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General consent to search a home includes opening locked interior doors; there is no duty to inquire further

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Generalized consent to search premised includes consent to open locked doors. United States v. Pikyavit, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 11874 (10th Cir. June 4, 2008): The police had no obligation in the circumstances here to ask Pikyavit what they should do if they found the door locked, as it was up to Pikyavit to limit or condition the search if that was his intent. See Jimeno, 500 U.S. at 252 ("A suspect may of course delimit as he chooses the scope of the search to which he consents. But if his consent would reasonably be understood to extend to a particular container, the Fourth Amendment provides no grounds for requiring a more explicit authorization."); United States v. West, 219 F.3d 1171, 1177 (10th Cir. 2000) ("The scope of the consent to search is limited by the breadth of the consent given...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on June 06, 2008 (boomark / email).