Opinion ID: 657682
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Consent Search of Motel Room

Text: 5 Morgan challenges the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained when police searched his motel room and effects upon consent from the motel owner and corporate counsel. We review the district court's factual findings regarding suppression for clear error, and apply a de novo standard of review to the ultimate suppression decision. United States v. Rusher, 966 F.2d 868, 873 (4thCir.), cert. denied, 61 U.S.L.W. 3285 (U.S. 1992). The district court, relying on the Supreme Court's decision in Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177 (1990), found that the police officers reasonably believed Russell and Labrue had authority to consent to the search of the motel room and Morgan's effects therein. The record supports that finding. 6 On the morning of August 23, 1990, Chesterfield police officers accompanied Russell and Labrue to Morgan's Days Inn motel room to execute an arrest warrant for defrauding an innkeeper and to serve him with an innkeeper's lien. Days Inn decided to take this legal action because Morgan was several thousand dollars behind in his rental payments and had failed to pay after receiving numerous informal requests and formal written demand for full payment by August 10, 1990. Following Morgan's service with the innkeeper's lien, arrest and removal from the motel room, the officers asked Russell and Labrue for permission to re-enter the motel room and look at items in plain view. 6 Russell, as the motel owner, and Labrue, as Days Inn corporate counsel, made direct assertions to the officers concerning the motel's legal right of entry to the room and right to possession and control of the room contents. 7 Nonetheless, Captain Burke thought the search questionable and asked the Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney to research Virginia law respecting innkeeper liens and rights in a guest's room and belongings. The Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney confirmed that they were on legal ground in conducting the search. Thereafter, the officers entered the room and looked at the documents in plain view for several minutes. Detective Joseph Franklin Lakato was called on-site and further viewing of the documents was conducted pursuant to the express consent of motel 8 personnel. Lakato returned the next day with Tom Bailey, an investigator from the State Corporation Commission, to view the documents pursuant, again, to express permission. Lakato and Thomas J. O'Donnell, an FBI investigator, also viewed the documents pursuant to yet another grant of permission a few days later. The motel room had been cleaned and Morgan's effects boxed and put into storage. 7 The standard for determining apparent authority to consent under Illinois v. Rodriguez is an objective inquiry asking whether the facts available at the moment would warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that the consenting party had authority over the premises. Illinois, 497 U.S. at 177-78. We are of opinion that the facts available to the officers at the time of the search would warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that the hotel owner and corporate counsel had authority to consent to the search. Accordingly, there is no Fourth Amendment violation and the evidence was properly not suppressed. 9 See United States v. Kinney, 953 F.2d 866, 866-67 (4th Cir. 1992) (holding that evidence obtained by police acting under reasonable belief that defendant's girlfriend granted valid consent to search of locked closet in his apartment need not be suppressed); see also United States v. Tyler, 943 F.2d 420 (4th Cir. 1991) (entry by virtue of a civil claim and delivery judgment).