Opinion ID: 590024
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lack of Consent

Text: 13 As discussed supra, the parties dispute whether Mrs. Waupekenay gave the police officers permission to enter the house trailer in order to respond to her request for assistance. The district court ruled that the officers did not have Mrs. Waupekenay's voluntary consent to enter the trailer. We affirm this determination. 14 Whether Mrs. Waupekenay gave the police officers explicit or implicit permission to enter the house trailer is judged by an objective reasonableness standard: what would the typical reasonable person have understood by the exchange between the officer and the suspect? Florida v. Jimeno, --- U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 111 S.Ct. 1801, 1803-04, 114 L.Ed.2d 297 (1991); see also Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, ----, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 2801, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990) (As with other factual determinations bearing upon search and seizure, determination of consent to enter must 'be judged against an objective standard....' ) (citation omitted). If consent was given, whether it was voluntary or a product of coercion or duress is a question of fact to be determined from all the circumstances. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 248-49, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2059, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973). 15 With respect to the consent issue, the court found Mrs. Waupekenay to be more believ[ ]able than the officers and accepted as true her testimony that the police never asked her for permission to enter the house trailer and that she never gave them permission. R., Vol. II, at 38. Because these findings are not clearly erroneous, we accept that the officers did not receive express consent to enter the trailer. 16 Furthermore, the court found that there was no voluntary consent. Id. at 39 (emphasis added). This absence of voluntariness appears to stem from Mrs. Waupekenay's testimony during the suppression hearing, which the district court accepted, that she was warned by the officers that if she did not cooperate, they were going to 'throw [her] in also'  and that the police threatened her before they drew their weapons inside the house. Id. at 38. This coercion precludes the possibility that Mrs. Waupekenay implicitly consented to police entry--e.g., by requesting police assistance in evicting her husband from the trailer and then failing to object when the officers entered the trailer for that purpose. 17 Given that the district court was in a better position to judge the credibility of the witnesses at the suppression hearing and the weight to be given the evidence presented, we cannot say that its determination that Mrs. Waupekenay did not voluntarily consent to police entry of the trailer was clearly erroneous. 18 The district court further found that there were no exigent reasons to permit the officers to enter without consent. Id. at 39. Although neither party challenges this determination on appeal, we note for purposes of the remainder of this opinion that we also affirm this finding. Thus, the officers entered the trailer illegally.