Opinion ID: 2973212
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Third-Party Consent and Apparent Authority

Text: Where valid consent is given, a search is permissible under the Fourth Amendment even without a warrant or probable cause. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 219 (1973). Such consent must be “freely and voluntarily given.” Id. at 222 (quoting Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 548 (1968)). Valid consent may be given not only by the defendant but also by “a third party who possessed common authority over or other sufficient relationship to the premises or effects sought to be inspected.” United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 171 (1974). We have held that even where third-party consent comes from an individual without actual authority over the property searched, there is no Fourth Amendment violation if the police conducted the search in good faith reliance on the third-party’s apparent authority to authorize the search through her consent. United States v. Hunyady, 409 F.3d 297, 303 (6th Cir. 2005) (citing United States v. Gillis, 358 F.3d 386, 390 (6th Cir. 2004)). “Apparent authority is judged by an objective standard. A search consented to by a third party without actual authority over the premises is nonetheless valid if the officers reasonably could conclude from the facts available that the third party had authority to consent to the search.” Id. (quoting Gillis, 358 F.3d at 390-91). In this case, the computer was located in a common area to which Cassie Morgan had complete access, and she indicated to the officers who came to her home that she had access to and used the computer and that she and the Defendant did not have individual usernames or passwords. Cassie Morgan never informed the officers that there was another computer in the home. She also told Detective Lavender that she had installed the spyware software on the computer, which further supported the conclusion that she had access to the computer. Based on these facts, “‘the officers reasonably could conclude from the facts available that [Cassie Morgan] had authority to consent to the search,’” see id., and this apparent authority remedies the constitutional error that would otherwise result from a warrantless search. There is no evidence in the record regarding when during his search of the computer Captain Prindle found the Internet Eraser program. Even assuming that he found the program before he found the pornographic files, this would not undermine our conclusion that apparent authority permits this warrantless search under the Fourth Amendment. When we inquire into whether there was apparent authority to validate third-party consent to a warrantless search, we look at the facts available to the police at the time the search began. See Gillis, 358 F.3d at 391 (explaining that the officers’ knowledge “at the time of the search” is the relevant inquiry) (emphasis added); United States v. Hawkins, No. 03-5794, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 642, at  (6th Cir. Jan. 12, 2005) (stating apparent authority test as “whether the officer reasonably could have concluded, from the facts No. 04-5283 United States v. Morgan Page 4 available at the time, that the third party had authority to consent” (emphasis added)). If apparent authority existed at that time, later-discovered facts that might undermine the initial reasonable conclusion of third-party apparent authority are generally immaterial. Moreover, in this case, Captain Prindle’s discovery of the eraser program would not necessarily call into question the conclusion that Cassie Morgan had the requisite authority to consent to the computer’s search because at that time Captain Prindle did not know who installed the eraser program or why it was installed. Therefore, the discovery of the eraser program does not vitiate Cassie Morgan’s apparent authority. In arriving at this conclusion, we express no view as to whether Cassie Morgan had actual authority to consent to the search. Because apparent authority supports the constitutionality of the search, we need not consider the question of actual authority.