Court Opinion

ID: 9425318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:22.314014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:54.703197
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
dissenting.
The Fourth Amendment specifically guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . .” We have consistently held that governmental searches conducted pursuant to a validly obtained warrant or reasonably incident to a valid arrest do not violate this guarantee. Here, however, as the Court itself recognizes, no search warrant was obtained and the State does not even suggest “that there was probable cause to search the vehicle or that the search was incident to a valid arrest of any of the occupants.” Ante, *277at 227-228. As a result, the search of the vehicle can be justified solely on the ground that the owner’s brother gave his consent — that is, that he waived his Fourth Amendment right “to be secure” against an otherwise “unreasonable” search. The Court holds today that an individual can effectively waive this right even though he is totally ignorant of the fact that, in the absence of his consent, such invasions of his privacy would be constitutionally prohibited. It wholly escapes me how our citizens can meaningfully be said to have waived something as precious as.a constitutional guarantee without ever being aware of its existence. In my view, the Court’s conclusion is supported neither by “linguistics,” nor by “epistemology,” nor, indeed, by “common sense.” I respectfully dissent.