SUPREME COURT STRENGTHENS PROTECTION AGAINST SEARCHES

Objection by One Resident Precludes Warrantless Entry Despite
Another's Permission

WASHINGTON -- Strengthening Fourth Amendment protections against
warrantless searches, the Supreme Court ruled that police can't enter
a house over a resident's objection simply because a second occupant
invites them in.

Chief Justice John Roberts led the three dissenters, reflecting his
longstanding deference to police.

The opinions recalled debates that have marked the court since the
1950s, when, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, it began imposing rules
to deter police misconduct. Justice Samuel Alito sat out because the
case was argued before his confirmation, but he has written elsewhere
of his disagreement with Warren Court criminal-procedure cases.

The ruling by Justice David Souter was grounded in those doctrines,
which have limited warrantless searches when a third party, such as a
landlord or hotel clerk, has let police into an absent tenant's
quarters. "We have, after all, lived our whole national history with
an understanding of 'the ancient adage that a man's home is his
castle,'" Justice Souter wrote, citing a 1958 opinion by his
predecessor, Justice William Brennan.

Yesterday's case originated with a 2001 marital dispute in Americus,
Ga. Janet Randolph told police that her husband, Scott, used cocaine
and that the house held "drug evidence." Mr. Randolph refused when an
officer asked permission to search the premises. The officer turned
to Mrs. Randolph, who led him to Mr. Randolph's bedroom, where the
officer found a drinking straw with cocaine residue.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled the search violated the Fourth
Amendment, which bars "unreasonable searches and seizures" of
"persons, houses, papers and effects." The state appealed.

Although the Constitution generally provides that police obtain a
warrant before conducting a search, there are "reasonable"
exceptions, such as to prevent imminent harm or if the party consents.

"The constant element...is the great significance given to widely
shared social expectations," Justice Souter wrote. "There is no
common understanding that one co-tenant" can "prevail over the
express wishes of another, whether the issue is the color of the
curtains or invitations to outsiders." Few visitors would enter a
house at "one occupant's invitation...when a fellow tenant stood
there saying, 'stay out.'" That distinguished the case from a 1974
Supreme Court decision allowing one tenant to let police search while
a co-tenant wasn't home. People who share housing "understand that
any one of them may admit visitors, with the consequence that a guest
obnoxious to one may nevertheless be admitted in his absence by
another," he wrote.

Chief Justice Roberts's dissent said "the court creates
constitutional law by surmising what is typical when a social guest
encounters an entirely atypical situation." Many "social conventions
may shape expectations about how we act when another shares with us
what is otherwise private," he wrote. But "if an individual shares
information, papers, or places with another, he assumes the risk that
the other person will in turn share access to that information or
those papers or places with the government."