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

Heading: Number of officers.

Text: Officer Wolthuis’s version of events has more officers arriving after the search was finished, and Mr. Gonzalez’s version does not directly conflict with this. Mr. Gonzalez has the canine officer coming into his house thirty minutes after the first two officers were there. Another thirty minutes later, he says, “several other police officers” arrived. Gonzalez Aff. at ¶ 11. The search—even -16- on Mr. Gonzalez’s version—seems to have happened before the arrival of the additional officers. Mr. Gonzalez seems to assert that whenever two officers are present, this is “too many” for a defendant to freely consent to a search. He cites a case with very different facts in support of this proposition, Harless v. Turner, 456 F.2d 1337 (10th Cir. 1972), where two officers entered a house at 1:45 a.m., roused the defendant out of bed, and proceeded to question him. We are not about to endorse the claim that, as a matter of law, consent is vitiated any time someone is approached by more than one officer. This would be absurd. Again, on the facts as recounted by Officer Wolthuis, whom the district court believed, we find no clear error.