Opinion ID: 2680598
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Validity of Mother’s Consent to Search.

Text: Finding no federal or State constitutional defect with the evidence found through Defendant’s express consent, we turn to Mother’s consent. Defendant challenges whether Mother’s consent to search was validly obtained, similarly arguing that she was in custody or under duress—or in the alternative, that the search exceeded the scope of her consent. We reject each argument. First, the evidence viewed consistently with the standard of review reveals that she was fully advised of her rights. She signed a business-card-sized “Consent to Search Warning” specifically stating in part, “You have the right to refuse to allow me to search your [apartment].” And at 6 the same time, the officer advised her “that she did not have to sign this document, that she had the right to an attorney[,] and that she had a right to stop our search at any time until she talked to her attorney.” These “Pirtle warnings” are only required when the subject is “in police custody,” Pirtle, 263 Ind. at 29, 323 N.E.2d at 640—so even if Mother were “in custody” as Defendant argues, her consent was valid. Nor do we find duress in the encounter. Defendant again characterizes R. as being detained, so that Mother was implicitly compelled to consent to the search to get her child back. But while the police stated that they “didn’t want to take [R.]” to child-welfare authorities, they also made no representations about what decision those authorities might make. Rather, they specifically stated that the decision was up to those authorities, and not a police determination. If police seeking consent to search may truthfully tell the subject of a criminal investigation that they will otherwise request a search warrant, see Daniel, 582 N.E.2d at 368–69, they may similarly tell the subject of a childwelfare investigation that they will otherwise request an inquiry by child-welfare authorities. In either event, as long as they do not treat the outcome of either request as a foregone conclusion, offering the choice is legitimate. Moreover, police testified that Mother appeared angry to learn that Defendant had brought drugs into the apartment, and our review of the record suggests that she was eager for their help in finding and confiscating anything that would be hazardous to R. Nothing in these circumstances appears coercive in our view. Finally, police did not exceed the scope of Mother’s consent by asking permission to search for drugs, but then finding a handgun. “It is true that a consensual search allows a suspect to limit or restrict the search as he or she chooses,” Kubsch, 784 N.E.2d at 918, and that “the scope of a consent search [is] generally defined by the object of the search,” Krise v. State, 746 N.E.2d 957, 964 (Ind. 2001). But that principle limits where police may look, not what they actually find. For example, consent to search a home for people who may be hiding inside does not extend to searching the contents of a small tin box in which no person could possibly hide. Buckley v. State, 797 N.E.2d 845, 849–51 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003). And while consent to search for “guns, drugs, money, or illegal contraband” permits physically searching a cellular phone because it “is a container capable of hiding such items as drugs or money,” viewing the phone’s data or programming exceeds the scope of such consent. Smith v. State, 713 N.E.2d 338, 343–44 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999), trans. denied. 7 On that logic, Defendant reasons that because police found the handgun in what was obviously a gun case, they were not permitted to search its contents for drugs. But drugs could be stored inside a gun case just as readily as—in fact, more readily than—inside a cellular phone. See id. “[T]he scope of a consensual search is measured by objective reasonableness and is determined by what a typical reasonable person would have understood by the exchange between the officer and the suspect,” Kubsch, 784 N.E.2d at 918 (internal quotations marks omitted)—and here, an objectively reasonable person giving consent to search for drugs would understand the contents of the gun case to be within the scope of that consent. Police were well within the scope of Mother’s consent when they found Defendant’s handgun, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting it into evidence, again without need to consider the “community caretaking” exception.