Opinion ID: 506080
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: there was valid consent.

Text: 14 The district court denied Galberth's motion to suppress because of her consent to being searched. Such a finding of consent will not be overturned unless clearly erroneous. 2 In view of the totality of the circumstances, the district court's finding of a valid consent is not clearly erroneous. 15 The initial question is whether the government has proven that Galberth's consent to the search of her person was voluntary. Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 548, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 1791, 20 L.Ed.2d 382 (1968); see Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 227, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2047, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973); Davis, 749 F.2d at 294; United States v. Parker, 722 F.2d 179, 182 (5th Cir.1983). The Supreme Court has said: 16 [T]he question whether a 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. 17 Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 227, 93 S.Ct. at 2047-48. 3 18 This court has outlined six primary factors for consideration in determining whether consent to a search is knowing and voluntary: (1) the voluntariness of the defendant's custodial status; (2) the presence of coercive police procedures; (3) the extent and level of the defendant's cooperation with the police; (4) the defendant's awareness of his right to refuse consent; (5) the defendant's education and intelligence; and (6) the defendant's belief that no incriminating evidence will be found. United States v. Ruigomez, 702 F.2d 61, 65 (5th Cir.1983). Cognizant at all times of the fact that acquiescence cannot substitute for free consent, United States v. Gonzales, 842 F.2d at 754 we have concluded that, although all of the above factors are highly relevant, no one of the six factors is dispositive or controlling of the voluntariness issue. Id.; Ruigomez, 702 F.2d at 65; United States v. Phillips, 664 F.2d 971, 1023-24 (5th Cir.1981). 19 These factors show nothing but a voluntary consent to the search here. All the questioning occurred in a public area of the airport and lasted only five minutes. There is no indication that Officer Griffith's requests were made in an intimidating manner. When he asked Galberth whether she would mind if a female officer patted her down for possible narcotics, she replied okay. Following her consent to the pat-down, Galberth and Officer Griffith waited in a public lounge area for approximately ten minutes and made small talk. In fact, Galberth herself testified that Officer Griffith did not threaten her in any form or fashion, 4 and that he was nice to her. At no time did Galberth change her mind and withdraw her consent, though she was not specifically advised that she could. 20 Other facts that weigh in favor of the district court's finding of a valid consent to the search are Galberth's age, education, and prior experience with the criminal justice system. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 555-57, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877-78, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980). In contrast to Gonzales, 842 F.2d at 755, where the young suspect was a 5'4' tall Hispanic with only a sixth-grade education and whose native tongue was not English, Galberth was thirty-eight years old at the time of this incident, had no difficulty with English, and had an eleventh-grade education. She had a prior criminal record for larceny and also for shooting her husband, and had been advised of her Miranda rights on both of these occasions. Galberth had been convicted of grand larceny and sentenced to a term of imprisonment in early 1987, and was still under house arrest in Oklahoma at the time that she travelled to Miami and Dallas. 21 The district court's finding of a valid consent to be searched is not outweighed by the fact that Galberth was never told that she had the right to withhold her consent, or the facts that she was very nervous and obviously acted against her own self-interest. While knowledge of the right to refuse consent is one factor in determining voluntariness, 5 the failure to advise an individual of the right to withhold consent is not determinative in and of itself, and any weight accorded to such a failure is offset by Galberth's prior experience with her constitutional rights in a criminal setting. 6 Galberth's nervousness, likewise, does not preclude a finding of voluntariness in the light of all the other facts and circumstances involved in this case. 22 As in Gonzales, 842 F.2d at 755 where the suspect certainly was aware that incriminating evidence would be disclosed by a search of her carry-on bag, the fact that Galberth acted against her own self-interest by consenting to the request of the officer to produce her airline tickets and identification and subsequently consenting to the search of her person is immaterial to the issue presented in her motion to suppress the fruits of the search. Id. at 755 n. 3; Bengivenga, 845 F.2d at 600-01. The Supreme Court rejected that argument in Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 555-56, 100 S.Ct. at 1878, stating: 23 It may happen that a person makes statements to law enforcement officials that he later regrets, but the issue in such cases is not whether the statement is self-protective, but rather whether it was made voluntarily. 24 See Berry, 670 F.2d at 598 n. 16. As this court recently said, 25 In the purest sense, consent by suspects with knowledge that incriminating evidence will be discovered during a search would never be truly voluntary if self-interest were the primary focus of the voluntariness inquiry. 26 Gonzales, 842 F.2d at 755 n. 3. 27 Based upon all the facts and circumstances of this case, Galberth's consent to the search of her person was voluntary. The district court's finding of a valid consent is not clearly erroneous. 28