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

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

W.D.N.C.: Defendant's disclaimer ofownership helped show he did not refuse consent; Randolph likely does not apply to cars, but that issue doesn't have to be decided

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant disclaimed ownership of the car he was in saying that it was his mother’s, and that’s why he did not consent to search of her car he was in. By his own admission, his mother as owner of the car could consent to its search. He did not really refuse consent. He did have standing to the contest the search the car. United States v. Ingram, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139041 (W.D. N.C. December 28, 2010). He argued Georgia v. Randolph prevented them from asking her after he refused, but he did not refuse. The court also notes, without having to decide, that Randolph may only apply to the home. Note 3: Even if Defendant had refused consent, it is not clear that Randolph would extend beyond the home. A careful reading of the Supreme Court’s decision in Randolph reveals that it was limited to “the circumstances here at issue”–-a search of a home undertaken as a result of consent given by one co-tenant in the face of a present co-tenant’s objection...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on January 10, 2011 (boomark / email).