Subject: ILLINOIS v. RODRIGUEZ, Syllabus



 
    NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as
is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is
issued.  The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but
has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the
reader.  See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES


Syllabus



ILLINOIS v. RODRIGUEZ


certiorari to the appellate court of illinois, first district

No. 88-2018.  Argued March 20, 1990--Decided June 21, 1990

Respondent was arrested in his apartment and charged with possession of
illegal drugs, which the police had observed in plain view and seized.  The
officers did not have an arrest or search warrant, but gained entry to the
apartment with the assistance of Gail Fischer, who represented that the
apartment was "our[s]" and that she had clothes and furni- ture there,
unlocked the door with her key, and gave the officers permission to enter.
The trial court granted respondent's motion to suppress the seized
evidence, holding that at the time she consented to the entry Fischer did
not have common authority because she had moved out of the apartment.  The
court also rejected the State's contention that, even if Fischer did not
have common authority, there was no Fourth Amendment violation if the
police reasonably believed at the time of their entry that she possessed
the authority to consent.  The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed.

Held:

    1. The record demonstrates that the State has not satisfied its bur-
den of proving that Fischer had "joint access or control for most purposes"
over respondent's apartment, as is required under United States v. Matlock,
415 U. S. 164, 171, n. 7, to establish "common authority."  Pp. 2-3.

    2. A warrantless entry is valid when based upon the consent of a third
party whom the police, at the time of the entry, reasonably believe to
possess common authority over the premises, but who in fact does not.  Pp.
4-11.

    (a) Because the Appellate Court's opinion does not contain a "plain
statement" that its decision rests on an adequate and independent state
ground, it is subject to review by this Court.  See Michigan v. Long, 463
U. S. 1032, 1040-1042.  Pp. 4-5.

    (b) What respondent is assured by the Fourth Amendment is not that no
government search of his house will occur unless he consents; but that no
such search will occur that is "unreasonable."  As with the many other
factual determinations that must regularly be made by government agents in
the Fourth Amendment context, the "reasonableness" of a police
determination of consent to enter must be judged not by whether the police
were correct in their assessment, but by the objective standard of whether
the facts available at the moment would warrant a person of reasonable
caution in the belief that the consenting party had authority over the
premises.  If not, then warrantless entry without further inquiry is
unlawful unless authority actually exists.  But if so, the search is valid.
Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483, reconciled.  Pp. 5-11.

    (c) On remand, the appellate court must determine whether the police
reasonably believed that Fischer had authority to consent to the entry into
respondent's apartment.  P. 11.

177 Ill. App. 3d 1154, 550 N. E. 2d 65, reversed and remanded.

Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J.,
and White, Blackmun, O'Connor, and Kennedy, JJ., joined.  Marshall, J.,
filed a dissenting opinion, in which Brennan and Stevens, JJ., joined.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Subject: 88-2018--OPINION, ILLINOIS v. RODRIGUEZ

 


NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in
the preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested
to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States,
Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in
order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to
press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES


No. 88-2018



ILLINOIS, PETITIONER v. EDWARD RODRIGUEZ

on writ of certiorari to the appellate court of illinois, first district

[June 21, 1990]



    Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
    In United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164 (1974), this Court
reaffirmed that a warrantless entry and search by law enforcement officers
does not violate the Fourth Amendment's proscription of "unreasonable
searches and seizures" if the officers have obtained the consent of a third
party who possesses common authority over the premises.  The pres ent case
presents an issue we expressly reserved in Matlock, see id., at 177, n. 14:
whether a warrantless entry is valid when based upon the consent of a third
party whom the police, at the time of the entry, reasonably believe to
possess common authority over the premises, but who in fact does not do
so.

I
    Respondent Edward Rodriguez was arrested in his apartment by law
enforcement officers and charged with possession of illegal drugs.  The
police gained entry to the apartment with the consent and assistance of
Gail Fischer, who had lived there with respondent for several months.  The
relevant facts leading to the arrest are as follows.
    On July 26, 1985, police were summoned to the residence of Dorothy
Jackson on South Wolcott in Chicago.  They were met by Ms. Jackson's
daughter, Gail Fischer, who showed signs of a severe beating.  She told the
officers that she had been assaulted by respondent Edward Rodriguez earlier
that day in an apartment on South California.  Fischer stated that
Rodriguez was then asleep in the apartment, and she consented to travel
there with the police in order to unlock the door with her key so that the
officers could enter and arrest him.  During this conversation, Fischer
several times referred to the apartment on South California as "our"
apartment, and said that she had clothes and furniture there.  It is
unclear whether she indicated that she currently lived at the apartment, or
only that she used to live there.
    The police officers drove to the apartment on South California,
accompanied by Fischer.  They did not obtain an arrest warrant for
Rodriguez, nor did they seek a search warrant for the apartment.  At the
apartment, Fischer unlocked the door with her key and gave the officers
permission to enter.  They moved through the door into the living room,
where they observed in plain view drug paraphernalia and containers filled
with white powder that they believed (correctly, as later analysis showed)
to be cocaine.  They proceeded to the bedroom, where they found Rodriguez
asleep and discovered additional containers of white powder in two open
attache cases.  The officers arrested Rodriguez and seized the drugs and
related paraphernalia.
    Rodriguez was charged with possession of a controlled substance with
intent to deliver.  He moved to suppress all evidence seized at the time of
his arrest, claiming that Fischer had vacated the apartment several weeks
earlier and had no authority to consent to the entry.  The Cook County
Circuit Court granted the motion, holding that at the time she consented to
the entry Fischer did not have common authority over the apartment.  The
Court concluded that Fischer was not a "usual resident" but rather an
"infrequent visitor" at the apartment on South California, based upon its
findings that Fischer's name was not on the lease, that she did not
contribute to the rent, that she was not allowed to invite others to the
apartment on her own, that she did not have access to the apartment when
respondent was away, and that she had moved some of her possessions from
the apartment.  The Circuit Court also rejected the State's contention
that, even if Fischer did not possess common authority over the premises,
there was no Fourth Amendment violation if the police reasonably believed
at the time of their entry that Fischer possessed the authority to
consent.
    The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed the Circuit Court in all
respects.  The Illinois Supreme Court denied the State's Petition for Leave
to Appeal, 125 Ill. 2d 572, 537 N. E. 2d 816 (1989), and we granted
certiorari.  493 U. S. ---- (1989).

II
    The Fourth Amendment generally prohibits the warrantless entry of a
person's home, whether to make an arrest or to search for specific objects.
Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980); Johnson v. United States, 333 U.
S. 10 (1948).  The prohibition does not apply, however, to situations in
which voluntary consent has been obtained, either from the individual whose
property is searched, see Schneck loth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218 (1973),
or from a third party who possesses common authority over the premises, see
United States v. Matlock, supra, at 171.  The State of Illinois contends
that that exception applies in the present case.
    As we stated in Matlock, 415 U. S., at 171, n. 7, "[c]ommon authority"
rests "on mutual use of the property by persons generally having joint
access or control for most purposes . . . ."  The burden of establishing
that common authority rests upon the State.  On the basis of this rec- ord,
it is clear that burden was not sustained.  The evidence showed that
although Fischer, with her two small children, had lived with Rodriguez
beginning in December 1984, she had moved out on July 1, 1985, almost a
month before the search at issue here, and had gone to live with her
mother.  She took her and her children's clothing with her, though leaving
behind some furniture and household effects.  During the period after July
1 she sometimes spent the night at Rodriguez's apartment, but never invited
her friends there, and never went there herself when he was not home.  Her
name was not on the lease nor did she contribute to the rent.  She had a
key to the apartment, which she said at trial she had taken without
Rodriguez's knowledge (though she testified at the preliminary hearing that
Rodriguez had given her the key).  On these facts the State has not
established that, with respect to the South California apartment, Fischer
had "joint access or control for most purposes."  To the contrary, the
Appellate Court's determination of no common authority over the apartment
was obviously correct.

III


A
    The State contends that, even if Fischer did not in fact have authority
to give consent, it suffices to validate the entry that the law enforcement
officers reasonably believed she did.  Before reaching the merits of that
contention, we must consider a jurisdictional objection: that the decision
below rests on an adequate and independent state ground.  Respondent
asserts that the Illinois Constitution provides greater protection than is
afforded under the Fourth Amendment, and that the Appellate Court relied
upon this when it determined that a reasonable belief by the police
officers was insufficient.
    When a state court decision is clearly based on state law that is both
adequate and independent, we will not review the decision.  Michigan v.
Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1041 (1983).  But when "a state court decision fairly
appears to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with federal
law," we require that it contain a " `plain statement' that [it] rests upon
adequate and independent state grounds," id., at 1040, 1042; otherwise, "we
will accept as the most reasonable explanation that the state court decided
the case the way it did because it believed that federal law required it to
do so."  Id., at 1041.  Here, the Appellate Court's opinion contains no
"plain statement" that its decision rests on state law.  The opinion does
not rely on (or even mention) any specific provision of the Illinois
Constitution, nor even the Illinois Constitution generally.  Even the
Illinois cases cited by the opinion rely upon no constitutional provisions
other than the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States
Constitution.  We conclude that the Appellate Court of Illinois rested its
decision on federal law.

B
    On the merits of the issue, respondent asserts that permitting a
reasonable belief of common authority to validate an entry would cause a
defendant's Fourth Amendment rights to be "vicariously waived."  Brief for
Respondent 32.  We disagree.
    We have been unyielding in our insistence that a defendant's waiver of
his trial rights cannot be given effect unless it is "knowing" and
"intelligent."  Colorado v. Spring, 479 U. S. 564, 574-575 (1987); Johnson
v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938).  We would assuredly not permit, therefore,
evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment to be introduced on
the basis of a trial court's mere "reasonable belief"--derived from
statements by unauthorized persons--that the defendant has waived his
objection.  But one must make a distinction between, on the one hand, trial
rights that derive from the violation of constitutional guarantees and, on
the other hand, the nature of those constitutional guarantees themselves.
As we said in Schneckloth:


    "There is a vast difference between those rights that protect a fair
criminal trial and the rights guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment.
Nothing, either in the purposes behind requiring a `knowing' and
`intelligent' waiver of trial rights, or in the practical application of
such a requirement suggests that it ought to be extended to the
constitutional guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures."  412
U. S., at 241.


    What Rodriguez is assured by the trial right of the ex clusionary rule,
where it applies, is that no evidence seized in violation of the Fourth
Amendment will be introduced at his trial unless he consents.  What he is
assured by the Fourth Amendment itself, however, is not that no government
search of his house will occur unless he consents; but that no such search
will occur that is "unreasonable."  U. S. Const., Amdt. 4.  There are
various elements, of course, that can make a search of a person's house
"reasonable"--one of which is the consent of the person or his cotenant.
The essence of respondent's argument is that we should impose upon this
element a requirement that we have not imposed upon other elements that
regularly compel government officers to exercise judgment regarding the
facts: namely, the requirement that their judgment be not only responsible
but correct.
    The fundamental objective that alone validates all un consented
government searches is, of course, the seizure of persons who have
committed or are about to commit crimes, or of evidence related to crimes.
But "reasonableness," with respect to this necessary element, does not
demand that the government be factually correct in its assessment that that
is what a search will produce.  Warrants need only be supported by
"probable cause," which demands no more than a proper "assessment of
probabilities in particular factual contexts . . . ."  Illinois v. Gates,
462 U. S. 213, 232 (1983).  If a magistrate, based upon seemingly reliable
but factually inaccurate information, issues a warrant for the search of a
house in which the sought-after felon is not present, has never been
present, and was never likely to have been pres ent, the owner of that
house suffers one of the inconveniences we all expose ourselves to as the
cost of living in a safe society; he does not suffer a violation of the
Fourth Amendment.
    Another element often, though not invariably, required in order to
render an unconsented search "reasonable" is, of course, that the officer
be authorized by a valid warrant.  Here also we have not held that
"reasonableness" precludes error with respect to those factual judgments
that law enforcement officials are expected to make.  In Maryland v.
Garrison, 480 U. S. 79 (1987), a warrant supported by probable cause with
respect to one apartment was erroneously issued for an entire floor that
was divided (though not clearly) into two apartments.  We upheld the search
of the apartment not properly covered by the warrant.  We said:

"[T]he validity of the search of respondent's apartment pursuant to a
warrant authorizing the search of the entire third floor depends on whether
the officers' failure to realize the overbreadth of the warrant was
objectively understandable and reasonable.  Here it unquestionably was.
The objective facts available to the officers at the time suggested no
distinction between [the suspect's] apartment and the third-floor
premises."  Id., at 88.


    The ordinary requirement of a warrant is sometimes supplanted by other
elements that render the unconsented search "reasonable."  Here also we
have not held that the Fourth Amendment requires factual accuracy.  A
warrant is not needed, for example, where the search is incident to an
arrest.  In Hill v. California, 401 U. S. 797 (1971), we upheld a search
incident to an arrest, even though the arrest was made of the wrong person.
We said:


    "The upshot was that the officers in good faith believed Miller was
Hill and arrested him.  They were quite wrong as it turned out, and
subjective good-faith belief would not in itself justify either the arrest
or the subsequent search.  But sufficient probability, not certainty, is
the touchstone of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment and on the
record before us the officers' mistake was understandable and the arrest a
reasonable response to the situation facing them at the time."  Id., at
803-804.


    It would be superfluous to multiply these examples.  It is apparent
that in order to satisfy the "reasonableness" requirement of the Fourth
Amendment, what is generally demanded of the many factual determinations
that must regularly be made by agents of the government--whether the
magistrate issuing a warrant, the police officer executing a warrant, or
the police officer conducting a search or seizure under one of the
exceptions to the warrant requirement--is not that they always be correct,
but that they always be reasonable.  As we put it in Brinegar v. United
States, 338 U. S. 160, 176 (1949):

"Because many situations which confront officers in the course of executing
their duties are more or less ambiguous, room must be allowed for some
mistakes on their part.  But the mistakes must be those of reasonable men,
acting on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions of probability."


    We see no reason to depart from this general rule with respect to facts
bearing upon the authority to consent to a search.  Whether the basis for
such authority exists is the sort of recurring factual question to which
law enforcement officials must be expected to apply their judgment; and all
the Fourth Amendment requires is that they answer it reasonably.  The
Constitution is no more violated when officers enter without a warrant
because they reasonably (though erroneously) believe that the person who
has consented to their entry is a resident of the premises, than it is
violated when they enter without a warrant because they reasonably (though
erroneously) believe they are in pursuit of a violent felon who is about to
escape.  See Archibald v. Mosel, 677 F. 2d 5 (CA1 1982). {1}
    Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483 (1964) is in our view not to the
contrary.  There, in holding that police had improperly entered the
defendant's hotel room based on the consent of a hotel clerk, we stated
that "the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment are not to be eroded . .
. by unrealistic doctrines of `apparent authority.' "  Id., at 488.  It is
ambiguous, of course, whether the word "unrealistic" is descriptive or
limiting--that is, whether we were condemning as unrealistic all reliance
upon apparent authority, or whether we were condemning only such reliance
upon apparent authority as is unrealistic.  Similarly ambiguous is the
opinion's earlier statement that "there [is no] substance to the claim that
the search was reasonable because the police, relying upon the night
clerk's expressions of consent, had a reasonable basis for the belief that
the clerk had authority to consent to the search."  Ibid.  Was there no
substance to it because it failed as a matter of law, or because the facts
could not possibly support it?  At one point the opinion does seem to speak
clearly:


    "It is important to bear in mind that it was the petitioner's
constitutional right which was at stake here, and not the night clerk's nor
the hotel's.  It was a right, therefore, which only the petitioner could
waive by word or deed, either directly or through an agent."  Id., at 489.


But as we have discussed, what is at issue when a claim of apparent consent
is raised is not whether the right to be free of searches has been waived,
but whether the right to be free of unreasonable searches has been
violated.  Even if one does not think the Stoner opinion had this subtlety
in mind, the supposed clarity of its foregoing statement is immediately
compromised, as follows:

"It is true that the night clerk clearly and unambiguously consented to the
search.  But there is nothing in the record to indicate that the police had
any basis whatsoever to believe that the night clerk had been authorized by
the petitioner to permit the police to search the petitioner's room."
Ibid. (emphasis added).


The italicized language should have been deleted, of course, if the
statement two sentences earlier meant that an appearance of authority could
never validate a search.  In the last analysis, one must admit that the
rationale of Stoner was ambiguous--and perhaps deliberately so.  It is at
least a reasonable reading of the case, and perhaps a preferable one, that
the police could not rely upon the obtained consent because they knew it
came from a hotel clerk, knew that the room was rented and exclusively
occupied by the defendant, and could not reasonably have believed that the
former had general access to or control over the latter.  Similarly am
biguous in its implications (the Court's opinion does not even allude to,
much less discuss the effects of, "reasonable belief") is Chapman v. United
States, 365 U. S. 610 (1961).  In sum, we were correct in Matlock, 415 U.
S., at 177, n. 14, when we regarded the present issue as unresolved.
    As Stoner demonstrates, what we hold today does not suggest that law
enforcement officers may always accept a person's invitation to enter
premises.  Even when the invitation is accompanied by an explicit assertion
that the person lives there, the surrounding circumstances could
conceivably be such that a reasonable person would doubt its truth and not
act upon it without further inquiry.  As with other factual determinations
bearing upon search and seizure, determination of consent to enter must "be
judged against an objective standard: 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?  Terry
v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 21-22 (1968).  If not, then warrantless entry without
further inquiry is unlawful unless authority actually exists.  But if so,
the search is valid.

*  *  *
    In the present case, the Appellate Court found it unnecessary to
determine whether the officers reasonably believed that Fischer had the
authority to consent, because it ruled as a matter of law that a reasonable
belief could not validate the entry.  Since we find that ruling to be in
error, we remand for consideration of that question.  The judgment of the
Illinois Appellate Court is reversed and remanded for further proceedings
not inconsistent with this opinion.

So ordered.


 
 
 
 
 


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1
    Justice Marshall's dissent rests upon a rejection of the proposition
that searches pursuant to valid third-party consent are "generally
reasonable." Post, at 7.  Only a warrant or exigent circumstances, he
contends, can produce "reasonableness"; consent validates the search only
because the object of the search thereby "limit[s] his expectation of
privacy," post, at 10, so that the search becomes not really a search at
all.  We see no basis for making such an artificial distinction.  To
describe a consented search as a non-invasion of privacy and thus a
non-search is strange in the extreme.  And while it must be admitted that
this ingenious device can explain why consented searches are lawful, it
cannot explain why seemingly consented searches are "unreasonable," which
is all that the Consti tution forbids.  See Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S.
648, 653-654 (1979) ("[t]he essential purpose of the proscriptions in the
Fourth Amendment is to impose a standard of `reasonableness' upon the
exercise of discretion by government officials").  The only basis for
contending that the constitutional standard could not possibly have been
met here is the argument that reasonableness must be judged by the facts as
they were, rather than by the facts as they were known.  As we have
discussed in text, that argument has long since been rejected.





Subject: 88-2018--DISSENT, ILLINOIS v. RODRIGUEZ

 


    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES


No. 88-2018



ILLINOIS, PETITIONER v. EDWARD RODRIGUEZ

on writ of certiorari to the appellate court of illinois, first district

[June 21, 1990]



    Justice Marshall, with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Stevens join,
dissenting.

    Dorothy Jackson summoned police officers to her house to report that
her daughter Gail Fischer had been beaten.  Fischer told police that Ed
Rodriguez, her boyfriend, was her assaulter.  During an interview with
Fischer, one of the officers asked if Rodriguez dealt in narcotics.
Fischer did not respond.  Fischer did agree, however, to the officers'
request to let them into Rodriguez's apartment so that they could arrest
him for battery.  The police, without a warrant and despite the absence of
an exigency, entered Rodriguez's home to arrest him.  As a result of their
entry, the police discovered narcotics that the State subsequently sought
to introduce in a drug prosecution against Rodriguez.
    The majority agrees with the Illinois appellate court's determination
that Fischer did not have authority to consent to the officers' entry of
Rodriguez's apartment.  Ante, at 4.  The Court holds that the warrantless
entry into Rodriguez's home was nonetheless valid if the officers
reasonably believed that Fischer had authority to consent.  Ante, at 11.
The majority's defense of this position rests on a misconception of the
basis for third-party consent searches.  That such searches do not give
rise to claims of constitutional violations rests not on the premise that
they are "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment, see ante, at 6, but on
the premise that a person may voluntarily limit his expectation of privacy
by allowing others to exercise authority over his possessions.  Cf. Katz v.
United States, 389 U. S. 347, 351 (1967) ("What a person knowingly exposes
to the public, even in his home or office, is not a subject of Fourth
Amendment protection").  Thus, an individual's decision to permit another
"joint access [to] or control [over the property] for most purposes,"
United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164, 171, n. 7 (1974), limits that
individual's reasonable expectation of privacy and to that extent limits
his Fourth Amendment protections.  Cf. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128,
148 (1978) (because passenger in car lacked "legitimate expectation of
privacy in the glove compartment," Court did not decide whether search
would violate Fourth Amendment rights of someone who had such expectation).
If an individual has not so limited his expectation of privacy, the police
may not dispense with the safeguards established by the Fourth Amendment.
    The baseline for the reasonableness of a search or seizure in the home
is the presence of a warrant.  Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Assn.,
489 U. S. ---- (1989).  Indeed, "searches and seizures inside a home
without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable."  Payton v. New York, 445
U. S. 573, 586 (1980).  Exceptions to the warrant requirement must
therefore serve "compelling" law enforcement goals.  Mincey v. Arizona, 437
U. S. 385, 394 (1978).  Because the sole law enforcement purpose underlying
third- party consent searches is avoiding the inconvenience of securing a
warrant, a departure from the warrant requirement is not justified simply
because an officer reasonably believes a third party has consented to a
search of the defendant's home.  In holding otherwise, the majority ignores
our longstanding view that "the informed and deliberate determinations of
magistrates . . . as to what searches and seizures are permissible under
the Constitution are to be preferred over the hurried action of officers
and others who may happen to make arrests."  United States v. Lefkowitz,
285 U. S. 452, 464 (1932).
I
    The Fourth Amendment provides that "[t]he right of the people to be
secure in their . . . houses . . . shall not be violated."  We have
recognized that the "physical entry of the home is the chief evil against
which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed."  United States v.
United States District Court, 407 U. S. 297, 313 (1972).  We have further
held that "a search or seizure carried out on a suspect's premises without
a warrant is per se unreasonable, unless the police can show that it falls
within one of a carefully defined set of exceptions."  Coolidge v. New
Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 474 (1971).  Those exceptions must be crafted in
light of the warrant requirement's purposes.  As this Court stated in
McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451 (1948):

"The presence of a search warrant serves a high function.  Absent some
grave emergency, the Fourth Amendment has interposed a magistrate between
the citizen and the police.  This was done not to shield criminals nor to
make the home a safe haven for illegal activities.  It was done so that an
objective mind might weigh the need to invade that privacy in order to
enforce the law.  The right of privacy was deemed too precious to entrust
to the discretion of those whose job is the detection of crime and the
arrest of criminals."  Id., at 455-456.

    The Court has tolerated departures from the warrant requirement only
when an exigency makes a warrantless search imperative to the safety of the
police and of the community.  See, e. g., id., at 456, ("We cannot be true
to that constitutional requirement and excuse the absence of a search
warrant without a showing by those who seek exemption from the
constitutional mandate that the exigencies of the situation made that
course imperative"); Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294 (1967) (hot pursuit);
Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969) (interest in officers' safety
justifies search incident to an arrest); Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499,
509 (1978) ("compelling need for official action and no time to secure a
warrant" justifies warrantless entry of burning building).  The Court has
often heard, and steadfastly rejected, the invitation to carve out further
exceptions to the warrant requirement for searches of the home because of
the burdens on police investigation and prosecution of crime.  Our
rejection of such claims is not due to a lack of appreciation of the
difficulty and importance of effective law enforcement, but rather to our
firm commitment to "the view of those who wrote the Bill of Rights that the
privacy of a person's home and property may not be totally sacrificed in
the name of maximum simplicity in enforcement of the criminal law."
Mincey, supra, at 393 (citing United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 6-11
(1977)).
    In the absence of an exigency, then, warrantless home searches and
seizures are unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.  The weighty
constitutional interest in preventing unauthorized intrusions into the home
overrides any law enforcement interest in relying on the reasonable but
potentially mistaken belief that a third party has authority to consent to
such a search or seizure.  Indeed, as the present case illustrates, only
the minimal interest in avoiding the inconvenience of obtaining a warrant
weighs in on the law enforcement side.
    Against this law enforcement interest in expediting arrests is "the
right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from
unreasonable governmental intrusion."  Silver man v. United States, 365 U.
S. 505, 511 (1961).  To be sure, in some cases in which police officers
reasonably rely on a third party's consent, the consent will prove valid,
no intrusion will result, and the police will have been spared the
inconvenience of securing a warrant.  But in other cases, such as this one,
the authority claimed by the third party will be false.  The reasonableness
of police conduct must be measured in light of the possibility that the
target has not consented.  Where "[n]o reason is offered for not obtaining
a search warrant except the inconvenience to the officers and some slight
delay necessary to prepare papers and present the evidence to a
magistrate," the Constitution demands that the warrant procedure be
observed.  Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 15 (1948).  The concerns
of expediting police work and avoiding paperwork "are never very convincing
reasons and, in these circumstances, certainly are not enough to by-pass
the constitutional requirement."  Ibid.  In this case, as in Johnson, "[n]o
suspect was fleeing or likely to take flight.  The search was of permanent
premises, not of a movable vehicle.  No evidence or contraband was
threatened with removal or destruction . . . .  If the officers in this
case were excused from their constitutional duty of presenting their
evidence to a magistrate, it is difficult to think of a case in which it
should be required."  Ibid.
    Unlike searches conducted pursuant to the recognized exceptions to the
warrant requirement, see supra, at ---- - ----, third-party consent
searches are not based on an exigency and therefore serve no compelling
social goal.  Police officers, when faced with the choice of relying on
consent by a third party or securing a warrant, should secure a warrant,
and must therefore accept the risk of error should they instead choose to
rely on consent.
II
    Our prior cases discussing searches based on third-party consent have
never suggested that such searches are "reasonable."  In United States v.
Matlock, this Court upheld a warrantless search conducted pursuant to the
consent of a third party who was living with the defendant.  The Court
rejected the defendant's challenge to the search, stating that a person who
permits others to have "joint access or control for most purposes . . .
assume[s] the risk that [such persons] might permit the common area to be
searched."  415 U. S., at 171, n. 7; see also Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U. S.
731, 740 (1969) (holding that defendant who left a duffel bag at another's
house and allowed joint use of the bag "assumed the risk that [the person]
would allow someone else to look inside").  As the Court's
assumption-of-risk analysis makes clear, third-party consent limits a
person's ability to challenge the reasonableness of the search only because
that person voluntarily has relinquished some of his expectation of privacy
by sharing access or control over his property with another person.
    A search conducted pursuant to an officer's reasonable but mistaken
belief that a third party had authority to consent is thus on an entirely
different constitutional footing from one based on the consent of a third
party who in fact has such authority.  Even if the officers reasonably
believed that Fischer had authority to consent, she did not, and
Rodriguez's expectation of privacy was therefore undiminished.  Rodriguez
accordingly can challenge the warrantless intrusion into his home as a
violation of the Fourth Amendment.  This conclusion flows directly from
Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483 (1964).  There, the Court required the
suppression of evidence seized in reliance on a hotel clerk's consent to a
warrantless search of a guest's room.  The Court reasoned that the guest's
right to be free of unwarranted intrusion "was a right . . . which only
[he] could waive by word or deed, either directly or through an agent."
Id., at 489.  Accordingly, the Court rejected resort to "unrealistic
doctrines of `apparent authority' " as a means of upholding the search to
which the guest had not consented.  Id., at 488. {1}
III
    Acknowledging that the third party in this case lacked authority to
consent, the majority seeks to rely on cases suggesting that reasonable but
mistaken factual judgments by police will not invalidate otherwise
reasonable searches.  The majority reads these cases as establishing a
"general rule" that "what is generally demanded of the many factual
determinations that must regularly be made by agents of the
government--whether the magistrate issuing a warrant, the police officer
executing a warrant, or the police officer conducting a search or seizure
under one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement--is not that they
always be correct, but that they always be reasonable."  Ante, at 8.
    The majority's assertion, however, is premised on the erroneous
assumption that third-party consent searches are generally reasonable.  The
cases the majority cites thus provide no support for its holding.  In
Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160 (1949), for example, the Court
confirmed the unremarkable proposition that police need only probable
cause, not absolute certainty, to justify the arrest of a suspect on a
highway.  As Brinegar makes clear, the possibility of factual error is
built into the probable cause standard, and such a standard, by its very
definition, will in some cases result in the arrest of a suspect who has
not actually committed a crime.  Because probable cause defines the
reasonableness of searches and seizures outside of the home, a search is
reasonable under the Fourth Amendment whenever that standard is met,
notwithstanding the possibility of "mistakes" on the part of police.  Id.,
at 176.  In contrast, our cases have already struck the balance against
warrantless home intrusions in the absence of an exigency.  See supra, at
----.  Because reasonable factual errors by law enforcement officers will
not validate unreasonable searches, the reasonableness of the officer's
mistaken belief that the third party had authority to consent is
irrelevant. {2}
    The majority's reliance on Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79 (1987),
is also misplaced.  In Garrison, the police obtained a valid warrant for
the search of the "third floor apartment" of a building whose third floor
in fact housed two apartments.  Id., at 80.  Although the police had
probable cause to search only one of the apartments, they entered both
apartments because "[t]he objective facts available to the officers at the
time suggested no distinction between [the apartment for which they
legitimately had the warrant and the entire third floor]."  Id., at 88.
The Court held that the officers' reasonable mistake of fact did not render
the search unconstitutional.  Id., at 88-89.  As in Brinegar, the Court's
decision was premised on the general reasonableness of the type of police
action involved.  Because searches based on warrants are generally
reasonable, the officers' reasonable mistake of fact did not render their
search "unreasonable."  This reasoning is evident in the Court's conclusion
that little would be gained by adopting additional burdens "over and above
the bedrock requirement that, with the exceptions we have traced in our
cases, the police may conduct searches only pursuant to a reasonably
detailed warrant."  Garrison, supra, at 89, n. 14.
    Garrison, like Brinegar, thus tells us nothing about the reasonableness
under the Fourth Amendment of a warrantless arrest in the home based on an
officer's reasonable but mistaken belief that the third party consenting to
the arrest was empowered to do so.  The majority's glib assertion that
"[i]t would be superfluous to multiply" its citations to cases like
Brinegar, Hill, and Garrison, ante, at 8, is thus correct, but for a reason
entirely different than the majority suggests.  Those cases provide no
illumination of the issue raised in this case, and further citation to like
cases would be as superfluous as the discussion on which the majority's
conclusion presently depends.
IV
    Our cases demonstrate that third-party consent searches are free from
constitutional challenge only to the extent that they rest on consent by a
party empowered to do so.  The majority's conclusion to the contrary
ignores the legitimate expectations of privacy on which individuals are
entitled to rely.  That a person who allows another joint access over his
property thereby limits his expectation of privacy does not justify
trampling the rights of a person who has not similarly relinquished any of
his privacy expectation.
    Instead of judging the validity of consent searches, as we have in the
past, based on whether a defendant has in fact limited his expectation of
privacy, the Court today carves out an additional exception to the warrant
requirement for third- party consent searches without pausing to consider
whether " `the exigencies of the situation' make the needs of law
enforcement so compelling that the warrantless search is objectively
reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,"  Mincey, 437 U. S., at 394
(citations omitted).  Where this free-floating creation of "reasonable"
exceptions to the warrant requirement will end, now that the Court has
departed from the balancing approach that has long been part of our Fourth
Amendment jurisprudence, is unclear.  But by allowing a person to be
subjected to a warrantless search in his home without his consent and
without exigency, the majority has taken away some of the liberty that the
Fourth Amendment was designed to protect.

 
 
 
 
 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1
    The majority insists that the rationale of Stoner is "ambiguous--and
perhaps deliberately so" with respect to the permissibility of third-party
searches where the suspect has not conferred actual authority on the third
party.  Ante, at 9.  Stoner itself is clear, however; today's majority
manufactures the ambiguity.  When the Stoner Court stated that the Fourth
Amendment is to not to be eroded "by unrealistic doctrines of `apparent
authority,' " 376 U. S., at 488, and that "only the petitioner could waive
by word or deed" his freedom from a warrantless search, id., at 489, the
Court rejected precisely the proposition that the majority today adopts.
    The majority regards Stoner's rejection of "unrealistic doctrines of
`apparent authority' " as ambiguous on the theory that the Court might have
been referring only to unreasonable applications of such doctrines, and not
to the doctrines themselves.  Ante, at 9-10.  But Stoner's express
description of apparent authority doctrines as unrealistic cannot be viewed
as mere happenstance.  The Court in fact used the word "applications" in
the same sentence to refer to misapplications of the actual authority
doctrine: "Our decisions make clear that the rights protected by the Fourth
Amendment are not to be eroded by strained applications of the law of
agency or by unrealistic doctrines of `apparent authority.' "  376 U. S.,
at 488 (emphasis added).  The full sentence thus unambiguously confirms
that Stoner rejected any reliance on apparent authority doctrines.
    Nor did the Stoner Court leave open the door for a police officer to
rely on a reasonable but mistaken belief in a third party's authority to
consent when it remarked that "there is nothing in the record to indicate
that the police had any basis whatsoever to believe that the night clerk
had been authorized by the petitioner to permit the police to search the
petitioner's room."  Id., at 489.  Stating that a defendant must "by word
or deed" waive his rights, ibid., is not inconsistent with noting that, in
a particular case, the absence of actual waiver is confirmed by the
police's inability to identify any basis for their contention that waiver
had indeed occurred.

2
    The same analysis applies to Hill v. California, 401 U. S. 797 (1971),
where the Court upheld a search incident to an arrest in which officers
reasonably but mistakenly believed that the person arrested in the
defendant's home was the defendant.  The Court refused to disturb the state
court's holding that " `[w]hen the police have probable cause to arrest one
party, and when they reasonably mistake a second party for the first party,
then the arrest of the second party is a valid arrest.' "  Id., at 802
(brackets in original) (quoting People v. Hill, 69 Cal. 2d 550, 553, 446 P.
2d 521, 523 (1968)).  Given that the Court decided Hill before the
extension of the warrant requirement to arrests in the home, Payton v. New
York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980), Hill should be understood no less than Brinegar
as simply a gloss on the meaning of "probable cause."  The holding in Hill
rested on the fact that the police had probable cause to believe that Hill
had committed a crime.  In such circumstances, the reasonableness of the
arrest for which the police had probable cause was not undermined by the
officers' factual mistake regarding the identity of the person arrested.
