Opinion ID: 201597
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bowering's consent to search the apartment

Text: 17 The district court held that the search of Meada's apartment was constitutional under the consent exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. Specifically, the court found that Bowering consented to the search and that she had authority to do so by virtue of having lived with Meada for two months. Although Meada disputes whether any actual authority Bowering had extended to admitting third parties to the apartment, we need not address that question here. 3 Rather, we affirm solely on the alternate basis offered by the district court: [e]ven if Bowering did not actually have the authority to consent to the search, . . . it was objectively reasonable for the law enforcement officials to believe that she did. This apparent authority rationale is sufficient to immunize the search from constitutional attack regardless of whether Bowering had actual authority to consent. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 186, 110 S.Ct. 2793 (The Constitution is no more violated when officers enter without a warrant because they reasonably (though erroneously) believe that the person who has consented to their entry is a resident of the premises, than it is violated when they enter without a warrant because they reasonably (though erroneously) believe they are in pursuit of a violent felon who is about to escape.). 18 As the Supreme Court has explained, the consent of one who possesses common authority over premises or effects is valid as against the absent, nonconsenting person with whom that authority is shared. United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 170, 94 S.Ct. 988, 39 L.Ed.2d 242 (1974). Common authority rests on mutual use of the property by persons generally having joint access or control for most purposes .... Id. at 171 n. 7, 94 S.Ct. 988. Even if a person does not in fact have such authority, police may rely on her consent if they reasonably believe that she has such authority. The Court set forth the standard for this reasonable belief in Illinois v. Rodriguez: 19 [L]aw enforcement officers may [not] always accept a person's invitation to enter premises. Even when the invitation is accompanied by an explicit assertion that the person lives there, the surrounding circumstances could conceivably be such that a reasonable person would doubt its truth and not act upon it without further inquiry. As with other factual determinations bearing upon search and seizure, determination of consent to enter must be judged against an objective standard: would the facts available to the officer at the moment ... warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that the consenting party had authority over the premises? 20 497 U.S. at 188, 110 S.Ct. 2793 (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (internal quotation marks omitted)). 21 Here, the district court pointed to numerous circumstances supporting a reasonable belief by the officers that Bowering had joint access to the apartment such that she could consent to a search. Bowering told the officers that she kept personal possessions, including several changes of clothing, a photograph of her daughter, and her cat, at the apartment. She asserted that she could enter the apartment in Meada's absence. Her claim to have lived with Meada was also consistent with Moar's independent knowledge that her car had been parked in front of the apartment several evenings a week during the relevant time frame. Thus, the officers were not merely acting on an unsubstantiated assertion that Bowering had joint access to the apartment, but rather on the totality of the circumstances that supported such an assertion. 22 Meada contends that, to the contrary, the circumstances did not support the officer's belief that Bowering had common authority over the apartment. He analogizes this case to Rodriguez, in which the Supreme Court found that a woman who had previously lived with the defendant but later moved out did not have the authority to consent to a search of his apartment. 497 U.S. at 181-82, 110 S.Ct. 2793. There, the Court noted that Gail Fischer, the consenting party, no longer lived in the apartment at the time of the search, that her name was not on the lease, and that she did not pay rent. Although Fischer had a key to the apartment, she had obtained it without the defendant's permission. Meada stresses that Bowering, like Fischer, had another residence and had not been given a key by the apartment owner. 23 In rejecting Meada's argument, we note that Rodriguez's factual inquiry was limited to the issue of actual authority. The lower court in Rodriguez did not reach the question of whether the officers had an objectively reasonable belief that the person granting access to the premises had authority over those premises because it erroneously ruled that, as a matter of law, reasonable belief could not validate entry. 497 U.S. at 189, 110 S.Ct. 2793. The Supreme Court remanded so that the lower court could determine whether the officers had such a reasonable belief. Id. Because we affirm the district court's denial of the suppression motion on the grounds that, in the officers' perception, Bowering had apparent authority to invite them into the apartment, it makes no difference whether in fact she possessed any more legitimate claim of authority than Fischer in the Rodriguez case. What matters is whether, based on the information in the officers' possession, they reasonably believed that Bowering had authority to invite them into the apartment. 24 Focusing on Bowering's authority as it appeared to the officers, Meada contends that because they knew she was seeking a restraining order against Meada and intended to move out, the officers could not have reasonably believed she still had authority to invite them into the apartment. We disagree. So far as the officers knew, Bowering had not told Meada of the restraining order. She told them she had been living at the apartment for two months and still had her personal belongings including her cat there. Under the totality of the circumstances, it was objectively reasonable for the police to believe that Bowering retained mutual use of the property and thus could consent to a search. Matlock, 415 U.S. at 171 n. 7, 94 S.Ct. 988; see also United States v. Trzaska, 859 F.2d 1118, 1120 (2d Cir.1988) (estranged wife had authority to consent to a search of her former husband's apartment two weeks after she moved out, where she still had a key and collected personal belongings during the search).