Court Opinion

ID: 9614366
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:24:42.282456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:35.607113
License: Public Domain

Justice SCOTT
specially concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority; however, I write separately to emphasize the narrow factual circumstances that control the present case. I agree with the majority that “[t]he fact that the defendant was present at the time the law enforcement officers searched the trailer [home] does not vitiate the co-occupant’s consent.” Maj. op. at 1313. Therefore, I join the judgment of the majority, which reversed the order suppressing evidence obtained as a result of the search.
However, as correctly noted by the majority, under the facts of this interlocutory appeal, “the defendant did not consent or object to the search.” Maj. op. at 1315. Thus, we are not confronted with a case in which the defendant objected to the search. Nonetheless, the majority rejects the rationale of several state supreme court cases which have held “that a present objecting occupant cannot have assumed the risk that an absent third party will vicariously waive his Fourth Amendment rights.” Maj. op. at 1314-1316, n. 5. The majority unnecessarily reaches an apparent conflict between two lines of deci-sional law.1 In the present case, we are not *1316called upon to determine which line of case law should be applied in Colorado.
Although the defendant did not consent to the search, the record confirms that he failed to object. Thus, we are only presented with a case in which one co-occupant with common authority consents to a search and the other does not object. If the defendant affirmatively objected to the search of the premises, the sheriffs deputies would have been confronted with conflicting and presumably equal statements regarding consent. A defendant’s affirmative objection, in person, to a search would constitute a different factual context than raised in the instant case. Such an objection might negate the assumption of risk implicit in the majority’s rationale; however, it was not argued by either party. It is not a question presented for resolution by these facts.
While I too would reverse, the facts of the present case do not warrant the broad legal proposition advanced by the majority. I therefore join its judgment but by force of a more limited analysis.
I am authorized to say that Justice LOHR joins in this special concurrence.

. Under the limited record and sparse briefs of this interlocutory appeal, I believe it imprudent to sua sponte reject the logic applied by several state supreme courts that have addressed this issue. See, e.g., Tompkins v. Superior Court, 59 Cal.2d 65, 27 Cal.Rptr. 889, 892, 378 P.2d 113, 116 (1963) (holding “that one joint occupant who is away from the premises may not authorize police officers to enter and search the premises over the objection of another joint occupant who is present at the time....’’); Silva v. State, 344 So.2d 559, 563 (Fla. 1977) (stating though a joint occupant should have authority to consent to a search of jointly held premises if the other party is unavailable, a present, objecting party should not have his constitutional rights ignored *1316because of a leasehold or other property interest shared with another); Dorsey v. State, 2 Md.App. 40, 232 A.2d 900, 901 (1967) (holding joint occupant who was present and expressly objected to the search without a warrant, had clear standing to object to a search without a warrant); In re D.A.G., 484 N.W.2d 787, 790 (Minn.1992) (concluding “that, in a competition between an absent cotenant’s right to consent to a search and another cotenant’s constitutional right to be free from that warrantless search, the constitutional right must prevail”); State v. Leach, 113 Wash.2d 735, 782 P.2d 1035, 1040 (1989) (“Where the police have obtained consent to search from an individual possessing ... equal control over the premises, that consent remains valid against a cohabitant ... only while the cohabitant is absent. However, should the cohabitant be present and able to object, the police must also obtain the cohabitant’s consent.”). Moreover, the majority’s resolution of the question, although consistent with most opinions of the federal court of appeals, is not germane to our deliberations.