Opinion ID: 3063965
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Georgia v. Randolph

Text: Travis argues that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when agents searched his home based on Jones’ consent. The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the prople to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures . . .” U.S. Const. amend IV. “The warrantless search of a home is ‘presumptively unreasonable.’” U.S. v. Tobin, 923 F.2d 1506, 1510 (11th Cir. 1991). However, an established exception to the warrant requirement is a search that is conducted pursuant to consent. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 219 (1973). Where co-tenants are present at the entrance, and one consents while the other objects, police may not search. Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103, 121 (2006). However, the Supreme Court has drawn a fine line at the home’s threshold. “[I]f a potential defendant 7 with self-interest in objecting is in fact at the door and objects, the co-tenant's permission does not suffice for a reasonable search, whereas the potential objector, nearby but not invited to take part in the threshold colloquy, loses out.” Id. Here, neither Travis nor Jones was present at the threshold when the search began. Jones had consented orally and in writing while at her place of employment, and Travis was in custody when the agents arrived to conduct the search. Travis argues that the agents should have provided him with an opportunity to object to the search. However, nothing in Randolph suggests that the police must offer such an opportunity. To the contrary, the Randolph Court stated that “we think it would needlessly limit the capacity of the police to respond to ostensibly legitimate opportunities in the field if we were to hold that reasonableness required the police to take affirmative steps to find a potentially objecting co-tenant before acting on the permission they had already received.” Id. at 122. Travis’ argument is based on the Court’s exception to its justification for the formalism of drawing a line at the search target’s door. The Randolph Court recognized that requiring the potentially objecting co-tenant be physically present would undermine its core holding if police could simply arrest and remove the potentially objecting party from the threshold. 8 This is the line we draw, and we think the formalism is justified. So long as there is no evidence that the police have removed the potentially objecting tenant from the entrance for the sake of avoiding a possible objection, there is practical value in the simple clarity of complementary rules, one recognizing the co-tenant's permission when there is no fellow occupant on hand, the other according dispositive weight to the fellow occupant's contrary indication when he expresses it. Id. at 121-22 (emphasis added). Travis points to the agents’ request that Jones call him and ask that he pick her up and suggests that this is evidence of such a removal. However, at oral argument Travis’ counsel allowed that there was no evidence that the agents removed him for the sake of avoiding a possible objection.2 A review of the record confirms this. It is therefore irrelevant whether Travis left his residence before or after Jones called. For Randolph’s possible exception to apply, there must be some evidence of police intent to avoid objection as well as of removal of the potentially objecting party from the entrance. Travis’ Randolph argument fails.