04-1067 Georgia v. Randolph

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The Fourth Amendment recognizes a valid warrantless entry and search of a premises when the police obtain the voluntary consent of an occupant who shares, or is reasonably believed to share, common authority over the property, and no present co-tenant objects. Matlock, supra, at 170; Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177 . The constant element in assessing Fourth Amendment reasonableness in such cases is the great significance given to widely shared social expectations, which are influenced by property law but not controlled by its rules. Thus, Matlock not only holds that a solitary co-inhabitant may sometimes consent to a search of shared premises, but also stands for the proposition that the reasonableness of such a search is in significant part a function of commonly held understandings about the authority that co-inhabitants may exercise in ways that affect each other’s interests.

Matlock’s example of common understanding is readily apparent. The assumption tenants usually make about their common authority when they share quarters is that any one of them may admit visitors, with the consequence that a guest obnoxious to one may be admitted in his absence. Matlock placed no burden on the police to eliminate the possibility of atypical arrangements, absent reason to doubt that the regular scheme was in place.

This Court took a step toward addressing the issue here when it held in Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U. S. 91 , that overnight houseguests have a legitimate expectation of privacy in their temporary quarters. If that customary expectation is a foundation of a houseguest’s Fourth Amendment rights, it should follow that an inhabitant of shared premises may claim at least as much. In fact, a co-inhabitant naturally has an even stronger claim. No sensible person would enter shared premises based on one occupant’s invitation when a fellow tenant said to stay out. Such reticence would show not timidity but a realization that when people living together disagree over the use of their common quarters, a resolution must come through voluntary accommodation, not by appeals to authority. Absent some recognized hierarchy, e.g., parent and child, there is no societal or legal understanding of superior and inferior as between co-tenants.

Thus, a disputed invitation, without more, gives an officer no better claim to reasonableness in entering than the officer would have absent any consent. Disputed permission is no match for the Fourth Amendment central value of “respect for the privacy of the home,” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603 , and the State’s other countervailing claims do not add up to outweigh it.

604 S. E. 2d 835, affirmed.

Local effect:

The holding is consistent with dicta from both the Seventh Circuit and Wisconsin Court of Appeals. U.S. v. Robinson, 479 F.2d 300, 303 (7th Cir. 1973); State v. Kieffer, 207 Wis.2d 462, 558 N.W.2d 664, 668 (Ct.App.1996).

Souter, J.; Stevens, J., concurring; Breyer, J., concurring; Roberts, C.J., dissenting; Scalia, J., dissenting; Thomas, J., dissenting.