Illinois v. Rodriguez

The Rodriguez case was important because it seemed to flatten Fourth Amendment analysis of search and seizure cases into one question: whether the actions of the police officers were reasonable.

On 26 July 1985, Chicago police were summoned to Dorothy Jackson's residence on South Wolcott. There the officers met Gail Fischer, who appeared to have suffered a recent beating. Fischer said that she had been assaulted by Edward Rodriguez earlier that day in an apartment located on South California. Fischer indicated several times that she shared the apartment with Rodriguez, so the officers asked Fischer if she would come with them to the apartment and use her key to open the door. Fischer consented, and the police drove her to the apartment on South California.

At the apartment, Fischer unlocked the door with her key and the officers entered. At no time prior to their entry had the police paused to obtain a search warrant from a magistrate to enter the home. Instead, the police relied on their belief that Fischer lived at the apartment and that she had the authority to consent to their entry. Inside the apartment, the police officers found Rodriguez asleep amid containers of cocaine and related paraphernalia.

Rodriguez was arrested and charged in state court with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. Before trial, Rodriguez asked the court to exclude the cocaine evidence, arguing that the warrantless entry into his apartment was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. According to Rodriguez, Fischer had moved out of the apartment several weeks prior to the incident and she did not have authority to give consent for the entry. The trial court agreed with Rodriguez, finding that Fischer was not a "`usual resident'" but "an `infrequent visitor,'" and it rejected the state's contention that it was reasonable for the officers to believe that Fischer had authority to give consent for the entry and that therefore the Fourth Amendment was not violated. The trial court decided to exclude the cocaine evidence against Rodriguez, effectively thwarting the prosecution, and the state appealed that decision. The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed the ruling, and the Illinois Supreme Court rejected the state's appeal.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, took the case and reversed. In 6-3 decision, the High Court ruled that Rodriguez's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated by the warrantless entry because the police officers reasonably believed that Fischer was a resident of the apartment. In an opinion written by Justice Scalia, the Court agreed with the appeals court that the police officers did not, in fact, have the right to enter Rodriguez's apartment based on Fischer's consent because Fischer was not a resident of the apartment and she did not have the authority to give consent.

Rodriguez had argued that permitting officers to enter a dwelling based only on their reasonable belief in the authority of a third party would create a vicarious waiver of his Fourth Amendment rights. The Court had, in the past, held that a person could not vicariously waive his or her Sixth Amendment right to an attorney, and Rodriguez had maintained that Fourth Amendment rights deserved the same protection. There were, however, differences between Fourth and Sixth Amendment rights. Quoting Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), the Court noted that there was "a vast difference" between the waiver of trial rights and the waiver of Fourth Amendment rights, and that nothing in the purpose or application of such protection of trial rights "suggest[ed] that it ought to be extended to the constitutional guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures."

In arguing for the exclusion of the cocaine evidence, Rodriguez had relied on the "exclusionary rule." This was the rule that forbids the introduction of evidence that is obtained in violation of a person's Fourth Amendment rights. The Fourth Amendment itself, though, did not guarantee "that no government search of his house will occur unless he consents." Instead, the Court declared, all that the Fourth Amendment guaranteed was "that no search will occur that is `unreasonable.'" The determination of what was "reasonable," the Court posited, depended on various elements.

The Court concluded that nothing in the construction of the word "reasonable" required that the government "be not only responsible but correct" in its assessments. Indeed, it had not defined reasonable government behavior on such terms in the past, and it was not inclined to use this standard for the warrantless entry of dwellings. All that the Fourth Amendment required was that law enforcement officers act reasonably in applying their judgment. The Court acknowledged that a warrant was an "ordinary requirement" for entry to a dwelling under the Fourth Amendment. However, the warrant requirement was "sometimes supplanted by other elements that render[ed] the unconsented search `reasonable.'"

In making its decision, the Court had to fend off Stoner v. California (1964). In Stoner, the Court held that police officers, relying on the consent of a hotel clerk, did not have the right to enter the defendant's hotel room without a warrant. Justice Scalia carefully parsed various statements made by the Stoner Court and concluded that the meaning of the case was unclear and ambiguous. Like most other search and seizure cases, this one had to be decided by looking at the conduct of the police officers: specifically, by asking whether "the facts available to the officer at the moment" would cause a person "of reasonable caution" to believe that Fischer had authority over Rodriguez's premises. (quoting Terry v. Ohio [1968]) In the Court's opinion, the officers' belief was reasonable, and the warrantless entry into Rodriguez's home did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights. The reversal of the appeals court's decision meant that the cocaine evidence would not be excluded from Rodriguez's trial, and the state of Illinois could continue in its prosecution of Rodriguez.

Justices Brennan and Stevens joined a dissenting opinion written by Justice Marshall. According to the dissent, the Court had misconstrued the rationale behind allowing third-party consent searches. Such searches were constitutional not because they were considered "`reasonable' under the Fourth Amendment." Rather, insisted the dissent, the constitutionality of such searches rested on the "premise that a person may voluntarily limit his expectation of privacy by allowing [an]other to exercise authority over his possessions." If a person does not so limit his or her expectation of privacy, "the police may not dispense with the safeguards established by the Fourth Amendment."

The dissent reminded that Court that it had "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." The need for the police to search and seize without a warrant, the dissent insisted, had to be balanced against the targeted person's Fourth Amendment right to privacy. There was, in fact, no exigency in Rodriguez's case, and the police officers had plenty of time to obtain a warrant for the purpose of entering Rodriguez's apartment and arresting him. The dissent was not persuaded by the majority's use of prior cases to support its position. The holding and reasoning in the Stoner case, for example, were quite clear, but the majority had "manufacture[d] the ambiguity." The Court's opinion, wrote Marshall, interpreted prior case law in a "glib" and "superfluous" way, creating a "free-floating" rule on warrantless entries into the home that erased "some of the liberty that the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect."