Court Opinion

ID: 9497247
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:46:44.72846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:04.994303
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I join fully in Judge Martin’s persuasive dissent. I separately and respectfully dissent from the majority because the government has failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Sean Carter (“Carter”) “unequivocally” consented to the police officers’ entry into his hotel room. I concur neither with the majority’s quiet adoption of a principle that implied consent will suffice to justify a warrantless entry nor with its application of this standard to the entry of Carter’s hotel room. Such a holding unnecessarily upends the precedent of this circuit in a manner that contradicts the law established by the United States Supreme Court.
One must begin with the constitutional imperative against warrantless entries ensconced in the Fourth Amendment. Because “[t]he right of the people to be secure ... against unreasonable searches and seizures! ] shall not be violated,” U.S. Const. Amend. IV, warrantless searches and seizures are “presumptively unreasonable.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980); see United States v. Haddix, 239 F.3d 766, 767 (6th Cir.2001) (“As a practical matter, [the Fourth Amendment] *593normally requires the police to have a warrant whenever their conduct compromises an individual’s privacy in his or her personal affairs.”). “[Pjhysical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.” Payton, 445 U.S. at 585, 100 S.Ct. 1371 (quotation and citation omitted). Nonetheless, consent is “one of the specifically established exceptions to the requirements of both a warrant and probable cause.” Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 219, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973). Given that the consent exception is “jealously and carefully drawn,” Jones v. United States, 357 U.S. 493, 499, 78 S.Ct. 1253, 2 L.Ed.2d 1514 (1958), it is no surprise that, “[wjhen a prosecutor seeks to rely upon consent to justify the lawfulness of a search, he has the burden of proving that the consent was, in fact, freely and voluntarily given.” Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 548, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968) (emphasis added). “This burden cannot be discharged by showing no more than acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority.” Id. at 548-549, 88 S.Ct. 1788 (emphasis added).1 The strong aversion to warrantless entries has led us to hold that “not any type of consent will suffice, but instead, only consent that is ‘unequivocally, specifically, and intelligently given, uncontaminated by any duress and coercion.’ ” United States v. Worley, 193 F.3d 380, 386 (6th Cir.1999) (quoting United States v. Tillman, 963 F.2d 137, 143 (6th Cir.1992)).2
Applying the above principles, I am left with the definite and firm conviction that the district court reached the wrong result because the government failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Carter consented to the officers’ entry. We have never previously established that implied consent justifies an otherwise illegal warrantless entry. As even the majority recognizes, “acquiescence” is synonymous with “implied consent,” Maj. Op. at 589 (citing Black’s Law Dictionary 23 (7th ed. 1999)), and it is well-settled that acquiescence to authority is not enough to demonstrate consent. Bumper, 391 U.S. at 548-49, 88 S.Ct. 1788. Consequently, we have required that consent be unequivocal, specific, and intelligent. United States v. Haynes, 301 F.3d 669, 682 (6th Cir.2002); Worley, 193 F.3d at 386; Tillman, 963 F.2d at 143. We have not been alone. See United States v. Gonzalez, 71 F.3d 819, 830 (11th Cir.1996); United States v. Shaibu, 920 F.2d 1423, 1426 (9th Cir.1990). This is not to say that unequivocal consent need always be verbally given or formally delivered. A nod, a terse “okay” in response to a request to enter, or a hand *594gesture, may constitute unequivocal consent depending on the particular circumstances.
Carter took no such action, however, and his recession into the room did not signal an unequivocal consent to a war-rantless entry. The police knocked loudly four times, identifying themselves the first two times as housekeeping staff. Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) at 74 (Det. Hart Test.). When Carter opened the door, he saw three police officers, two wearing “POLICE” vests and one in full uniform. The officers identified themselves and asked to enter. Detective Hart (“Hart”) testified that Carter “moved away from the door and backed up,” J.A. at 76, but Hart never stated that Carter “cleared a path for the officers to enter,” as the majority depicts. Maj. Op. at 586. Furthermore, Hart made clear that regardless of whether Carter gave consent, the officers planned to enter the hotel room and seize the “blunt” once they had smelled the marijuana. J.A. at 79.
The only possible signal of consent is Carter’s act of stepping back into the hotel room. Carter did not say anything while he retreated, such as “okay” or “fíne,” after the police asked to enter the room. See United States v. Garcia, 997 F.2d 1273, 1281 (9th Cir.1993) (holding that consent existed when defendant said “okay,” nodded, and stepped back in response to officers’ request to enter). Carter did not nod or gesture so as to indicate an affirmative response to their request. Moreover, this is not a situation in which Carter refused entry to the officers on one occasion but then stepped back after the officers made a second request to enter, such that his silence on the second attempt could constitute consent in juxtaposition with his first response. See United States v. Griffin, 530 F.2d 739, 743 (7th Cir.1976) (holding that when defendant had first responded “no” to a request to enter, slamming his door in the officers’ faces, but then had stepped back and left his door open without explicitly refusing to grant entry after the officers repeated the request several minutes later, the defendant’s actions constituted consent because of the disparity between the defendant’s two different reactions). Instead, Carter simply stepped back and did not say a word to the officers, one of whom testified that he would have entered the room to seize the blunt no matter Carter’s response. Cf. United States v. Albrektsen, 151 F.3d 951, 955 (9th Cir.1998) (ruling that defendant did not consent when both the officers and the defendant recalled that “entry was going to made with or without permission,” and the defendant stepped back from the door because he felt that he would have been knocked down if he did not move).
Carter’s response cannot be considered consent; there was no affirmative act, let alone an unequivocal one. Carter’s reaction to the officers’ request can only be considered acquiescent behavior, which the Supreme Court has distinguished from valid consent. I cannot accept the majority’s characterization of Carter’s citation to established Supreme Court precedent as a “verbal quibble” that is “bootless.” Maj. Op. at 589. A focus on the word “acquiescence” is entirely proper because the Supreme Court has explicitly held that acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority, whether overpowering or not, is not sufficient to satisfy the government’s burden to prove consent. Bumper, 391 U.S. at 548-49, 88 S.Ct. 1788. Furthermore, it is not only Carter who focuses on the term “acquiescence”; in ruling that Carter consented to the entry, the district court held that Carter’s motion of stepping back “indicates to the Court that there was at least acquiescence.” J.A. at 82. The district court’s belief that acquiescence is enough high*595lights its error. Because the Supreme Court has ruled that acquiescence does not equal consent, the district court clearly-erred by holding that the officers were justified in entering the room on the basis that “there was at least acquiescence.”
Without more, the government has failed to meet its burden of proving consent. The inability to demonstrate consent precludes the need to assess whether such consent was voluntary. Without voluntary consent, the warrantless entry and search of Carter’s room was illegal, and the fruits of that search are tainted. Accordingly, I would reverse the district court.

. The test for consent established in Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968), is certainly germane here. The Supreme Court in Bumper established a general test that when a prosecutor relies on consent to justify a search, the burden to prove that such consent was 1) actually given and 2) freely and voluntarily given "cannot be discharged by showing no more than acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority.” Id. at 548-49, 88 S.Ct. 1788. That Bumper dealt primarily with the second part of the inquiry — whether consent was voluntary when law enforcement officers asserted that they possessed a warrant — does not negate the applicability of the Supreme Court's general statement about acquiescence to cases assessing the threshold question of whether consent was even given in the first place.

. There is a distinction between consent to entry and consent to search in the sense that when a defendant consents to the entry of police officers, he or she does not automatically consent to a search. See United States v. Ivy, 165 F.3d 397, 401-04 (6th Cir.1998) (analyzing first whether consent to entry was given before assessing whether consent to search was given and was voluntary). We apply the same standards for consent when analyzing either issue. Id. at 401-02.