Court Opinion

ID: 9714863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:47:14.79445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:29.058156
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
The federal agents who took the consent to search the khaki gym bag from Gianetti, knew that the bag belonged to Gianetti but that she had loaned it to appellant a few weeks before and that he was then in the process of using it to carry his personal belongings as he visited her in her apartment overnight, and that she expected him to return it to her when he no longer had use for it. The consent was given to the agents in the place where Gianetti worked, and at such time appellant was already in federal custody. There is little within these facts known to these agents which would move a person of reasonable caution to form the belief that Gianetti had authority to consent to a search of the bag at the time she gave that consent. Illinois v. Rodriguez, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 111 LEd.2d 148 (1990). A person of reasonable caution would instead conclude that at the time Gianetti's consent to search was given, she had control over the bag as part of the contents of her apartment, but that this control did not extend to the contents of the bag. If Gianetti had loaned a trunk to a friend, who had packed it and then returned it to her apartment pending their joint departure on a trip, Gianetti would not have had authority to consent to a search of that trunk by police. The friend would have had a privacy expectation in the contents of the trunk. Gianet-tis ownership of such a trunk, and her temporary control of it pending their departure, would not in reason have given rise to the belief that she had authority to open the trunk and rummage through it, or to permit another to do so. That is precisely the situation here. Furthermore, there was no joint use of the bag by Gianetti and appellant, a factor found to be validating in Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 89 S.Ct. 1420, 22 L.Ed.2d 684 (1969). In sum, her consent to search the bag which she had loaned to appellant for his exclusive use was not valid, and the search of the bag without a warrant was therefore invalid. It was therefore error to have permitted the State to introduce the items seized from the bag into evidence. I would re*643verse and remand for a new trial at which the seized items are excluded.