Court Opinion

ID: 9755724
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:48:44.002703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:10.451412
License: Public Domain

GARIBALDI, J.,
dissenting.
The constitutionality of a search pursuant to consent depends on whether the conduct of the law-enforcement officer who undertook the search was objectively reasonable. State v. Maristany, 133 N.J. 299, 305, 627 A.2d 1066, 1068 (1993) (citing State v. Bruzzese, 94 N.J. 210, 219, 463 A.2d 320 (1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1030, 104 S.Ct. 1295, 79 L.Ed.2d 695 (1984)). The Court concludes that Officer Torres’s conduct with respect to the consent to search was objectively unreasonable. I disagree and conclude, as did the trial court and the Appellate Division, that Officer Torres’s conduct was objectively reasonable in view of the totality of the circumstances at the time of the search.
I
Assessing the objective reasonableness of a law-enforcement officer’s actions involves a particularly fact-sensitive inquiry. *324State Trooper Torres properly stopped a gold Toyota with out-of-state license plates weaving within the right-hand lane at forty-five miles per hour. Trooper Torres, who is fluent in Spanish, asked the driver, defendant Ramon Suazo, for his driving credentials. Suazo produced his license and a registration indicating that Suazo’s sister owned the vehicle. Suspecting that Suazo might be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Trooper Torres asked him to step out of the car. Asked about his condition, Suazo explained that he was not drunk but was very tired. He had been driving north from Savannah, Georgia, with only a short stop in Washington, D.C. When the Trooper asked if the passenger could have shared the driving, Suazo said that he did not know if his passenger had a driver’s license. Suazo further stated that he knew only the first name of his passenger.
Torres then questioned the passenger, defendant Nelson Hoyer, in Spanish. Hoyer, however, offered a different travel scenario. He said he had just been traveling in the South for a few days and that he was going home. However, Hoyer admitted that he had no United States residence and that he came from Venezuela. Officer Torres sought Suazo’s consent to search the car. Suazo signed the standard State Police consent form in Spanish after Trooper Torres had read it to him in Spanish and advised him of his right to refuse to consent.
The Trooper’s search of the car’s interior revealed nothing of interest. He then opened the trunk and found “a clutter of articles,” one of which was a red nylon clothes bag. He took the bag out of the trunk and Hoyer stated that it was his. The record contains no proof that the bag was locked or otherwise secured, nor did the bag contain any name tags or labels identifying the owner. Without protest from Hoyer, the Trooper opened the bag. According to Trooper Torres, “there were several articles of clothing in there with a brown grocery-type paper bag. I opened that paper bag and I found four brown taped packages.” Trooper Torres said that he “took out the packages and asked if they knew what it was and they indicated no. I took a knife, pocket knife, I *325slit one of the packages, and a white powdery substance came from within the package.”
II
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution proscribe unreasonable searches and seizures to ensure that citizens will be protected from warrantless searches. An exception to the warrant requirement is a search conducted pursuant to consent. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973). In Maristany, supra, we recognized that,
[c]onsent may be obtained from the person whose property is to be searched, see Schneckloth, supra, 412 U.S. 218, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973), from a third party who possesses common authority over the property, see United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 94 S.Ct. 988, 39 L.Ed.2d 242 (1974), or from a third party whom the police reasonably believe has authority to consent, see Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990).
[Id. at 305, 627 A.2d 1069.]
Relying on Illinois v. Rodriguez, the majority recognizes that “if a law-enforcement officer at the time of the search erroneously, but reasonably, believed that a third party possessed common authority over the property to be searched, a warrantless search based on that party’s consent is permissible under the Fourth Amendment.” Ante at 305-306, 627 A.2d at 1068-1069; see Illinois v. Rodriguez, supra, 497 U.S. at 186, 110 S.Ct. at 2800, 111 L.Ed.2d at 160. The standard established in Rodriguez is objective: “would the facts available to the officer at the moment * * * ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that the consenting party had authority over the premises.” Id. at 188, 110 S.Ct. at 2801, 111 L.Ed.2d at 161 (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 906 (1968)).
Hence, the validity of the search depends on whether Trooper Torres had a reasonable basis for believing that Suazo had the authority to consent to a search of the bag in the trunk considering the facts and circumstances known to him at the time of the *326search. After reviewing the facts and circumstances known to Trooper Torres, I am persuaded that the officer reasonably relied on Suazo’s consent to search the car and its contents.
As the driver, Suazo had immediate possession of and control over the vehicle. By possessing the keys to the car and trunk, Suazo displayed sufficient control over the vehicle to enable him to consent to its complete search, including the trunk, glove compartment, and other areas. See Maristany, supra, 133 N.J. at 307, 627 A.2d at 1070. Suazo exercised that control when he consented to a search of the car and voluntarily opened the trunk for the trooper’s inspection.
After the trunk had been opened, defendant said that the red bag belonged to him. However, Trooper Torres had no objective proof that Hoyer indeed owned the bag. Suazo clearly had legal authority over the car: he had the proper credentials, his sister owned the car, he was the only driver, and he executed a broad consent form. Suazo never disclaimed a right of access to or denied ownership in the bag. The bag contained no identification. In view of the men’s conflicting statements, Torres may reasonably have accepted Suazo’s status as one with authority over the goods. Moreover, although Hoyer asserted an ownership interest in the bag, he did not object to the search and apparently acquiesced in it.
Based on the facts available to Officer Torres at the time of the search, he reasonably concluded that Suazo had authority to consent to the search of the bag. That search was reasonable and therefore valid. That Officer Torres may have been mistaken as to the ownership of the bag does not make his consent search unreasonable. Like all searches, consent searches are subject to the Fourth Amendment’s proscription on “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Therefore,
[i]f it is otherwise true that under the Fourth Amendment the police are entitled to proceed upon the basis of the “factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act,” even if it results in a “mistake [that] was understandable and * s * a reasonable response to the situation facing them at the time,” then surely it is likewise correct that a *327reasonable mistake in determining a third party’s authority to consent does not give rise to an unreasonable search.
[3 Wayne E. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 8.3(g) (Supp.1993) (hereinafter “Search and Seizure”) (quoting Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 1310, 93 L.Ed. 1879, 1890 (1949), and Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 804, 91 S.Ct. 1106, 1110, 28 L.Ed.2d 484, 490 (1971)).]
Officer Torres made a split-second decision in a real life situation. He acted in good faith without the leisure of a constitutional analysis grounded on twenty/twenty hindsight.
When the police are engaged in the difficult and sometimes dangerous business of solving crime, actions which they take in a good faith attempt to do their job should not be reviewed by courts against a holier-than-thou standard of exceedingly technical complexity which the police officers cannot realistically be expected to administer. In other words, judicial determinations of the “reasonableness” of thh-d party consent searches cannot properly ignore the circumstances of the search as they appeared to the police at the time the decision to search was made.
[.Search and Seizure § 8.3(g) (quoting Comment, 53 B.U.L.Rev. 1089, 1110 (1973)).]
Although possibly mistaken, Officer Torres’s decision to execute a search was reasonable under the circumstances. It was a decision that three courts, after a careful analysis of the facts, were not themselves able to decide unanimously. I conclude, as did the lower courts, that Trooper Torres’ actions were constitutionally permissible, and the majority concludes that they were not. I do agree, nevertheless, with the Court’s opinion that “the preferred procedure for law-énforeement officers seeking consent to search one of several pieces of luggage in a car with more than one occupant is for the officers to determine which occupant owns each item of luggage.” Ante at 322, 627 A.2d 1077. However, Officer Torres’s failure to follow that procedure does not invalidate the search that was objectively reasonable under the circumstances.
Ill
The concurring members of the Appellate Division concluded that Hoyer’s silence at the time of the search implied his consent to that search. I agree. Although certain closed and locked containers may not be within the ambit of a third party’s consent, the presence and silence of the container’s owner can lend authority to the search:
*328A court may be more inclined to find that a co-occupant lacked a privacy expectation in the container if that co-occupant “stood by and watched without objection” as the police searched it upon the consent given by the other occupant.
[Search and Seizure § 8.5 (quoting United States v. Anderson, 859 F.2d 1171, 1177 (3d Cir.1988)).]
A defendant’s claim of ownership in the property to be searched is not necessarily enough to invalidate a third party’s consent, especially if the claim of ownership is equivocal and coupled "with what is perceived as acquiescence to the search. In Anderson, supra, 859 F.2d 1171, neither Anderson, the driver, nor Taylor, the passenger, owned the vehicle. Anderson signed a broad form consenting to the search of the vehicle. Taylor stated that he owned one of the bags in the trunk, yet he did not object to the search of the bag. Taylor moved for suppression of the evidence found in his bag, contending that the search exceeded the scope of Anderson’s consent. In affirming the search, the court held that “Anderson as the driver had at least common authority over the trunk and could validly consent to the search thereof.” Id. at 1177. Moreover, the court noted that
it is uneontroverted that while the car was being searched, Taylor stood by and watched without objection. Such behavior is completely inconsistent with the contention that Taylor retained an expectation of privacy. It was therefore proper for the fruits of the search to be admitted against Taylor.

[Ibid.]

See also United States v. Varona-Algos, 819 F.2d 81, 83 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 929, 108 S.Ct. 296, 98 L.Ed.2d 255 (1987) (holding that after driver consented to search, passenger who equivocally claimed ownership of bag in trunk, stood by, and allowed search to proceed without objection impliedly consented to search).
Hoyer’s action constituted an implied consent to the search of the bag. As Judge Dreier in his concurrence in the Appellate Division stated, “the entire circumstances of the event, including Suazo’s consent which triggered the search, the officer’s discovery of the bag, Hoyer’s incidental claim of ownership, and his lack of *329objection and apparent acquiescence as the bag was opened, constituted a reasonable basis for Trooper Torres’ conduct.”
I would affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division.
Justices HANDLER and O’HERN join in this dissent.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK and STEIN — 4.
For affirmance — Justices HANDLER, O’HERN and GARIBALDI — 3.