State v. Westlake
| Decision Date | 28 May 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 42169.,42169. |
| Citation | 158 Idaho 817,353 P.3d 438 |
| Court | Idaho Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Dona Nichoeal WESTLAKE, Defendant–Respondent. |
Hon. Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General; Theodore S. Tollefson, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for appellant. Theodore S. Tollefson argued.
Sara B. Thomas, State Appellate Public Defender; Kimberly E. Smith, Deputy Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for respondent. Kimberly E. Smith argued.
The State appeals from the district court's order granting defendant Dona Nichoeal Westlake's motion to suppress evidence found in her backpack which was in a motel room that police searched based on consent from a third party. The State contends that the court erred in concluding that under the totality of the circumstances, a third party lacked apparent authority to consent to a police search of the backpack. We affirm.
The Post Falls Police Department received a tip that a wanted individual, Raymundo Chavez, was in a room at a Coeur d'Alene motel. With a warrant for Chavez's arrest, three detectives and two FBI agents went to the motel. The officers initially watched the room from their vehicle for thirty minutes, during which time the only activity observed was a woman, later identified as Katherine Gallagher, entering the room. When the officers knocked, Gallagher opened the door, and the officers observed defendant Dona Westlake and a man (not Chavez) standing or sitting near the bed in the main room just inside the door. A detective asked Gallagher if it was her motel room and she said yes. He then asked whether Chavez was there and Gallagher said he was "in the back," referring to a separate bedroom in the motel suite. Upon a detective's request for permission to enter the suite, Gallagher consented. For officer safety purposes, an officer removed Gallagher, Westlake, and the man from the front room and placed them on a bench just outside of the motel room door. The remaining officers then went to the second bedroom, where they found Chavez sleeping. He was arrested, handcuffed, and placed in a patrol vehicle.
While in the motel suite, the officers saw drug paraphernalia. A detective then called Gallagher back into the front room while Westlake and the second man remained outside. A detective asked Gallagher for permission to search the premises, and she consented. Gallagher remained in the room during the search. In the course of the search, a detective found methamphetamine inside a pink backpack that was on the bed near where Westlake had been standing or sitting when police arrived. After finding the drug, the detective asked Gallagher whether the backpack was hers, and she said that it belonged to Westlake. The detective then questioned Westlake for the first time. She admitted that she owned the backpack and, when confronted with the drugs, stated that "it looks like meth." Westlake declined to say anything more. She was arrested and charged with possession of methamphetamine, Idaho Code § 37–2732(c)(1).
Westlake moved to suppress the methamphetamine and her statements to police on the ground that the warrantless search of her backpack was unlawful. In response, the State argued that the warrantless search of her backpack was justified by Gallagher's consent to a search of the motel suite. It was uncontroverted that Gallagher had no actual authority to consent to a search of Westlake's backpack, but the State asserted that Gallagher had apparent authority to consent to the search because the officers reasonably believed that the backpack belonged to her.
The district court concluded, however, that the State had not demonstrated apparent authority. The court pointed out that the State presented no evidence indicating to the officers that the backpack belonged to Gallagher personally as opposed to anyone else in the room. The court found that the color of the pink backpack indicated that it likely belonged to a female and that because the backpack was located near defendant Westlake when the officers initially entered the motel room, "the most reasonable inference was that the backpack belonged to Westlake." The court granted the suppression motion, holding that the officers should have inquired about ownership of the backpack before proceeding with the search. The State appeals from the district court's suppression order.
In reviewing an order granting or denying a motion to suppress evidence, we defer to the trial court's factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous, but we freely review the determination as to whether constitutional requirements have been satisfied in light of the facts found. State v. Hansen, 151 Idaho 342, 345, 256 P.3d 750, 753 (2011) ; State v. Smith, 144 Idaho 482, 485, 163 P.3d 1194, 1197 (2007).
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." Warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 454–55, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2031–32, 29 L.Ed.2d 564, 575–76 (1971) ; State v. Weaver, 127 Idaho 288, 290, 900 P.2d 196, 198 (1995), but consent voluntarily given by someone with authority is an exception to the warrant requirement. Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103, 109, 126 S.Ct. 1515, 1520, 164 L.Ed.2d 208, 218–19 (2006) ; Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 181, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 2797–98, 111 L.Ed.2d 148, 156–57 (1990) ; State v. Hansen, 138 Idaho 791, 796, 69 P.3d 1052, 1057 (2003). The burden is on the State to show that constitutionally sufficient consent was given. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 181, 110 S.Ct. at 2797–98, 111 L.Ed.2d at 156–57 (); Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 222, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2045, 36 L.Ed.2d 854, 859–60 (1973) (); State v. Johnson, 110 Idaho 516, 522, 716 P.2d 1288, 1294 (1986) (same). To meet this burden, the State must prove that the consenting person had either actual authority or apparent authority over the place to be searched. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 181, 110 S.Ct. at 2797–98, 111 L.Ed.2d at 156–57 ; State v. McCaughey, 127 Idaho 669, 674, 904 P.2d 939, 944 (1995).
The State is not limited to proof that consent was given by the actual owner of the item or premises. If a person consenting to a search does not have actual authority, but government agents reasonably believe that the person has authority, a warrantless search may still be valid. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 186, 110 S.Ct. at 2800, 111 L.Ed.2d at 159–60 ; State v. Brauch, 133 Idaho 215, 219, 984 P.2d 703, 707 (1999) ; State v. Fancher, 145 Idaho 832, 838–39, 186 P.3d 688, 694–95 (Ct.App.2008). This "apparent authority" doctrine was developed by the United States Supreme Court in Rodriguez. In that case, the defendant's girlfriend called police from her mother's home to report a beating she had suffered at the hands of the defendant in their apartment. When the officers arrived, the girlfriend referred to the residence as "our" apartment and stated that she had clothes and furniture there. The officers accompanied the girlfriend to the apartment, where she opened the door with a key and then gave them permission to enter. After observing drugs and paraphernalia inside, the officers arrested Rodriguez. Evidence presented at a hearing on Rodriguez's suppression motion revealed that the girlfriend had no actual authority to consent to the officers' entry because she had moved out of the apartment a month earlier and had taken the key without Rodriguez's knowledge. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 179–82, 110 S.Ct. at 2796–98, 111 L.Ed.2d at 155–57. The Supreme Court framed the issue presented as: "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." Id. at 179, 110 S.Ct. at 2796, 111 L.Ed.2d at 155. The Court answered this query in the affirmative. " It is apparent," the Court said, "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." Id. at 185, 110 S.Ct. at 2799–2800, 111 L.Ed.2d at 159. Whether the basis for such apparent authority exists, the Court said, "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." Id. at 186, 110 S.Ct. at 2800, 111 L.Ed.2d at 159–60. The Court cautioned, however, that authority to consent to a search cannot just be assumed:
[W]hat 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, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)...
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