Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Fourth Amendment

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

CA8: Relationships can create apparent authority for third party consent

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Relationships can create a reasonable belief in apparent authority to consent. United States v. Almeida-Perez, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 26099 (8th Cir. December 16, 2008): In the same vein, certain relationships between the occupants may give rise to the presumption that one has authority to consent to search of the other's property. For instance, in United States v. Wright, 564 F.2d 785, 790 (8th Cir. 1977), where the defendant was an adult living with his mother, the mother had authority to consent to the search of his dresser. In United States v. Clark, 409 F.3d 1039, 1044 (8th Cir. 2005), police reasonably relied on a wife's permission to search a closet in which the wife reported that the defendant often hid things; nothing in the circumstances showed that the defendant had exclusive access to the closet...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on December 28, 2008 (boomark / email).