Opinion ID: 575288
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cajigas gave the officers implied consent to enter Mejia's bedroom.

Text: 23 Mejia correctly asserts that consent to enter one's threshold for the limited purpose of talking about an investigation does not include permission to enter a bedroom occupied by a sleeping spouse. Thus, Cajigas's invitation to enter the house did not, without more, give the officers permission to enter every room in the house. 24 However, once the officers were in the house, Cajigas gave a subsequent implied consent to let them enter the bedroom by not objecting when the officers followed her into the bedroom. Presumably, a reasonable person who objected to the officers' following her would have said so. The officers could reasonably interpret Cajigas's behavior to mean that she was leading them to her husband in response to their request. No evidence was presented to indicate that the officers engaged in any inappropriate behavior, or that they in any way coerced Cajigas. The trial court did not commit clear error by finding that Cajigas consented to the officers' presence in the bedroom. 25 Mejia points to this court's statement in United States v. Shaibu that free and voluntary consent cannot be found by a showing of mere acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority. United States v. Shaibu, 920 F.2d 1423, 1426 (9th Cir.1990) (citation omitted). He argues that Cajigas's mere acquiescence to the officers' accompanying her to the bedroom was not sufficient to amount to consent. However, Shaibu is distinguishable. It involved the issue of implied consent to enter a dwelling, rather than the issue of implied consent to enter a room within that dwelling after express consent to enter the dwelling had been given. The Shaibu court based its holding on the principle that the right of a person to retreat into his or her own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion stands at the core of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 1425 (citing Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511, 81 S.Ct. 679, 682, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961)). While the question of what constitutes unreasonable governmental intrusion is present here, there was no retreat here. Cajigas did not retreat to the bedroom. She entered and was followed by two officers without any indication that they were not expected to do so. 26 Mejia objects that a holding that a person may give implied consent to enter a room impermissibly shifts to the defendant the burden of proving the absence of unequivocal and specific consent. Id. at 1427-28 (quoting United States v. Page, 302 F.2d 81, 83 (9th Cir.1962)). That is not so. If, as a matter of law, implied consent to search may be given, the defendant's protest at that time, or its absence, is simply a fact to be considered in determining whether the government has established implied consent. Here, Cajigas may have felt uncomfortable objecting to the officers' following her into the bedroom; we simply do not know. It is also possible that she felt no discomfort; again, we do not know. The overt manifestations of consent existed. That is all we know. That is enough. The government met its evidentiary burden. Unlike Shaibu, this was not a case where the government attempted to justify entry by consent and consent by entry. Id. at 1427. 27 Mejia asserts that the trial court should not have based its finding of consent on a mere police report, but should have put the investigating officers on the witness stand. This argument is unpersuasive. True, the government had the burden of proving by convincing evidence that the officers exerted no express or implied coercion. Id. at 1426. However, the purpose of an evidentiary hearing (and by implication, of obtaining the testimony of particular witnesses at such a hearing) is to resolve contested issues of fact going to the validity of the search. See Center Art Galleries--Hawaii, Inc. v. United States, 875 F.2d 747, 754 (9th Cir.1989). Here, the contest is over the legal significance of undisputed facts rather than over the facts themselves. No doubt the officers, had they testified, would have relied on the police reports to refresh their recollection. The trial court's choice to rely on the police report was not an abuse of discretion. 28