?Supreme Court hands police more power to conduct warrantless house searches Published: Feb 26, 2014, 04:23 AM The US Supreme Court has ruled that police may search a home without obtaining a warrant despite the objection of one occupant if that occupant has been removed from the premises. With its 6 to 3 decision in Fernandez v. California on Tuesday, the Court sided with law enforcements ability to conduct warrantless searches after restricting police powers with its 2006 decision on a similar case. In 2009, the Los Angeles Police Department sought suspect Walter Fernandez, believed to have stabbed someone in a violent gang robbery. When police first arrived at the suspects home, they heard yelling and screaming before Fernandezs live-in girlfriend Roxanne Rojas answered the door, appearing freshly bruised and bloody, and with an infant in hand, according to argument recap by SCOTUSblog. Fernandez was spotted by police, and said, Get out. I know my rights. You cant come in. Yet police arrested him on charges of domestic violence. Later, once Fernandez was out of the home, police asked Rojas for permission to conduct a search, which yielded evidence implicating Fernandez in the robbery. The Courts decision justified the police actions, with Justice Samuel Alito writing the majoritys position. A warrantless consent search is reasonable and thus consistent with the Fourth Amendment irrespective of the availability of a warrant, Alito wrote. He added that denying someone in Rojas position the right to allow the police to enter her home would also show disrespect for her independence. Alito was joined in the majority by Justices Breyer, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the minority by Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, marking a gender divide among the Justices in the case wrote the dissenting opinion, calling the decision a blow to the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Instead of adhering to the warrant requirement, Ginsburg wrote, todays decision tells the police they may dodge it, nevermind ample time to secure the approval of a neutral magistrate. Tuesdays ruling, she added, shrinks to petite size our holding in Georgia v. Randolph. Georgia v. Randolph was a similar case the Supreme Court addressed in 2006, in which a domestic violence suspect would not allow police to enter his home, though his wife did offer police consent. The police ultimately entered the home. The Court ruled in the case that the mans refusal while being present in the home should have kept authorizes from entering. A physically present inhabitants express refusal of consent to a police search [of his home] is dispositive as to him, regardless of the consent of a fellow occupant, the majority ruled in that case. In addressing Randolph in the majority opinion, Alito wrote that the difference between that case and Fernandez was the physical presence of the suspect. Our opinion in Randolph took great pains to emphasize that its holding was limited to situations in which the objecting occupant is physically present, he wrote. We therefore refuse to extend Randolph to the very different situation in this case, where consent was provided by an abused woman well after her male partner had been removed from the apartment they shared.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 00:00:25 +0000