Opinion ID: 171917
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Right to refuse.

Text: It is not clear whether Officer Wolthuis told Mr. Gonzalez that he had the option to refuse the search. Doc. 55 at 59–60, 77. Officer Wolthuis said he did not consider it necessary to put in his police report that he “told Mr. Gonzalez he had the option not to allow officers to search,” because “Mr. Gonzalez had already given consent.” Id. at 77. However, Officer Wolthuis did testify that he read the search waiver form to Mr. Gonzalez, and that Mr. Gonzalez said that he understood what was read to him. The search waiver says, in its very first sentence, that “[h]aving been informed of my Constitutional right not to have a search made of the premises mentioned without a search warrant being issued, and of my right to refuse to consent to such a search, I hereby authorize” the search. It is undisputed that Mr. Gonzalez signed the waiver. The Supreme Court has said that a person’s knowledge of his right to refuse a search is “highly relevant” to a determination of consent, but that it is not required to show that consent has been made. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 558–59 (1980). Here, the fact that the right to refuse was part of his signed consent form cuts against Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez disputes Officer Wolthuis’s version of events: he puts the consent form signing after the search was already underway, and says that he could not read the form. But it was not -14- clearly erroneous for the district court to credit the officer’s testimony that Mr. Gonzalez understood the waiver and signed it before the search was underway.