judgment for that of the jury, new trials should not be granted on evidentiary grounds unless, at a minimum, the verdict is against the great — not merely the greater — weight of the evidence.” Lipphardt v. Durango Steakhouse of Brandon, Inc., 267 F.3d 1183, 1186 (11th Cir. 2001) (quotation marks omitted). We review the denial of a motion for a new trial only for an abuse of discretion, and “[d]eference is particularly appropriate where,” as here, “a new trial is denied and the jury’s verdict is left undisturbed.” Walter Int’l Prods., Inc. v. Salinas, 650 F.3d 1402, 1407 (11th Cir. 2011) (quotation marks omitted). The Fourth Amendment provides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be 28 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 29 of 48 violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” U.S. Const. Amend. IV. Because “the physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed,” it is “a basic principle of Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585–86 (1980) (quotation marks omitted). That also means that law enforcement officers are prohibited “from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect’s home in order to make a routine felony arrest.” Id. at 576. But if a warrantless search is authorized by voluntary consent, the search is “wholly valid.” Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 222 (1973). Because McKinney did not have a warrant to enter K.C.R.’s home, the sole question for the jury was whether he had consent to enter the house. Whether “consent to a search was in fact ‘voluntary’ or was the product of duress or coercion, express or implied, is a question of fact to be determined from the totality of all the circumstances.” Id. at 227. While we have explained that this determination is “not susceptible to neat talismanic definitions,” United States v. Blake, 888 F.2d 795, 798 (11th Cir. 1989), we have identified some factors that are relevant for the factfinder to consider, see United States v. Chemaly, 741 F.2d 29 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 30 of 48 1346, 1352 (11th Cir. 1984). Those factors include: (1) the voluntariness of the person’s custodial status, (2) “the presence of coercive police procedure,” (3) the extent of the person’s cooperation with law enforcement, (4) whether the person knew that he could refuse consent, and (5) the person’s “education and intelligence.” Id. (quotation marks omitted); see also Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 249 (explaining that “while the subject’s knowledge of a right to refuse is a factor to be taken into account,” it is not a “prerequisite to establishing a voluntary consent”). K.C.R.’s argument hinges on the second factor: coercive procedures, conduct, or words. “Where there is coercion there cannot be consent.” Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 550 (1968); see Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 438 (1991) (“‘Consent’ that is the product of official intimidation or harassment is not consent at all.”). K.C.R. argues that she is due a new trial because McKinney failed to meet his burden of showing that he had voluntary consent to enter the house, and that he failed to do so because the evidence showed that K.C.R.’s father was coerced into letting the sheriff’s deputies into his home. Before exploring that fact-bound question, we address who has the burden of proving what.
Often when we are tasked with reviewing a determination of consent, it is because a defendant has challenged the validity of her conviction or is seeking to suppress certain evidence based on an unlawful search. See, e.g., Blake, 888 F.2d 30 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 31 of 48 at 797–98 (considering whether evidence should be suppressed on the ground that a search exceeded the scope of the defendants’ consent); United States v. Edmondson, 791 F.2d 1512, 1515 (11th Cir. 1986) (finding that the defendant’s warrantless arrest in his home was illegal because his “consent” was based on a show of official authority by police officers). We have explained that because “[a] warrantless, nonconsensual entry into a suspect’s home to make a routine felony arrest is presumed to be unreasonable,” Edmondson, 791 F.2d at 1514, the burden is on the government to rebut that presumption and prove that the consent was voluntary, Chemaly, 741 F.2d at 1352; see also United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 177 (1974) (stating that in the case before it the government “sustained its burden of proving by the preponderance of the evidence that [a third-party’s] voluntary consent to search . . . was legally sufficient” to overcome the defendant’s motion to suppress); Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 455 (1971) (“[T]he burden is on those seeking the exemption to show the need for it.”). That’s all true in criminal cases. It’s not in civil cases. “[I]n a § 1983 action, the plaintiff bears the burden of persuasion on every element.” Cuesta v. Sch. Bd. of Miami-Dade Cty., 285 F.3d 962, 970 (11th Cir. 2002). That burden is on the plaintiff even where the government would be bear it in criminal case. See id. (stating that it was the plaintiff’s “burden to show that the County lacked reasonable suspicion to search 31 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 32 of 48 her” and holding that her claims failed as a matter of law because she “failed to produce any evidence indicating that the [jail] personnel lacked reasonable suspicion that she was concealing weapons or contraband”); Rankin, 133 F.3d at 1436 (“[P]laintiffs had the burden of demonstrating the absence of probable cause in order to succeed in their § 1983 claim.”); Evans v. Hightower, 117 F.3d 1318, 1320 (11th Cir. 1997) (“In order to establish a Fourth Amendment violation, [the plaintiff] must demonstrate that a seizure occurred and that it was unreasonable.”). “There is no question, therefore, that [K.C.R.] ultimately b[ore] the burden of persuasion in this case.” Am. Fed’n of State, Cty. & Mun. Emps. Council 79 v. Scott, 717 F.3d 851, 880 (11th Cir. 2013). Once a plaintiff shows that an arrest occurred in her home and that it was conducted without a warrant, it is the burden of production that shifts to the government to present evidence justifying the arrest. See Fed. R. Evid. 301 (“The party against whom a presumption is directed has the burden of producing evidence to rebut the presumption.”). Thus, for example, when a plaintiff asserts that the police conducted an unconstitutional warrantless search, and the government claims that its search was legal under an exception to the warrant requirement, . . . the plaintiff meets its initial burden by demonstrating the absence of a search warrant. At that point, it is the government that bears the burden of coming forward with evidence that an exception to the warrant requirement applied. Am. Fed’n, 717 F.3d at 881–82. 32 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 33 of 48 That shift of the burden of production, however, “does not shift the burden of persuasion, which remains on the party who had it originally.” Fed. R. Evid. 301. So here, once K.C.R. showed that there was a warrantless arrest that was presumptively unreasonable (which she did), and once McKinney came forward with some evidence that the consent exception applied (which he did), it became K.C.R’s burden once more “to show either that [her father] never consented or that the consent was invalid because it was given under duress or coercion.” Valance v. Wisel, 110 F.3d 1269, 1279 (7th Cir. 1997). In other words, it was her burden, not McKinney’s, to persuade the jury on the one question before it.5
K.C.R. contends that the jury’s verdict against her is against the great weight of the evidence. Her argument goes like this. First: Because there was no evidence that her father verbally consented to McKinney’s entry, the “sole basis” for consent “rest[ed] on the premise that after being informed that McKinney was there to arrest KCR, [her father] allegedly closed the door to go ‘put the dog up’ and then returned to the door, opened it[,] and stepped back.” Appellant’s Br. 22– 23 (footnotes omitted). Second: That premise for showing consent ignores what 5 Although Valance and American Federation involved warrantless searches instead of warrantless arrests, the same burden-shifting framework applies here. Warrantless arrests in the home, like warrantless searches, are presumptively unreasonable. See Edmondson, 791 F.2d at 1514. 33 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 34 of 48 else had happened that day. McKinney had called just hours before to ask K.C.R.’s mother to bring her down to the station for questioning, but she had refused to do that. K.C.R. says that when armed deputies wearing bullet-proof vests appeared at her home thereafter, McKinney’s announcement that he was “there to arrest [K.C.R.]” became a “command” to let the deputies into the house. Id. at 24 & n.15, 27–28. Therefore, she reasons: “[T]he only reasonable interpretation of the testimony at trial was that [K.C.R.’s father] acquiesced to the show of authority demanding [that he] produce his daughter for arrest.” Id. at 24. Of course, “[t]he fact that a person answers a knock at the door doesn’t mean he agrees to let the person who knocked enter.” McClish v. Nugent, 483 F.3d 1231, 1247 (11th Cir. 2007) (quotation marks omitted). Consent is not always to be inferred from the absence of an objection, although it is a factor to consider. See United States v. Gonzalez, 71 F.3d 819, 829–30 (11th Cir. 1996) (“[W]e believe, as a matter of law, it cannot be said that failure to object to a search equals consent to the search.”) (quotation marks and alterations omitted), abrogated on other grounds by Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009). A factfinder must “analyz[e] all the circumstances” of an individual’s action to determine whether in fact there was consent and “whether in fact it was voluntary or coerced.” Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 233; see id. at 228 (“[T]he Fourth and Fourteenth 34 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 35 of 48 Amendments require that a consent not be coerced, by explicit or implicated means, by implied threat or covert force.”). K.C.R. is right that one way consent is coerced is if it’s granted “only in submission to a claim of lawful authority.” Id. at 233. For example, “[w]hen a law enforcement officer claims authority to search a home under a warrant, he announces in effect that the occupant has no right to resist the search,” leaving no way to consent to it. Bumper, 391 U.S. at 549. A choice in which the answer is dictated by coercion is no choice at all. “For, no matter how subtly the coercion was applied, the resulting ‘consent’ would be no more than a pretext for the unjustified police intrusion against which the Fourth Amendment is directed.” Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 228; see Moore v. Pederson, 806 F.3d 1036, 1046 (11th Cir. 2015) (holding there was no consent to enter house where officer told plaintiff he was going to arrest him and plaintiff, who was inside the doorway of his house, simply put his arms behind his back); United States v. Tovar-Rico, 61 F.3d 1529, 1535–36 (11th Cir. 1995) (holding there was no consent where five police officers knocked on defendant’s door, announced their identity, and asked for permission to enter — and then rushed into the home with guns drawn as soon as defendant opened the door); Edmondson, 791 F.2d at 1514–15 (no consent to search home where officers with guns drawn knocked on door, announced “FBI. Open the door,” and defendant opened the door and put his hands on his head). 35 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 36 of 48 And courts must not “misinterpret acquiescence to an officer’s demands as consent.” United States v. Berry, 670 F.2d 583, 596 (5th Cir. Unit B 1982) (en banc). We have “noted our hesitancy to find implied consent (i.e., consent by silence) in the Fourth Amendment context.” Gonzalez, 71 F.3d at 823, 830 (no consent where marshal followed defendant’s mother into her house when she told them she was going inside for a drink of water); see Bates v. Harvey, 518 F.3d 1233, 1244 (11th Cir. 2008) (no consent based on housemate’s “failure to object to the officers’ search”); Bashir v. Rockdale County, 445 F.3d 1323, 1328–29 (11th Cir. 2006) (no consent where officer followed plaintiff inside his house uninvited). This case is not like those. The jury heard evidence that the deputies made no show of authority to coerce K.C.R.’s father into consenting to their entry. All of the deputies testified that they did not have their guns drawn. All of them testified that they didn’t use or threaten to use any kind of force. And there is no evidence that any of them claimed to have a warrant. That distinguishes the present case from those in which we have held that the law enforcement officers’ claim of authority coerced the occupant into letting them in. Cf. Moore, 806 F.3d at 1046; Tovar-Rico, 61 F.3d at 1535–36; Edmondson, 791 F.2d at 1514–15. This case is more like United States v. Ramirez-Chilel, 289 F.3d 744 (11th Cir. 2002), and Holmes v. Kucynda, 321 F.3d 1069 (11th Cir. 2003). In RamirezChilel, four police officers approached the defendant’s residence shortly before 36 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 37 of 48 midnight, knocked on the door and identified themselves, and then asked for permission to search the house for evidence of counterfeit documents. 289 F.3d at 746–47. According to the testimony of one of the officers, the defendant “yielded the right-of-way” to allow them in. Id. at 747 (brackets omitted). The officers found evidence of a counterfeiting operation, and the defendant moved to suppress those fruits of the search based on lack of consent. Id. at 747–48. We affirmed the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress, explaining that there is “a distinction between the failure to object when officers follow someone into their home and the act of ‘yielding the right-of-way’ to officers at the person’s front door.” Id. at 752. We added: “Although the officers did not receive any explicit verbal consent from [the defendant] to enter, the officers did receive some sort of implied consent to enter from [his] body language . . . .” Id. Similarly, the law enforcement officers in Holmes responded to a domestic disturbance and knocked on the suspect’s apartment door. 321 F.3d at 1073–74. A man answered the door and the officers asked if they could enter the apartment. Id. at 1074. According to the officers’ testimony, “although [the man] did not respond verbally, he opened the door and took a step backwards, indicating acquiescence.” Id. We concluded that was sufficient evidence of consent to reject the argument of the man’s girlfriend in her § 1983 suit that the warrantless entry had violated her constitutional rights. Id. at 1078–79. 37 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 38 of 48 Ramirez-Chilel and Holmes show that consent need not be verbal to be valid. Non-verbal cues can signal consent. And here, the evidence at trial showed that the combination of both verbal and non-verbal cues was sufficient for a jury to find that K.C.R.’s father consented to the officers entering his home. For instance, McKinney testified that when K.C.R.’s father answered the door, McKinney told him he was there to arrest K.C.R. K.C.R’s father responded by asking if McKinney “could hang on for a minute while he put the dog up,” and then he returned a few minutes later and “opened the door wide and stepped back.” It was only at that point that McKinney entered the house. Hamilton told the jury a similar story, stating that when K.C.R.’s father “opened [the door] up and stood back,” there was plenty of room for the deputies to go in. Given the totality of the circumstances, a jury could reasonably find that K.C.R.’s father consented to the deputies’ entry. K.C.R. seeks to distinguish Ramirez-Chilel and Holmes by pointing out that in those cases the officers had explicitly asked to enter the home, which made it clear that the occupants were allowing the officers in when they opened the door and stood back. Cf. Holmes, 321 F.3d at 1078–79; Ramirez-Chilel, 289 F.3d at 746–47. By contrast, she says, McKinney and the other deputies did not ask to enter the home and simply “commanded” entry by announcing that they were there to arrest K.C.R. 38 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 39 of 48 We are not convinced that this distinction makes a difference. While K.C.R. argues that McKinney’s announcement was a coercive show of authority, the jury was free to conclude that it was instead an informative statement to explain to K.C.R.’s father why the deputies were there. And it was also free to conclude that, by opening the door and stepping back, K.C.R.’s father was giving the deputies his consent to enter his home. It is not our task to answer the question of consent in the first instance. That task fell to the jury. Lipphart, 267 F.3d at 1186 (“[I]t is critical that a judge does not merely substitute his judgment for that of the jury . . . .”). Our only task is to determine whether the district court abused its discretion when it concluded that the jury’s verdict was not against the great weight of the evidence and did not result in a miscarriage of justice. See id.; Walter Int’l Prods., 650 F.3d at 1407. It did not.
Turning now to the district court’s denial of K.C.R.’s Rule 50 motion for judgment as a matter of law on the consent to enter issue, our review is de novo. Skye v. Maersk Line, Ltd. Corp., 751 F.3d 1262, 1265 (11th Cir. 2014). But “[s]uch a motion is to be granted only if the evidence is so overwhelmingly in favor of the moving party that a reasonable jury could not arrive at a contrary verdict.” Chmielewski, 890 F.3d at 948 (quotation marks omitted). For the same 39 Case: 17-14525 Date Filed: 10/21/2019 Page: 40 of 48 reasons we just explained, a reasonable jury could conclude that K.C.R.’s father consented to McKinney’s entry into the house. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(1); Chmielewski, 890 F.3d at 948. 6