Georgia v. Randolph

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2005 1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA

No. 04–1067. Argued November 8, 2005—Decided March 22, 2006
Respondent’s estranged wife gave police permission to search the mari-
tal residence for items of drug use after respondent, who was also
present, had unequivocally refused to give consent. Respondent was
indicted for possession of cocaine, and the trial court denied his mo-
tion to suppress the evidence as products of a warrantless search un-
authorized by consent. The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed. In
affirming, the State Supreme Court held that consent given by one
occupant is not valid in the face of the refusal of another physically
present occupant, and distinguished United States v. Matlock, 415
U. S. 164, which recognized the permissibility of an entry made with
the consent of one co-occupant in the other’s absence.
Held: In the circumstances here at issue, a physically present co-
occupant’s stated refusal to permit entry renders warrantless entry
and search unreasonable and invalid as to him. Pp. 4–19.
(a) The Fourth Amendment recognizes a valid warrantless entry
and search of a premises when the police obtain the voluntary con-
sent of an occupant who shares, or is reasonably believed to share,
common authority over the property, and no present co-tenant ob-
jects. Matlock, supra, at 170; Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177,
186. The constant element in assessing Fourth Amendment reason-
ableness in such cases is the great significance given to widely shared
social expectations, which are influenced by property law but not con-
trolled by its rules. Thus, Matlock not only holds that a solitary co-
inhabitant may sometimes consent to a search of shared premises,
but also stands for the proposition that the reasonableness of such a
search is in significant part a function of commonly held understand-
ings about the authority that co-inhabitants may exercise in ways
that affect each other’s interests. Pp. 4–6.
(b) Matlock’s example of common understanding is readily appar-
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Syllabus

ent. The assumption tenants usually make about their common au-
thority when they share quarters is that any one of them may admit
visitors, with the consequence that a guest obnoxious to one may be
admitted in his absence. Matlock placed no burden on the police to
eliminate the possibility of atypical arrangements, absent reason to
doubt that the regular scheme was in place. Pp. 6–8.
(c) This Court took a step toward addressing the issue here when it
held in Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U. S. 91, that overnight houseguests
have a legitimate expectation of privacy in their temporary quarters.
If that customary expectation is a foundation of a houseguest’s
Fourth Amendment rights, it should follow that an inhabitant of
shared premises may claim at least as much. In fact, a co-inhabitant
naturally has an even stronger claim. No sensible person would en-
ter shared premises based on one occupant’s invitation when a fellow
tenant said to stay out. Such reticence would show not timidity but a
realization that when people living together disagree over the use of
their common quarters, a resolution must come through voluntary
accommodation, not by appeals to authority. Absent some recognized
hierarchy, e.g., parent and child, there is no societal or legal under-
standing of superior and inferior as between co-tenants. Pp. 8–10.
(d) Thus, a disputed invitation, without more, gives an officer no
better claim to reasonableness in entering than the officer would
have absent any consent. Disputed permission is no match for the
Fourth Amendment central value of “respect for the privacy of the
home,” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 610, and the State’s other
countervailing claims do not add up to outweigh it.
A co-tenant who has an interest in bringing criminal activity to
light or in deflecting suspicion from himself can, e.g., tell the police
what he knows, for use before a magistrate in getting a warrant.
This case, which recognizes limits on evidentiary searches, has no
bearing on the capacity of the police, at the invitation of one tenant,
to enter a dwelling over another tenant’s objection in order to protect
a resident from domestic violence. Though alternatives to disputed
consent will not always open the door to search for evidence that the
police suspect is inside, nothing in social custom or its reflection in
private law argues for placing a higher value on delving into private
premises to search for evidence in the face of disputed consent, than
on requiring clear justification before the government searches pri-
vate living quarters over a resident’s objection. Pp. 10–16.
(e) There are two loose ends. First, while Matlock’s explanation for
the constitutional sufficiency of a co-tenant’s consent to enter and
search recognized a co-inhabitant’s “right to permit the inspection in
his own right,” 415 U. S., at 171, n. 7, the right to admit the police is
not a right as understood under property law. It is, instead, the au-
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Syllabus

thority recognized by customary social usage as having a substantial
bearing on Fourth Amendment reasonableness in specific circum-
stances. The question here is whether customary social understand-
ing accords the consenting tenant authority to prevail over the co-
tenant’s objection, a question Matlock did not answer. Second, a fine
line must be drawn to avoid undercutting Matlock—where the defen-
dant, though not present, was in a squad car not far away—and Rod-
riguez—where the defendant was asleep in the apartment and could
have been roused by a knock on the door; if a potential defendant
with self-interest in objecting is in fact at the door and objects, the co-
tenant’s permission does not suffice for a reasonable search, whereas
the potential objector, nearby but not part of the threshold colloquy,
loses out. Such formalism is justified. So long as there is no evidence
that the police have removed the potentially objecting tenant from
the entrance specifically to avoid a possible objection, there is practi-
cal value in the simple clarity of complementary rules, one recogniz-
ing the co-tenant’s permission when no fellow occupant is on hand,
the other according dispositive weight to the fellow occupant’s ex-
pressed contrary indication. Pp. 16–18.
(f) Here, respondent’s refusal is clear, and nothing in the record
justifies the search on grounds independent of his wife’s consent.
Pp. 18–19.
278 Ga. 614, 604 S. E. 2d 835, affirmed.

SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS,
KENNEDY, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., and BREYER,
J., filed concurring opinions. ROBERTS, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion,
in which SCALIA, J., joined. SCALIA, J., and THOMAS, J., filed dissenting
opinions. ALITO, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the
case.
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________

No. 04–1067
_________________

GEORGIA, PETITIONER v. SCOTT FITZ RANDOLPH
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
GEORGIA
[March 22, 2006]

JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Fourth Amendment recognizes a valid warrantless
entry and search of premises when police obtain the vol-
untary consent of an occupant who shares, or is reasona-
bly believed to share, authority over the area in common
with a co-occupant who later objects to the use of evidence
so obtained. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177 (1990);
United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164 (1974). The ques-
tion here is whether such an evidentiary seizure is like-
wise lawful with the permission of one occupant when the
other, who later seeks to suppress the evidence, is present
at the scene and expressly refuses to consent. We hold
that, in the circumstances here at issue, a physically
present co-occupant’s stated refusal to permit entry pre-
vails, rendering the warrantless search unreasonable and
invalid as to him.
I
Respondent Scott Randolph and his wife, Janet, sepa-
rated in late May 2001, when she left the marital resi-
dence in Americus, Georgia, and went to stay with her
parents in Canada, taking their son and some belongings.
In July, she returned to the Americus house with the
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Opinion of the Court

child, though the record does not reveal whether her object
was reconciliation or retrieval of remaining possessions.
On the morning of July 6, she complained to the police
that after a domestic dispute her husband took their son
away, and when officers reached the house she told them
that her husband was a cocaine user whose habit had
caused financial troubles. She mentioned the marital
problems and said that she and their son had only recently
returned after a stay of several weeks with her parents.
Shortly after the police arrived, Scott Randolph returned
and explained that he had removed the child to a
neighbor’s house out of concern that his wife might take
the boy out of the country again; he denied cocaine use,
and countered that it was in fact his wife who abused
drugs and alcohol.
One of the officers, Sergeant Murray, went with Janet
Randolph to reclaim the child, and when they returned
she not only renewed her complaints about her husband’s
drug use, but also volunteered that there were “ ‘items of
drug evidence’ ” in the house. Brief for Petitioner 3. Ser-
geant Murray asked Scott Randolph for permission to
search the house, which he unequivocally refused.
The sergeant turned to Janet Randolph for consent to
search, which she readily gave. She led the officer up-
stairs to a bedroom that she identified as Scott’s, where
the sergeant noticed a section of a drinking straw with a
powdery residue he suspected was cocaine. He then left
the house to get an evidence bag from his car and to call
the district attorney’s office, which instructed him to stop
the search and apply for a warrant. When Sergeant
Murray returned to the house, Janet Randolph withdrew
her consent. The police took the straw to the police sta-
tion, along with the Randolphs. After getting a search
warrant, they returned to the house and seized further
evidence of drug use, on the basis of which Scott Randolph
was indicted for possession of cocaine.
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Opinion of the Court

He moved to suppress the evidence, as products of a
warrantless search of his house unauthorized by his wife’s
consent over his express refusal. The trial court denied
the motion, ruling that Janet Randolph had common
authority to consent to the search.
The Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed, 264 Ga. App.
396, 590 S. E. 2d 834 (2003), and was itself sustained by
the State Supreme Court, principally on the ground that
“the consent to conduct a warrantless search of a residence
given by one occupant is not valid in the face of the refusal
of another occupant who is physically present at the scene
to permit a warrantless search.” 278 Ga. 614, 604 S. E. 2d
835, 836 (2004). The Supreme Court of Georgia acknowl-
edged this Court’s holding in Matlock, 415 U. S. 164, that
“the consent of one who possesses common authority over
premises or effects is valid as against the absent, noncon-
senting person with whom that authority is shared,” id., at
170, and found Matlock distinguishable just because Scott
Randolph was not “absent” from the colloquy on which the
police relied for consent to make the search. The State
Supreme Court stressed that the officers in Matlock had not
been “faced with the physical presence of joint occupants,
with one consenting to the search and the other objecting.”
278 Ga., at 615, 604 S. E. 2d, at 837. It held that an indi-
vidual who chooses to live with another assumes a risk no
greater than “ ‘an inability to control access to the premises
during [his] absence,’ ” ibid. (quoting 3 W. LaFave, Search
and Seizure §8.3(d), p. 731 (3d ed. 1996) (hereinafter La-
Fave)), and does not contemplate that his objection to a
request to search commonly shared premises, if made, will
be overlooked.
We granted certiorari to resolve a split of authority on
whether one occupant may give law enforcement effective
consent to search shared premises, as against a co-tenant
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Opinion of the Court

who is present and states a refusal to permit the search.1
544 U. S. 973 (2005). We now affirm.
II
To the Fourth Amendment rule ordinarily prohibiting
the warrantless entry of a person’s house as unreasonable
per se, Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 586 (1980); Coo-
lidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 454–455 (1971), one
“jealously and carefully drawn” exception, Jones v. United
States, 357 U. S. 493, 499 (1958), recognizes the validity of
searches with the voluntary consent of an individual pos-
sessing authority, Rodriguez, 497 U. S., at 181. That person
might be the householder against whom evidence is sought,
Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 222 (1973), or a
fellow occupant who shares common authority over prop-
erty, when the suspect is absent, Matlock, supra, at 170, and
the exception for consent extends even to entries and
searches with the permission of a co-occupant whom the
police reasonably, but erroneously, believe to possess shared
authority as an occupant, Rodriguez, supra, at 186. None of
our co-occupant consent-to-search cases, however, has pre-
sented the further fact of a second occupant physically
present and refusing permission to search, and later moving
to suppress evidence so obtained.2 The significance of such
——————
1 All
four Courts of Appeals to have considered this question have
concluded that consent remains effective in the face of an express
objection. See United States v. Morning, 64 F. 3d 531, 533–536 (CA9
1995); United States v. Donlin, 982 F. 2d 31, 33 (CA1 1992); United
States v. Hendrix, 595 F. 2d 883, 885 (CADC 1979) (per curiam); United
States v. Sumlin, 567 F. 2d 684, 687–688 (CA6 1977). Of the state
courts that have addressed the question, the majority have reached
that conclusion as well. See, e.g., Love v. State, 355 Ark. 334, 342, 138
S. W. 3d 676, 680 (2003); Laramie v. Hysong, 808 P. 2d 199, 203–205
(Wyo. 1991); but cf. State v. Leach, 113 Wash. 2d 735, 744, 782 P. 2d
1035, 1040 (1989) (en banc) (requiring consent of all present co-
occupants).
2 Mindful of the multiplicity of living arrangements, we vary the

terms used to describe residential co-occupancies. In so doing we do not
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 5

Opinion of the Court

a refusal turns on the underpinnings of the co-occupant
consent rule, as recognized since Matlock.
A
The defendant in that case was arrested in the yard of a
house where he lived with a Mrs. Graff and several of her
relatives, and was detained in a squad car parked nearby.
When the police went to the door, Mrs. Graff admitted
them and consented to a search of the house. 415 U. S., at
166. In resolving the defendant’s objection to use of the
evidence taken in the warrantless search, we said that
“the consent of one who possesses common authority over
premises or effects is valid as against the absent, noncon-
senting person with whom that authority is shared.” Id.,
at 170. Consistent with our prior understanding that
Fourth Amendment rights are not limited by the law of
property, cf. Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 352–353
(1967), we explained that the third party’s “common au-
thority” is not synonymous with a technical property
interest:
“The authority which justified the third-party consent
does not rest upon the law of property, with its atten-
dant historical and legal refinement, but rests rather
on mutual use of the property by persons generally
having joint access or control for most purposes, so
that it is reasonable to recognize that any of the co-
inhabitants has the right to permit the inspection in
his own right and that the others have assumed the
risk that one of their number might permit the com-
mon area to be searched.” 415 U. S., at 171, n. 7 (cita-
tions omitted).
See also Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U. S. 731, 740 (1969) (“[I]n
allowing [his cousin to share use of a duffel bag] and in
——————
mean, however, to suggest that the rule to be applied to them is simi-
larly varied.
6 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

Opinion of the Court

leaving it in his house, [the suspect] must be taken to have
assumed the risk that [the cousin] would allow someone
else to look inside”). The common authority that counts
under the Fourth Amendment may thus be broader than
the rights accorded by property law, see Rodriguez, supra,
at 181–182 (consent is sufficient when given by a person
who reasonably appears to have common authority but
who, in fact, has no property interest in the premises
searched), although its limits, too, reflect specialized
tenancy arrangements apparent to the police, see Chap-
man v. United States, 365 U. S. 610 (1961) (landlord could
not consent to search of tenant’s home).
The constant element in assessing Fourth Amendment
reasonableness in the consent cases, then, is the great
significance given to widely shared social expectations,
which are naturally enough influenced by the law of prop-
erty, but not controlled by its rules. Cf. Rakas v. Illinois,
439 U. S. 128, 144, n. 12 (1978) (an expectation of privacy is
reasonable if it has “a source outside of the Fourth Amend-
ment, either by reference to concepts of real or personal
property law or to understandings that are recognized and
permitted by society”). Matlock accordingly not only holds
that a solitary co-inhabitant may sometimes consent to a
search of shared premises, but stands for the proposition
that the reasonableness of such a search is in significant
part a function of commonly held understanding about the
authority that co-inhabitants may exercise in ways that
affect each other’s interests.
B
Matlock’s example of common understanding is readily
apparent. When someone comes to the door of a domestic
dwelling with a baby at her hip, as Mrs. Graff did, she
shows that she belongs there, and that fact standing alone
is enough to tell a law enforcement officer or any other
visitor that if she occupies the place along with others, she
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Opinion of the Court

probably lives there subject to the assumption tenants
usually make about their common authority when they
share quarters. They understand that any one of them
may admit visitors, with the consequence that a guest
obnoxious to one may nevertheless be admitted in his
absence by another. As Matlock put it, shared tenancy is
understood to include an “assumption of risk,” on which
police officers are entitled to rely, and although some
group living together might make an exceptional ar-
rangement that no one could admit a guest without the
agreement of all, the chance of such an eccentric scheme is
too remote to expect visitors to investigate a particular
household’s rules before accepting an invitation to come
in. So, Matlock relied on what was usual and placed no
burden on the police to eliminate the possibility of atypical
arrangements, in the absence of reason to doubt that the
regular scheme was in place.
It is also easy to imagine different facts on which, if
known, no common authority could sensibly be suspected.
A person on the scene who identifies himself, say, as a
landlord or a hotel manager calls up no customary under-
standing of authority to admit guests without the consent
of the current occupant. See Chapman v. United States,
supra (landlord); Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483 (1964)
(hotel manager). A tenant in the ordinary course does not
take rented premises subject to any formal or informal
agreement that the landlord may let visitors into the
dwelling, Chapman, supra, at 617, and a hotel guest cus-
tomarily has no reason to expect the manager to allow
anyone but his own employees into his room, see Stoner,
supra, at 489; see also United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S.
48, 51 (1951) (hotel staff had access to room for purposes
of cleaning and maintenance, but no authority to admit
police). In these circumstances, neither state-law property
rights, nor common contractual arrangements, nor any
other source points to a common understanding of author-
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Opinion of the Court

ity to admit third parties generally without the consent of
a person occupying the premises. And when it comes to
searching through bureau drawers, there will be instances
in which even a person clearly belonging on premises as
an occupant may lack any perceived authority to consent;
“a child of eight might well be considered to have the
power to consent to the police crossing the threshold into
that part of the house where any caller, such as a pollster
or salesman, might well be admitted,” 4 LaFave §8.4(c), at
207 (4th ed. 2004), but no one would reasonably expect
such a child to be in a position to authorize anyone to
rummage through his parents’ bedroom.
C
Although we have not dealt directly with the reason-
ableness of police entry in reliance on consent by one
occupant subject to immediate challenge by another, we
took a step toward the issue in an earlier case dealing
with the Fourth Amendment rights of a social guest ar-
rested at premises the police entered without a warrant or
the benefit of any exception to the warrant requirement.
Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U. S. 91 (1990), held that over-
night houseguests have a legitimate expectation of privacy
in their temporary quarters because “it is unlikely that
[the host] will admit someone who wants to see or meet
with the guest over the objection of the guest,” id., at 99.
If that customary expectation of courtesy or deference is a
foundation of Fourth Amendment rights of a houseguest,
it presumably should follow that an inhabitant of shared
premises may claim at least as much, and it turns out that
the co-inhabitant naturally has an even stronger claim.
To begin with, it is fair to say that a caller standing at
the door of shared premises would have no confidence that
one occupant’s invitation was a sufficiently good reason to
enter when a fellow tenant stood there saying, “stay out.”
Without some very good reason, no sensible person would
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Opinion of the Court

go inside under those conditions. Fear for the safety of the
occupant issuing the invitation, or of someone else inside,
would be thought to justify entry, but the justification
then would be the personal risk, the threats to life or limb,
not the disputed invitation.3
The visitor’s reticence without some such good reason
would show not timidity but a realization that when peo-
ple living together disagree over the use of their common
quarters, a resolution must come through voluntary ac-
commodation, not by appeals to authority. Unless the
people living together fall within some recognized hierar-
chy, like a household of parent and child or barracks
housing military personnel of different grades, there is no
societal understanding of superior and inferior, a fact
reflected in a standard formulation of domestic property
law, that “[e]ach cotenant . . . has the right to use and
enjoy the entire property as if he or she were the sole
owner, limited only by the same right in the other coten-
ants.” 7 R. Powell, Powell on Real Property §50.03[1],
p. 50–14 (M. Wolf gen. ed. 2005). The want of any recog-
nized superior authority among disagreeing tenants is also
reflected in the law’s response when the disagreements
cannot be resolved. The law does not ask who has the
better side of the conflict; it simply provides a right to any
co-tenant, even the most unreasonable, to obtain a decree
partitioning the property (when the relationship is one of
co-ownership) and terminating the relationship. See, e.g.,
2 H. Tiffany, Real Property §§468, 473, 474, pp. 297, 307–
309 (3d ed. 1939 and 2006 Cum. Supp.). And while a
decree of partition is not the answer to disagreement
among rental tenants, this situation resembles co-
——————
3 Cf. Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385, 393 (1978) (acknowledging the

right of police to respond to emergency situations “threatening life or
limb” and indicating that police may conduct a warrantless search pro-
vided that the search is “ ‘strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which
justify its initiation’ ”).
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Opinion of the Court

ownership in lacking the benefit of any understanding
that one or the other rental co-tenant has a superior claim
to control the use of the quarters they occupy together. In
sum, there is no common understanding that one co-
tenant generally has a right or authority to prevail over
the express wishes of another, whether the issue is the
color of the curtains or invitations to outsiders.
D
Since the co-tenant wishing to open the door to a third
party has no recognized authority in law or social practice
to prevail over a present and objecting co-tenant, his
disputed invitation, without more, gives a police officer no
better claim to reasonableness in entering than the officer
would have in the absence of any consent at all. Accord-
ingly, in the balancing of competing individual and gov-
ernmental interests entailed by the bar to unreasonable
searches, Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of
San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 536–537 (1967), the coopera-
tive occupant’s invitation adds nothing to the govern-
ment’s side to counter the force of an objecting individual’s
claim to security against the government’s intrusion into
his dwelling place. Since we hold to the “centuries-old
principle of respect for the privacy of the home,” Wilson v.
Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 610 (1999), “it is beyond dispute that
the home is entitled to special protection as the center of
the private lives of our people,” Minnesota v. Carter, 525
U. S. 83, 99 (1998) (KENNEDY, J., concurring). We have,
after all, lived our whole national history with an under-
standing of “the ancient adage that a man’s home is his
castle [to the point that t]he poorest man may in his cot-
tage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown,” Miller v.
United States, 357 U. S. 301, 307 (1958) (internal quota-
tion marks omitted).4
——————
4 In the dissent’s view, the centuries of special protection for the pri-
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Opinion of the Court

Disputed permission is thus no match for this central
value of the Fourth Amendment, and the State’s other
countervailing claims do not add up to outweigh it.5 Yes,
we recognize the consenting tenant’s interest as a citizen
in bringing criminal activity to light, see Coolidge, 403
U. S., at 488 (“[I]t is no part of the policy underlying the
Fourth . . . Amendmen[t] to discourage citizens from aiding
to the utmost of their ability in the apprehension of crimi-
nals”). And we understand a co-tenant’s legitimate self-
interest in siding with the police to deflect suspicion raised
by sharing quarters with a criminal, see 4 LaFave §8.3(d),
at 162, n. 72 (“The risk of being convicted of possession of
drugs one knows are present and has tried to get the other
occupant to remove is by no means insignificant”); cf.
Schneckloth, 412 U. S., at 243 (evidence obtained pursuant
to a consent search “may insure that a wholly innocent
person is not wrongly charged with a criminal offense”).
But society can often have the benefit of these interests
without relying on a theory of consent that ignores an
inhabitant’s refusal to allow a warrantless search. The co-
tenant acting on his own initiative may be able to deliver
evidence to the police, Coolidge, supra, at 487–489 (sus-
——————
vacy of the home are over. The principal dissent equates inviting the
police into a co-tenant’s home over his contemporaneous objection with
reporting a secret, post, at 13–14 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.), and the
emphasis it places on the false equation suggests a deliberate intent to
devalue the importance of the privacy of a dwelling place. The same
attitude that privacy of a dwelling is not special underlies the dissent’s
easy assumption that privacy shared with another individual is privacy
waived for all purposes including warrantless searches by the police.
Post, at 5.
5 A generalized interest in expedient law enforcement cannot, without

more, justify a warrantless search. See Mincey, supra, at 393 (“[T]he
privacy of a person’s home and property may not be totally sacrificed in
the name of maximum simplicity in enforcement of the criminal law”);
Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 481 (1971) (“The warrant
requirement . . . is not an inconvenience to be somehow ‘weighed’ against
the claims of police efficiency”).
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Opinion of the Court

pect’s wife retrieved his guns from the couple’s house and
turned them over to the police), and can tell the police
what he knows, for use before a magistrate in getting a
warrant.6 The reliance on a co-tenant’s information in-
stead of disputed consent accords with the law’s general
partiality toward “police action taken under a warrant [as
against] searches and seizures without one,” United States
v. Ventresca, 380 U. S. 102, 107 (1965); “the informed and
deliberate determinations of magistrates empowered to
issue warrants as to what searches and seizures are permis-
sible under the Constitution are to be preferred over the
hurried action of officers,” United States v. Lefkowitz, 285
U. S. 452, 464 (1932).
Nor should this established policy of Fourth Amendment
law be undermined by the principal dissent’s claim that it
shields spousal abusers and other violent co-tenants who
will refuse to allow the police to enter a dwelling when
their victims ask the police for help, post, at 12 (opinion of
ROBERTS, C. J.) (hereinafter the dissent). It is not that the
——————
6 Sometimes, of course, the very exchange of information like this in

front of the objecting inhabitant may render consent irrelevant by
creating an exigency that justifies immediate action on the police’s part;
if the objecting tenant cannot be incapacitated from destroying easily
disposable evidence during the time required to get a warrant, see
Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U. S. 326, 331–332 (2001) (denying suspect
access to his trailer home while police applied for a search warrant), a
fairly perceived need to act on the spot to preserve evidence may justify
entry and search under the exigent circumstances exception to the
warrant requirement, cf. Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 770–
771 (1966) (warrantless search permitted when “the delay necessary to
obtain a warrant . . . threatened the destruction of evidence” (internal
quotation marks omitted)).
Additional exigent circumstances might justify warrantless searches.
See, e.g., Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 298
(1967) (hot pursuit); Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969) (protect-
ing the safety of the police officers); Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499
(1978) (imminent destruction to building); Johnson v. United States,
333 U. S. 10, 15 (1948) (likelihood that suspect will imminently flee).
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 13

Opinion of the Court

dissent exaggerates violence in the home; we recognize
that domestic abuse is a serious problem in the United
States. See U. S. Dept. of Justice, National Institute of
Justice, P. Tjaden & N. Thoennes, Full Report of the
Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequence of Violence
Against Women 25–26 (2000) (noting that over 20 million
women and 6 million men will, in the course of their life-
times, be the victims of intimate-partner abuse); U. S.
Dept. of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Pre-
vention and Control, Costs of Intimate Partner Violence
Against Women in the United States 19 (2003) (finding
that nearly 5.3 million intimate partner victimizations,
which result in close to 2 million injuries and 1300 deaths,
occur among women in the United States each year); U. S.
Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Crime Data
Brief, C. Rennison, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993–2001
(Feb. 2003) (noting that in 2001 intimate partner violence
made up 20% of violent crime against women); see also
Becker, The Politics of Women’s Wrongs and the Bill of
“Rights”: A Bicentennial Perspective, 59 U. Chi. L. Rev.
454, 507–508 (1992) (noting that women may feel physical
insecurity in their homes as a result of abuse from domes-
tic partners).
But this case has no bearing on the capacity of the police
to protect domestic victims. The dissent’s argument rests
on the failure to distinguish two different issues: when the
police may enter without committing a trespass, and when
the police may enter to search for evidence. No question
has been raised, or reasonably could be, about the author-
ity of the police to enter a dwelling to protect a resident
from domestic violence; so long as they have good reason
to believe such a threat exists, it would be silly to suggest
that the police would commit a tort by entering, say, to
give a complaining tenant the opportunity to collect be-
longings and get out safely, or to determine whether vio-
14 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

Opinion of the Court

lence (or threat of violence) has just occurred or is about to
(or soon will) occur, however much a spouse or other co-
tenant objected. (And since the police would then be
lawfully in the premises, there is no question that they
could seize any evidence in plain view or take further
action supported by any consequent probable cause, see
Texas v. Brown, 460 U. S. 730, 737–739 (1983) (plurality
opinion).) Thus, the question whether the police might
lawfully enter over objection in order to provide any pro-
tection that might be reasonable is easily answered yes.
See 4 LaFave §8.3(d), at 161 (“[E]ven when . . . two per-
sons quite clearly have equal rights in the place, as where
two individuals are sharing an apartment on an equal
basis, there may nonetheless sometimes exist a basis for
giving greater recognition to the interests of one over the
other. . . . [W]here the defendant has victimized the third-
party . . . the emergency nature of the situation is such
that the third-party consent should validate a warrantless
search despite defendant’s objections” (internal quotation
marks omitted; third omission in original)). The un-
doubted right of the police to enter in order to protect a
victim, however, has nothing to do with the question in
this case, whether a search with the consent of one co-
tenant is good against another, standing at the door and
expressly refusing consent.7
None of the cases cited by the dissent support its im-
probable view that recognizing limits on merely eviden-
tiary searches would compromise the capacity to protect a
fearful occupant. In the circumstances of those cases,
——————
7 We understand the possibility that a battered individual will be

afraid to express fear candidly, but this does not seem to be a reason to
think such a person would invite the police into the dwelling to search
for evidence against another. Hence, if a rule crediting consent over
denial of consent were built on hoping to protect household victims, it
would distort the Fourth Amendment with little, if any, constructive
effect on domestic abuse investigations.
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 15

Opinion of the Court

there is no danger that the fearful occupant will be kept
behind the closed door of the house simply because the
abusive tenant refuses to consent to a search. See United
States v. Donlin, 982 F. 2d 31, 32 (CA1 1992) (victimized
individual was already outside of her apartment when
police arrived and, for all intents and purposes, within the
protective custody of law enforcement officers); United
States v. Hendrix, 595 F. 2d 883, 885–886 (CADC 1979)
(per curiam) (even if the consent of the threatened co-
occupant did not justify a warrantless search, the police
entry was nevertheless allowable on exigent-
circumstances grounds); People v. Sanders, 904 P. 2d
1311, 1313–1315 (Colo. 1995) (victimized individual gave
her consent-to-search away from her home and was not
present at the time of the police visit; alternatively, exi-
gent circumstances existed to satisfy the warrantless
exception); Brandon v. State, 778 P. 2d 221, 223–224
(Alaska App. 1989) (victimized individual consented away
from her home and was not present at the time of the
police visit); United States v. Davis, 290 F. 3d 1239, 1241
(CA10 2002) (immediate harm extinguished after husband
“order[ed]” wife out of the home).
The dissent’s red herring aside, we know, of course, that
alternatives to disputed consent will not always open the
door to search for evidence that the police suspect is in-
side. The consenting tenant may simply not disclose
enough information, or information factual enough, to add
up to a showing of probable cause, and there may be no
exigency to justify fast action. But nothing in social cus-
tom or its reflection in private law argues for placing a
higher value on delving into private premises to search for
evidence in the face of disputed consent, than on requiring
clear justification before the government searches private
living quarters over a resident’s objection. We therefore
hold that a warrantless search of a shared dwelling for
evidence over the express refusal of consent by a physi-
16 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

Opinion of the Court

cally present resident cannot be justified as reasonable as
to him on the basis of consent given to the police by an-
other resident.8
E
There are two loose ends, the first being the explanation
given in Matlock for the constitutional sufficiency of a co-
tenant’s consent to enter and search: it “rests . . . on mu-
tual use of the property by persons generally having joint
access or control for most purposes, so that it is reasonable
to recognize that any of the co-inhabitants has the right to
permit the inspection in his own right . . . .” 415 U. S., at
171, n. 7. If Matlock’s co-tenant is giving permission “in
his own right,” how can his “own right” be eliminated by
another tenant’s objection? The answer appears in the
very footnote from which the quoted statement is taken:
the “right” to admit the police to which Matlock refers is
not an enduring and enforceable ownership right as un-
derstood by the private law of property, but is instead the
authority recognized by customary social usage as having
a substantial bearing on Fourth Amendment reasonable-
ness in specific circumstances. Thus, to ask whether the
consenting tenant has the right to admit the police when a
physically present fellow tenant objects is not to question
whether some property right may be divested by the mere
objection of another. It is, rather, the question whether
customary social understanding accords the consenting
tenant authority powerful enough to prevail over the co-
tenant’s objection. The Matlock Court did not purport to
answer this question, a point made clear by another
statement (which the dissent does not quote): the Court
——————
8 The dissent is critical that our holding does not pass upon the con-

stitutionality of such a search as to a third tenant against whom the
government wishes to use evidence seized after a search with consent of
one co-tenant subject to the contemporaneous objection of another, post,
at 11. We decide the case before us, not a different one.
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 17

Opinion of the Court

described the co-tenant’s consent as good against “the
absent, nonconsenting” resident.” Id., at 170.
The second loose end is the significance of Matlock and
Rodriguez after today’s decision. Although the Matlock
defendant was not present with the opportunity to object,
he was in a squad car not far away; the Rodriguez defen-
dant was actually asleep in the apartment, and the police
might have roused him with a knock on the door before
they entered with only the consent of an apparent co-
tenant. If those cases are not to be undercut by today’s
holding, we have to admit that we are drawing a fine line;
if a potential defendant with self-interest in objecting is in
fact at the door and objects, the co-tenant’s permission
does not suffice for a reasonable search, whereas the
potential objector, nearby but not invited to take part in
the threshold colloquy, loses out.
This is the line we draw, and we think the formalism is
justified. So long as there is no evidence that the police
have removed the potentially objecting tenant from the
entrance for the sake of avoiding a possible objection,
there is practical value in the simple clarity of complemen-
tary rules, one recognizing the co-tenant’s permission
when there is no fellow occupant on hand, the other ac-
cording dispositive weight to the fellow occupant’s con-
trary indication when he expresses it. For the very reason
that Rodriguez held it would be unjustifiably impractical
to require the police to take affirmative steps to confirm
the actual authority of a consenting individual whose
authority was apparent, we think it would needlessly limit
the capacity of the police to respond to ostensibly legiti-
mate opportunities in the field if we were to hold that
reasonableness required the police to take affirmative
steps to find a potentially objecting co-tenant before acting
on the permission they had already received. There is no
ready reason to believe that efforts to invite a refusal
would make a difference in many cases, whereas every co-
18 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

Opinion of the Court

tenant consent case would turn into a test about the ade-
quacy of the police’s efforts to consult with a potential
objector. Better to accept the formalism of distinguishing
Matlock from this case than to impose a requirement,
time-consuming in the field and in the courtroom, with no
apparent systemic justification. The pragmatic decision to
accept the simplicity of this line is, moreover, supported by
the substantial number of instances in which suspects who
are asked for permission to search actually consent,9 albeit
imprudently, a fact that undercuts any argument that the
police should try to locate a suspected inhabitant because
his denial of consent would be a foregone conclusion.
III
This case invites a straightforward application of the
rule that a physically present inhabitant’s express refusal
of consent to a police search is dispositive as to him, re-
gardless of the consent of a fellow occupant. Scott
Randolph’s refusal is clear, and nothing in the record
justifies the search on grounds independent of Janet
Randolph’s consent. The State does not argue that she
gave any indication to the police of a need for protection
inside the house that might have justified entry into the
portion of the premises where the police found the pow-
dery straw (which, if lawfully seized, could have been used
when attempting to establish probable cause for the war-
rant issued later). Nor does the State claim that the entry
and search should be upheld under the rubric of exigent
circumstances, owing to some apprehension by the police
——————
9 See 4 LaFave §8.1, at 4 (“The so-called consent search is frequently
relied upon by police as a means of investigating suspected criminal
conduct” (footnote omitted)); Strauss, Reconstructing Consent, 92 J.
Crim. L. & C. 211, 214 (2001–2002) (“Although precise figures detailing
the number of searches conducted pursuant to consent are not—and
probably can never be—available, there is no dispute that these type of
searches affect tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of
people every year” (footnote omitted)).
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 19

Opinion of the Court

officers that Scott Randolph would destroy evidence of
drug use before any warrant could be obtained.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Georgia is there-
fore affirmed.
It is so ordered.

JUSTICE ALITO took no part in the consideration or
decision of this case.
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1

STEVENS, J., concurring

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________

No. 04–1067
_________________

GEORGIA, PETITIONER v. SCOTT FITZ RANDOLPH
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
GEORGIA
[March 22, 2006]

JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring.
The study of history for the purpose of ascertaining the
original understanding of constitutional provisions is much
like the study of legislative history for the purpose of ascer-
taining the intent of the lawmakers who enact statutes. In
both situations the facts uncovered by the study are usually
relevant but not necessarily dispositive. This case illus-
trates why even the most dedicated adherent to an ap-
proach to constitutional interpretation that places primary
reliance on the search for original understanding would
recognize the relevance of changes in our society.
At least since 1604 it has been settled that in the ab-
sence of exigent circumstances, a government agent has no
right to enter a “house” or “castle” unless authorized to do
so by a valid warrant. See Semayne’s Case, 5 Co. Rep.
91a, 77 Eng. Rep. 194 (K.B.). Every occupant of the home
has a right—protected by the common law for centuries
and by the Fourth Amendment since 1791—to refuse
entry. When an occupant gives his or her consent to enter,
he or she is waiving a valuable constitutional right. To be
sure that the waiver is voluntary, it is sound practice—a
practice some Justices of this Court thought necessary to
make the waiver voluntary1—for the officer to advise the
——————
1 See, e.g., Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 284–285 (1973)

(Marshall, J., dissenting) (pointing out that it is hard to comprehend
“how a decision made without knowledge of available alternatives can
2 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

STEVENS, J., concurring

occupant of that right.2 The issue in this case relates to
the content of the advice that the officer should provide
when met at the door by a man and a woman who are
apparently joint tenants or joint owners of the property.
In the 18th century, when the Fourth Amendment was
adopted, the advice would have been quite different from
what is appropriate today. Given the then-prevailing
dramatic differences between the property rights of the
husband and the far lesser rights of the wife, only the
consent of the husband would matter. Whether “the mas-
ter of the house” consented or objected, his decision would
control. Thus if “original understanding” were to govern
the outcome of this case, the search was clearly invalid
because the husband did not consent. History, however, is
not dispositive because it is now clear, as a matter of
constitutional law, that the male and the female are equal
partners. Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971).
In today’s world the only advice that an officer could
properly give should make it clear that each of the part-
ners has a constitutional right that he or she may inde-
pendently assert or waive. Assuming that both spouses
are competent, neither one is a master possessing the
power to override the other’s constitutional right to deny
entry to their castle.
With these observations, I join the Court’s opinion.
——————
be treated as choice at all,” and arguing that “[i]f consent to search
means that a person has chosen to forego his right to exclude the police
from the place they seek to search, it follows that his consent cannot be
considered a meaningful choice unless he knew that he could in fact
exclude the police”).
2 Such advice is surely preferable to an officer’s expression of his or

her desire to enter and to search in words that may be construed either
as a command or a question. See id., at 275–276 (Douglas, J., dissenting)
(noting that “ ‘[u]nder many circumstances a reasonable person might
read an officer’s “May I” as the courteous expression of a demand
backed by force of law.’ ” (quoting Bustamonte v. Schneckloth, 448 F. 2d
669, 701 (CA9 1971))).
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1

BREYER, J., concurring

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________

No. 04–1067
_________________

GEORGIA, PETITIONER v. SCOTT FITZ RANDOLPH
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
GEORGIA
[March 22, 2006]

JUSTICE BREYER, concurring.
If Fourth Amendment law forced us to choose between
two bright-line rules, (1) a rule that always found one
tenant’s consent sufficient to justify a search without a
warrant and (2) a rule that never did, I believe we should
choose the first. That is because, as THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s
dissent points out, a rule permitting such searches can
serve important law enforcement needs (for example, in
domestic abuse cases) and the consenting party’s joint
tenancy diminishes the objecting party’s reasonable expec-
tation of privacy.
But the Fourth Amendment does not insist upon bright-
line rules. Rather, it recognizes that no single set of legal
rules can capture the ever changing complexity of human
life. It consequently uses the general terms “unreasonable
searches and seizures.” And this Court has continuously
emphasized that “[r]easonableness . . . is measured . . . by
examining the totality of the circumstances.” Ohio v.
Robinette, 519 U. S. 33, 39 (1996); see also Illinois v. Ward-
low, 528 U. S. 119, 136 (2000) (STEVENS, J., concurring in
part and dissenting in part); Florida v. Bostick, 501 U. S.
429, 439 (1991); Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U. S. 567, 572–
573 (1988); Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 506 (1983) (plu-
rality opinion).
The circumstances here include the following: The
search at issue was a search solely for evidence. The
2 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

BREYER, J., concurring

objecting party was present and made his objection known
clearly and directly to the officers seeking to enter the
house. The officers did not justify their search on grounds
of possible evidence destruction. Cf. Thornton v. United
States, 541 U. S. 615, 620–622 (2004); Skinner v. Railway
Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 623 (1989); Schmer-
ber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 770–771 (1966). And, as far
as the record reveals, the officers might easily have se-
cured the premises and sought a warrant permitting them
to enter. See Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U. S. 326 (2001).
Thus, the “totality of the circumstances” present here do
not suffice to justify abandoning the Fourth Amendment’s
traditional hostility to police entry into a home without a
warrant.
I stress the totality of the circumstances, however,
because, were the circumstances to change significantly,
so should the result. The Court’s opinion does not apply
where the objector is not present “and object[ing].” Ante,
at 17.
Moreover, the risk of an ongoing crime or other exigent
circumstance can make a critical difference. Consider,
for example, instances of domestic abuse. See ante, at
13. “Family disturbance calls . . . constitute the largest
single category of calls received by police departments
each year.” Mederer & Gelles, Compassion or Control:
Intervention in Cases of Wife Abuse, 4 Journal of
Interpersonal Violence 25 (Mar. 1989) (emphasis deleted);
see also, e.g., Office of the Attorney General, California
Criminal Justice Statistics Center, Domestic Violence
Related Calls for Assistance, 1987–2003, County
by Year, http://ag.ca.gov/cjsc/publications/misc/dvsr/tabs/
8703.pdf (as visited Mar. 1, 2006, and available in Clerk of
Court’s case file) (providing data showing that California
police received an average of 207,848 domestic violence
related calls each year); Cessato, Defenders Against Do-
mestic Abuse, Washington Post, Aug. 25, 2002, p. B8 (“In
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 3

BREYER, J., concurring

the District [of Columbia], police report that almost half of
roughly 39,000 violent crime calls received in 2000 in-
volved domestic violence”); Zorza, Women Battering: High
Costs and the State of the Law, Clearinghouse Review,
p. 385 (Special Issue 1994) (“One-third of all police time is
spent responding to domestic disturbance calls”). And,
law enforcement officers must be able to respond effec-
tively when confronted with the possibility of abuse.
If a possible abuse victim invites a responding officer to
enter a home or consents to the officer’s entry request,
that invitation (or consent) itself could reflect the victim’s
fear about being left alone with an abuser. It could also
indicate the availability of evidence, in the form of an
immediate willingness to speak, that might not otherwise
exist. In that context, an invitation (or consent) would
provide a special reason for immediate, rather than later,
police entry. And, entry following invitation or consent by
one party ordinarily would be reasonable even in the face
of direct objection by the other. That being so, contrary to
the THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s suggestion, post, at 13, today’s
decision will not adversely affect ordinary law enforcement
practices.
Given the case-specific nature of the Court’s holding,
and with these understandings, I join the Court’s holding
and its opinion.
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________

No. 04–1067
_________________

GEORGIA, PETITIONER v. SCOTT FITZ RANDOLPH
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
GEORGIA
[March 22, 2006]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA
joins, dissenting.
The Court creates constitutional law by surmising what
is typical when a social guest encounters an entirely atypi-
cal situation. The rule the majority fashions does not
implement the high office of the Fourth Amendment to
protect privacy, but instead provides protection on a ran-
dom and happenstance basis, protecting, for example, a co-
occupant who happens to be at the front door when the
other occupant consents to a search, but not one napping
or watching television in the next room. And the cost of
affording such random protection is great, as demon-
strated by the recurring cases in which abused spouses
seek to authorize police entry into a home they share with
a nonconsenting abuser.
The correct approach to the question presented is clearly
mapped out in our precedents: The Fourth Amendment
protects privacy. If an individual shares information,
papers, or places with another, he assumes the risk that
the other person will in turn share access to that informa-
tion or those papers or places with the government. And
just as an individual who has shared illegal plans or in-
criminating documents with another cannot interpose an
objection when that other person turns the information
over to the government, just because the individual hap-
pens to be present at the time, so too someone who shares
2 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

a place with another cannot interpose an objection when
that person decides to grant access to the police, simply
because the objecting individual happens to be present.
A warrantless search is reasonable if police obtain the
voluntary consent of a person authorized to give it. Co-
occupants have “assumed the risk that one of their num-
ber might permit [a] common area to be searched.” United
States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164, 171, n. 7 (1974). Just as
Mrs. Randolph could walk upstairs, come down, and turn
her husband’s cocaine straw over to the police, she can
consent to police entry and search of what is, after all, her
home, too.
I
In Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177 (1990), this Court
stated that “[w]hat [a person] is assured by the Fourth
Amendment . . . is not that no government search of his
house will occur unless he consents; but that no such
search will occur that is ‘unreasonable.’ ” Id., at 183. One
element that can make a warrantless government search
of a home “ ‘reasonable’ ” is voluntary consent. Id., at 184;
Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 219 (1973).
Proof of voluntary consent “is not limited to proof that
consent was given by the defendant,” but the government
“may show that permission to search was obtained from a
third party who possessed common authority over or other
sufficient relationship to the premises.” Matlock, supra, at
171. Today’s opinion creates an exception to this other-
wise clear rule: A third-party consent search is unreason-
able, and therefore constitutionally impermissible, if the
co-occupant against whom evidence is obtained was pre-
sent and objected to the entry and search.
This exception is based on what the majority describes
as “widely shared social expectations” that “when people
living together disagree over the use of their common
quarters, a resolution must come through voluntary ac-
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 3

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

commodation.” Ante, at 6, 9. But this fundamental predi-
cate to the majority’s analysis gets us nowhere: Does the
objecting cotenant accede to the consenting cotenant’s
wishes, or the other way around? The majority’s assump-
tion about voluntary accommodation simply leads to the
common stalemate of two gentlemen insisting that the
other enter a room first.
Nevertheless, the majority is confident in assuming—
confident enough to incorporate its assumption into the
Constitution—that an invited social guest who arrives at
the door of a shared residence, and is greeted by a dis-
agreeable co-occupant shouting “ ‘stay out,’ ” would simply
go away. Ante, at 8. The Court observes that “no sensible
person would go inside under those conditions,” ante, at 8–
9, and concludes from this that the inviting co-occupant
has no “authority” to insist on getting her way over the
wishes of her co-occupant, ante, at 10. But it seems
equally accurate to say—based on the majority’s conclu-
sion that one does not have a right to prevail over the
express wishes of his co-occupant—that the objector has
no “authority” to insist on getting his way over his co-
occupant’s wish that her guest be admitted.
The fact is that a wide variety of differing social situa-
tions can readily be imagined, giving rise to quite different
social expectations. A relative or good friend of one of two
feuding roommates might well enter the apartment over
the objection of the other roommate. The reason the in-
vitee appeared at the door also affects expectations: A
guest who came to celebrate an occupant’s birthday, or one
who had traveled some distance for a particular reason,
might not readily turn away simply because of a room-
mate’s objection. The nature of the place itself is also
pertinent: Invitees may react one way if the feuding
roommates share one room, differently if there are com-
mon areas from which the objecting roommate could read-
ily be expected to absent himself. Altering the numbers
4 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

might well change the social expectations: Invitees might
enter if two of three co-occupants encourage them to do so,
over one dissenter.
The possible scenarios are limitless, and slight varia-
tions in the fact pattern yield vastly different expecta-
tions about whether the invitee might be expected to
enter or to go away. Such shifting expectations are not a
promising foundation on which to ground a constitutional
rule, particularly because the majority has no support for
its basic assumption—that an invited guest encountering
two disagreeing co-occupants would flee—beyond a hunch
about how people would typically act in an atypical
situation.
And in fact the Court has not looked to such expecta-
tions to decide questions of consent under the Fourth
Amendment, but only to determine when a search has
occurred and whether a particular person has standing to
object to a search. For these latter inquiries, we ask
whether a person has a subjective expectation of privacy
in a particular place, and whether “the expectation [is] one
that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’ ” Katz
v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J.,
concurring); see Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U. S. 91, 95–96,
100 (1990) (extending Katz test to standing inquiry). But
the social expectations concept has not been applied to all
questions arising under the Fourth Amendment, least of
all issues of consent. A criminal might have a strong
expectation that his longtime confidant will not allow the
government to listen to their private conversations, but
however profound his shock might be upon betrayal, gov-
ernment monitoring with the confidant’s consent is rea-
sonable under the Fourth Amendment. See United States
v. White, 401 U. S. 745, 752 (1971).
The majority suggests that “widely shared social expecta-
tions” are a “constant element in assessing Fourth Amend-
ment reasonableness,” ante, at 6 (citing Rakas v. Illinois,
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 5

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

439 U. S. 128, 144, n. 12 (1978)), but that is not the case; the
Fourth Amendment precedents the majority cites refer
instead to a “legitimate expectation of privacy.” Ibid.
(emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted).
Whatever social expectation the majority seeks to protect,
it is not one of privacy. The very predicate giving rise to
the question in cases of shared information, papers, con-
tainers, or places is that privacy has been shared with
another. Our common social expectations may well be
that the other person will not, in turn, share what we have
shared with them with another—including the police—but
that is the risk we take in sharing. If two friends share a
locker and one keeps contraband inside, he might trust
that his friend will not let others look inside. But by
sharing private space, privacy has “already been frus-
trated” with respect to the lockermate. United States v.
Jacobsen, 466 U. S. 109, 117 (1984). If two roommates
share a computer and one keeps pirated software on a
shared drive, he might assume that his roommate will not
inform the government. But that person has given up his
privacy with respect to his roommate by saving the soft-
ware on their shared computer.
A wide variety of often subtle social conventions may
shape expectations about how we act when another
shares with us what is otherwise private, and those con-
ventions go by a variety of labels—courtesy, good man-
ners, custom, protocol, even honor among thieves. The
Constitution, however, protects not these but privacy, and
once privacy has been shared, the shared information,
documents, or places remain private only at the discretion
of the confidant.
II
Our cases reflect this understanding. In United States
v. White, we held that one party to a conversation can
consent to government eavesdropping, and statements
6 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

made by the other party will be admissible at trial. 401
U. S., at 752. This rule is based on privacy: “Inescapably,
one contemplating illegal activities must realize and risk
that his companions may be reporting to the police. . . . [I]f
he has no doubts, or allays them, or risks what doubt he
has, the risk is his.” Ibid.
The Court has applied this same analysis to objects and
places as well. In Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U. S. 731 (1969), a
duffel bag “was being used jointly” by two cousins. Id., at
740. The Court held that the consent of one was effective
to result in the seizure of evidence used against both: “[I]n
allowing [his cousin] to use the bag and in leaving it in his
house, [the defendant] must be taken to have assumed the
risk that [his cousin] would allow someone else to look
inside.” Ibid.
As the Court explained in United States v. Jacobsen,
supra:
“It is well settled that when an individual reveals pri-
vate information to another, he assumes the risk that
his confidant will reveal that information to the au-
thorities, and if that occurs the Fourth Amendment
does not prohibit governmental use of that informa-
tion. Once frustration of the original expectation of
privacy occurs, the Fourth Amendment does not pro-
hibit governmental use of the now nonprivate infor-
mation: ‘This Court has held repeatedly that the
Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of
information revealed to a third party and conveyed by
him to Government authorities, even if the informa-
tion is revealed on the assumption that it will be used
only for a limited purpose and the confidence placed in
a third party will not be betrayed.’ ” Id., at 117 (quot-
ing United States v. Miller, 425 U. S. 435, 443 (1976)).
The same analysis applies to the question whether our
privacy can be compromised by those with whom we share
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 7

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

common living space. If a person keeps contraband in
common areas of his home, he runs the risk that his co-
occupants will deliver the contraband to the police. In
Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443 (1971), Mrs.
Coolidge retrieved four of her husband’s guns and the
clothes he was wearing the previous night and handed them
over to police. We held that these items were properly
admitted at trial because “when Mrs. Coolidge of her own
accord produced the guns and clothes for inspection, . . . it
was not incumbent on the police to stop her or avert their
eyes.” Id., at 489.
Even in our most private relationships, our observable
actions and possessions are private at the discretion of
those around us. A husband can request that his wife not
tell a jury about contraband that she observed in their
home or illegal activity to which she bore witness, but it is
she who decides whether to invoke the testimonial marital
privilege. Trammel v. United States, 445 U. S. 40, 53
(1980). In Trammel, we noted that the former rule prohib-
iting a wife from testifying about her husband’s observable
wrongdoing at his say so “goes far beyond making ‘every
man’s house his castle,’ and permits a person to convert
his house into ‘a den of thieves.’ ” Id., at 51–52 (quoting 5
J. Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence 340 (1827)).
There is no basis for evaluating physical searches of
shared space in a manner different from how we evaluated
the privacy interests in the foregoing cases, and in fact the
Court has proceeded along the same lines in considering
such searches. In Matlock, police arrested the defendant
in the front yard of a house and placed him in a squad car,
and then obtained permission from Mrs. Graff to search a
shared bedroom for evidence of Matlock’s bank robbery.
415 U. S., at 166. Police certainly could have assumed
that Matlock would have objected were he consulted as he
sat handcuffed in the squad car outside. And in Rodri-
guez, where Miss Fischer offered to facilitate the arrest of
8 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

her sleeping boyfriend by admitting police into an apart-
ment she apparently shared with him, 497 U. S., at 179,
police might have noted that this entry was undoubtedly
contrary to Rodriguez’s social expectations. Yet both of
these searches were reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment because Mrs. Graff had authority, and Miss
Fischer apparent authority, to admit others into areas
over which they exercised control, despite the almost
certain wishes of their present co-occupants.
The common thread in our decisions upholding searches
conducted pursuant to third-party consent is an under-
standing that a person “assume[s] the risk” that those who
have access to and control over his shared property might
consent to a search. Matlock, 415 U. S., at 171, n. 7. In
Matlock, we explained that this assumption of risk is
derived from a third party’s “joint access or control for
most purposes” of shared property. Ibid. And we con-
cluded that shared use of property makes it “reasonable to
recognize that any of the co-inhabitants has the right to
permit the inspection in his own right.” Ibid.
In this sense, the risk assumed by a joint occupant is
comparable to the risk assumed by one who reveals pri-
vate information to another. If a person has incriminating
information, he can keep it private in the face of a request
from police to share it, because he has that right under the
Fifth Amendment. If a person occupies a house with
incriminating information in it, he can keep that informa-
tion private in the face of a request from police to search
the house, because he has that right under the Fourth
Amendment. But if he shares the information—or the
house—with another, that other can grant access to the
police in each instance.1
——————
1 The majority considers this comparison to be a “false equation,” and

even discerns “a deliberate intent to devalue the importance of the
privacy of a dwelling place.” Ante, at 10–11, n. 4. But the differences
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 9

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

To the extent a person wants to ensure that his posses-
sions will be subject to a consent search only due to his
own consent, he is free to place these items in an area over
which others do not share access and control, be it a pri-
vate room or a locked suitcase under a bed. Mr. Randolph
acknowledged this distinction in his motion to suppress,
where he differentiated his law office from the rest of the
Randolph house by describing it as an area that “was
solely in his control and dominion.” App. 3. As to a “com-
mon area,” however, co-occupants with “joint access or
control” may consent to an entry and search. Matlock,
supra, at 171, n. 7.
By emphasizing the objector’s presence and noting an
occupant’s understanding that obnoxious guests might “be
admitted in [one’s] absence,” ante, at 7, the majority ap-
pears to resurrect an agency theory of consent suggested
in our early cases. See Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483,
——————
between the majority and this dissent reduce to this: Under the major-
ity’s view, police may not enter and search when an objecting co-
occupant is present at the door, but they may do so when he is asleep in
the next room; under our view, the co-occupant’s consent is effective in
both cases. It seems a bit overwrought to characterize the former
approach as affording great protection to a man in his castle, the latter
as signaling that “the centuries of special protection for the privacy of
the home are over.” Ibid. The Court in United States v. Matlock, 415
U. S. 164 (1974), drew the same comparison the majority faults today,
see id., at 171, n. 7, and the “deliberate intent” the majority ascribes to
this dissent is apparently shared by all Courts of Appeals and the great
majority of State Supreme Courts to have considered the question, see
ante, at 4, n. 1.
The majority also mischaracterizes this dissent as assuming that
“privacy shared with another individual is privacy waived for all
purposes including warrantless searches by the police.” Ante, at 11,
n. 4. The point, of course, is not that a person waives his privacy by
sharing space with others such that police may enter at will, but that
sharing space necessarily entails a limited yielding of privacy to the
person with whom the space is shared, such that the other person
shares authority to consent to a search of the shared space. See supra,
at 2, 5–10.
10 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

489 (1964) (stating that a hotel clerk could not consent to a
search of a guest’s room because the guest had not waived
his rights “by word or deed, either directly or through an
agent”); Chapman v. United States, 365 U. S. 610, 616–
617 (1961). This agency theory is belied by the facts of
Matlock and Rodriguez—both defendants were present but
simply not asked for consent—and the Court made clear in
those cases that a co-occupant’s authority to consent
rested not on an absent occupant’s delegation of choice to
an agent, but on the consenting co-occupant’s “joint access
or control” of the property. Matlock, supra, at 171, n. 7;
see Rodriguez, supra, at 181; United States v. McAlpine,
919 F. 2d 1461, 1464, n. 2 (CA10 1990) (“[A]gency analysis
[was] put to rest by the Supreme Court’s reasoning in
Matlock”).
The law acknowledges that although we might not
expect our friends and family to admit the government
into common areas, sharing space entails risk. A person
assumes the risk that his co-occupants—just as they
might report his illegal activity or deliver his contraband
to the government—might consent to a search of areas
over which they have access and control. See United
States v. Karo, 468 U. S. 705, 726 (1984) (O’Connor, J.,
concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (finding it
a “relatively easy case . . . when two persons share identi-
cal, overlapping privacy interests in a particular place,
container, or conversation. Here both share the power to
surrender each other’s privacy to a third party”).
III
The majority states its rule as follows: “[A] warrantless
search of a shared dwelling for evidence over the express
refusal of consent by a physically present resident cannot
be justified as reasonable as to him on the basis of consent
given to the police by another resident.” Ante, at 15–16.
Just as the source of the majority’s rule is not privacy, so
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 11

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

too the interest it protects cannot reasonably be described as
such. That interest is not protected if a co-owner happens to
be absent when the police arrive, in the backyard gardening,
asleep in the next room, or listening to music through ear-
phones so that only his co-occupant hears the knock on the
door. That the rule is so random in its application confirms
that it bears no real relation to the privacy protected by the
Fourth Amendment. What the majority’s rule protects is
not so much privacy as the good luck of a co-owner who just
happens to be present at the door when the police arrive.
Usually when the development of Fourth Amendment
jurisprudence leads to such arbitrary lines, we take it as a
signal that the rules need to be rethought. See California v.
Acevedo, 500 U. S. 565, 574, 580 (1991). We should not
embrace a rule at the outset that its sponsors appreciate will
result in drawing fine, formalistic lines. See ante, at 17.
Rather than draw such random and happenstance lines—
and pretend that the Constitution decreed them—the more
reasonable approach is to adopt a rule acknowledging that
shared living space entails a limited yielding of privacy to
others, and that the law historically permits those to whom
we have yielded our privacy to in turn cooperate with the
government. Such a rule flows more naturally from our
cases concerning Fourth Amendment reasonableness and is
logically grounded in the concept of privacy underlying that
Amendment.
The scope of the majority’s rule is not only arbitrary but
obscure as well. The majority repeats several times that a
present co-occupant’s refusal to permit entry renders the
search unreasonable and invalid “as to him.” Ante, at 1, 15–
16, 18. This implies entry and search would be reasonable
“as to” someone else, presumably the consenting co-occupant
and any other absent co-occupants. The normal Fourth
Amendment rule is that items discovered in plain view are
admissible if the officers were legitimately on the premises;
if the entry and search were reasonable “as to” Mrs.
12 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

Randolph, based on her consent, it is not clear why the
cocaine straw should not be admissible “as to” Mr.
Randolph, as discovered in plain view during a legitimate
search “as to” Mrs. Randolph. The majority’s differentiation
between entry focused on discovering whether domestic
violence has occurred (and the consequent authority to seize
items in plain view), and entry focused on searching for
evidence of other crime, is equally puzzling. See ante, at 13–
14. This Court has rejected subjective motivations of police
officers in assessing Fourth Amendment questions, see
Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806, 812–813 (1996), with
good reason: The police do not need a particular reason to
ask for consent to search, whether for signs of domestic
violence or evidence of drug possession.
While the majority’s rule protects something random, its
consequences are particularly severe. The question pre-
sented often arises when innocent cotenants seek to disasso-
ciate or protect themselves from ongoing criminal activity.
See, e.g., United States v. Hendrix, 595 F. 2d 883, 884
(CADC 1979) (wife asked police “to get her baby and take
[a] sawed-off shotgun out of her house”); People v. Cosme,
48 N. Y. 2d 286, 288–289, 293, 397 N. E. 2d 1319, 1320,
1323 (1979) (woman asked police to remove cocaine and a
gun from a shared closet); United States v. Botsch, 364
F. 2d 542, 547 (CA2 1966). Under the majority’s rule,
there will be many cases in which a consenting co-
occupant’s wish to have the police enter is overridden by
an objection from another present co-occupant. What does
the majority imagine will happen, in a case in which the
consenting co-occupant is concerned about the other’s
criminal activity, once the door clicks shut? The objecting
co-occupant may pause briefly to decide whether to de-
stroy any evidence of wrongdoing or to inflict retribution
on the consenting co-occupant first, but there can be little
doubt that he will attend to both in short order. It is no
answer to say that the consenting co-occupant can depart
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 13

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

with the police; remember that it is her home, too, and the
other co-occupant’s very presence, which allowed him to
object, may also prevent the consenting co-occupant from
doing more than urging the police to enter.
Perhaps the most serious consequence of the majority’s
rule is its operation in domestic abuse situations, a context
in which the present question often arises. See Rodriguez,
497 U. S., at 179; United States v. Donlin, 982 F. 2d 31
(CA1 1992); Hendrix, supra; People v. Sanders, 904 P. 2d
1311 (Colo. 1995) (en banc); Brandon v. State, 778 P. 2d
221 (Alaska App. 1989). While people living together
might typically be accommodating to the wishes of their
cotenants, requests for police assistance may well come
from coinhabitants who are having a disagreement. The
Court concludes that because “no sensible person would go
inside” in the face of disputed consent, ante, at 8–9, and
the consenting cotenant thus has “no recognized author-
ity” to insist on the guest’s admission, ante, at 10, a “police
officer [has] no better claim to reasonableness in entering
than the officer would have in the absence of any consent
at all,” ibid. But the police officer’s superior claim to enter
is obvious: Mrs. Randolph did not invite the police to join
her for dessert and coffee; the officer’s precise purpose in
knocking on the door was to assist with a dispute between
the Randolphs—one in which Mrs. Randolph felt the need
for the protective presence of the police. The majority’s
rule apparently forbids police from entering to assist with
a domestic dispute if the abuser whose behavior prompted
the request for police assistance objects.2
——————
2 In response to this concern, the majority asserts that its rule applies

“merely [to] evidentiary searches.” Ante, at 14. But the fundamental
premise of the majority’s argument is that an inviting co-occupant has
“no recognized authority” to “open the door” over a co-occupant’s objec-
tion. Ante, at 10; see also ante, at 1 (“[A] physically present co-
occupant’s stated refusal to permit entry prevails, rendering the war-
rantless search unreasonable and invalid as to him” (emphasis added));
14 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

The majority acknowledges these concerns, but dis-
misses them on the ground that its rule can be expected to
give rise to exigent situations, and police can then rely on
an exigent circumstances exception to justify entry. Ante,
at 12, n. 6. This is a strange way to justify a rule, and the
fact that alternative justifications for entry might arise
does not show that entry pursuant to consent is unreason-
able. In addition, it is far from clear that an exception for
emergency entries suffices to protect the safety of occu-
pants in domestic disputes. See, e.g., United States v.
Davis, 290 F. 3d 1239, 1240–1241 (CA10 2002) (finding no
exigent circumstances justifying entry when police re-
sponded to a report of domestic abuse, officers heard no
noise upon arrival, defendant told officers that his wife
was out of town, and wife then appeared at the door seem-
ingly unharmed but resisted husband’s efforts to close the
door).
Rather than give effect to a consenting spouse’s author-
ity to permit entry into her house to avoid such situations,
the majority again alters established Fourth Amendment
rules to defend giving veto power to the objecting spouse.
In response to the concern that police might be turned
away under its rule before entry can be justified based on
exigency, the majority creates a new rule: A “good reason”
to enter, coupled with one occupant’s consent, will ensure
——————
ante, at 8 (“[A] caller standing at the door of shared premises would
have no confidence . . . to enter when a fellow tenant stood there saying
‘stay out’ ” (emphasis added)); ante, at 10 (“[A] disputed invitation,
without more, gives a police officer no . . . claim to reasonableness in
entering” (emphasis added)). The point is that the majority’s rule
transforms what may have begun as a request for consent to conduct an
evidentiary search into something else altogether, by giving veto power
over the consenting co-occupant’s wishes to an occupant who would
exclude the police from entry. The majority would afford the now quite
vulnerable consenting co-occupant sufficient time to gather her belong-
ings and leave, see ante, at 13, apparently putting to one side the fact
that it is her castle, too.
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 15

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

that a police officer is “lawfully in the premises.” Ante, at
13, 14. As support for this “consent plus a good reason”
rule, the majority cites a treatise, which itself refers only
to emergency entries. Ante, at 14 (citing 4 W. LaFave,
Search and Seizure §8.3(d), p. 161 (4th ed. 2004)). For the
sake of defending what it concedes are fine, formalistic
lines, the majority spins out an entirely new framework
for analyzing exigent circumstances. Police may now
enter with a “good reason” to believe that “violence (or
threat of violence) has just occurred or is about to (or soon
will) occur.” Ante, at 13–14. And apparently a key factor
allowing entry with a “good reason” short of exigency is
the very consent of one co-occupant the majority finds so
inadequate in the first place.
The majority’s analysis alters a great deal of established
Fourth Amendment law. The majority imports the con-
cept of “social expectations,” previously used only to de-
termine when a search has occurred and whether a par-
ticular person has standing to object to a search, into
questions of consent. Ante, at 6, 8. To determine whether
entry and search are reasonable, the majority considers a
police officer’s subjective motive in asking for consent,
which we have otherwise refrained from doing in assess-
ing Fourth Amendment questions. Ante, at 13–14. And
the majority creates a new exception to the warrant re-
quirement to justify warrantless entry short of exigency in
potential domestic abuse situations. Ibid.
Considering the majority’s rule is solely concerned with
protecting a person who happens to be present at the door
when a police officer asks his co-occupant for consent to
search, but not one who is asleep in the next room or in
the backyard gardening, the majority has taken a great
deal of pain in altering Fourth Amendment doctrine, for
precious little (if any) gain in privacy. Perhaps one day, as
the consequences of the majority’s analytic approach
become clearer, today’s opinion will be treated the same
16 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

way the majority treats our opinions in Matlock and Rod-
riguez—as a “loose end” to be tied up. Ante, at 17.
One of the concurring opinions states that if it had to
choose between a rule that a cotenant’s consent was valid or
a rule that it was not, it would choose the former. Ante, at 1
(opinion of BREYER, J.). The concurrence advises, however,
that “no single set of legal rules can capture the ever chang-
ing complexity of human life,” ibid., and joins what becomes
the majority opinion, “[g]iven the case-specific nature of the
Court’s holding,” ante, at 3. What the majority establishes,
in its own terms, is “the rule that a physically present in-
habitant’s express refusal of consent to a police search is
dispositive as to him, regardless of the consent of a fellow
occupant.” Ante, at 18 (emphases added). The concurrence
joins with the apparent “understandin[g]” that the major-
ity’s “rule” is not a rule at all, but simply a “case-specific”
holding. Ante, at 3 (opinion of BREYER, J.). The end result
is a complete lack of practical guidance for the police in the
field, let alone for the lower courts.
* * *
Our third-party consent cases have recognized that a
person who shares common areas with others “assume[s]
the risk that one of their number might permit the common
area to be searched.” Matlock, 415 U. S., at 171, n. 7. The
majority reminds us, in high tones, that a man’s home is his
castle, ante, at 10, but even under the majority’s rule, it is
not his castle if he happens to be absent, asleep in the keep,
or otherwise engaged when the constable arrives at the
gate. Then it is his co-owner’s castle. And, of course, it is
not his castle if he wants to consent to entry, but his co-
owner objects. Rather than constitutionalize such an arbi-
trary rule, we should acknowledge that a decision to share
a private place, like a decision to share a secret or a confi-
dential document, necessarily entails the risk that those
with whom we share may in turn choose to share—for their
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 17

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

own protection or for other reasons—with the police.
I respectfully dissent.
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1

SCALIA, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________

No. 04–1067
_________________

GEORGIA, PETITIONER v. SCOTT FITZ RANDOLPH
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
GEORGIA
[March 22, 2006]

JUSTICE SCALIA, dissenting.
I join the dissent of THE CHIEF JUSTICE, but add these
few words in response to JUSTICE STEVENS’ concurrence.
It is not as clear to me as it is to JUSTICE STEVENS that,
at the time the Fourth Amendment was adopted, a police
officer could enter a married woman’s home over her
objection, and could not enter with only her consent. Nor
is it clear to me that the answers to these questions de-
pended solely on who owned the house. It is entirely clear,
however, that if the matter did depend solely on property
rights, a latter-day alteration of property rights would also
produce a latter-day alteration of the Fourth Amendment
outcome—without altering the Fourth Amendment itself.
JUSTICE STEVENS’ attempted critique of originalism
confuses the original import of the Fourth Amendment
with the background sources of law to which the Amend-
ment, on its original meaning, referred. From the date of
its ratification until well into the 20th century, violation of
the Amendment was tied to common-law trespass. See
Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 31–32 (2001); see also
California v. Acevedo, 500 U. S. 565, 581, 583 (1991)
(SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment). On the basis of that
connection, someone who had power to license the search
of a house by a private party could authorize a police
search. See 1 Restatement of Torts §167, and Comment b
(1934); see also Williams v. Howard, 110 S. C. 82, 96 S. E.
2 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

SCALIA, J., dissenting

251 (1918); Fennemore v. Armstrong, 29 Del. 35, 96 A. 204
(Super. Ct. 1915). The issue of who could give such con-
sent generally depended, in turn, on “historical and legal
refinements” of property law. United States v. Matlock,
415 U. S. 164, 171, n. 7 (1974). As property law developed,
individuals who previously could not authorize a search
might become able to do so, and those who once could grant
such consent might no longer have that power. But changes
in the law of property to which the Fourth Amendment
referred would not alter the Amendment’s meaning: that
anyone capable of authorizing a search by a private party
could consent to a warrantless search by the police.
There is nothing new or surprising in the proposition
that our unchanging Constitution refers to other bodies of
law that might themselves change. The Fifth Amendment
provides, for instance, that “private property” shall not “be
taken for public use, without just compensation”; but it
does not purport to define property rights. We have con-
sistently held that “the existence of a property interest is
determined by reference to ‘existing rules or understand-
ings that stem from an independent source such as state
law.’ ” Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 524 U. S.
156, 164 (1998) (quoting Board of Regents of State Colleges
v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 577 (1972)). The same is true of the
Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause’s protection of
“property.” See Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U. S. ___, ___
(2005). This reference to changeable law presents no prob-
lem for the originalist. No one supposes that the meaning of
the Constitution changes as States expand and contract
property rights. If it is indeed true, therefore, that a wife
in 1791 could not authorize the search of her husband’s
house, the fact that current property law provides other-
wise is no more troublesome for the originalist than the
well established fact that a State must compensate its
takings of even those property rights that did not exist at
the time of the Founding.
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 3

SCALIA, J., dissenting

In any event, JUSTICE STEVENS’ panegyric to the equal
rights of women under modern property law does not
support his conclusion that “[a]ssuming . . . both spouses
are competent, neither one is a master possessing the
power to override the other’s constitutional right to deny
entry to their castle.” Ante, at 2–3. The issue at hand is
what to do when there is a conflict between two equals.
Now that women have authority to consent, as JUSTICE
STEVENS claims men alone once did, it does not follow that
the spouse who refuses consent should be the winner of the
contest. JUSTICE STEVENS could just as well have followed
the same historical developments to the opposite conclu-
sion: Now that “the male and the female are equal part-
ners,” ante, at 2, and women can consent to a search of
their property, men can no longer obstruct their wishes.
Men and women are no more “equal” in the majority’s
regime, where both sexes can veto each other’s consent,
than on the dissent’s view, where both sexes cannot.
Finally, I must express grave doubt that today’s decision
deserves JUSTICE STEVENS’ celebration as part of the
forward march of women’s equality. Given the usual
patterns of domestic violence, how often can police be
expected to encounter the situation in which a man urges
them to enter the home while a woman simultaneously
demands that they stay out? The most common practical
effect of today’s decision, insofar as the contest between
the sexes is concerned, is to give men the power to stop
women from allowing police into their homes—which is,
curiously enough, precisely the power that JUSTICE
STEVENS disapprovingly presumes men had in 1791.
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1

THOMAS, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________

No. 04–1067
_________________

GEORGIA, PETITIONER v. SCOTT FITZ RANDOLPH
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
GEORGIA
[March 22, 2006]

JUSTICE THOMAS, dissenting.
The Court has long recognized that “[i]t is an act of
responsible citizenship for individuals to give whatever
information they may have to aid in law enforcement.”
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 477–478 (1966). Con-
sistent with this principle, the Court held in Coolidge v.
New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443 (1971), that no Fourth
Amendment search occurs where, as here, the spouse of an
accused voluntarily leads the police to potential evidence
of wrongdoing by the accused. Id., at 486–490. Because
Coolidge squarely controls this case, the Court need not
address whether police could permissibly have conducted a
general search of the Randolph home, based on Mrs.
Randolph’s consent. I respectfully dissent.
In the instant case, Mrs. Randolph told police respond-
ing to a domestic dispute that respondent was using a
substantial quantity of cocaine. Upon police request, she
consented to a general search of her residence to investi-
gate her statements. However, as the Court’s recitation of
the facts demonstrates, ante, at 2, the record is clear that
no such general search occurred. Instead, Sergeant Brett
Murray asked Mrs. Randolph where the cocaine was
located, and she showed him to an upstairs bedroom,
where he saw the “piece of cut straw” on a dresser. Cor-
rected Tr. of Motion to Suppression Hearing in Case No.
2001R–699 (Super. Ct. Sumter Cty., Ga., Oct. 3, 2002), pp.
2 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

THOMAS, J., dissenting

8–9. Upon closer examination, Sergeant Murray observed
white residue on the straw, and concluded the straw had
been used for ingesting cocaine. Id., at 8. He then col-
lected the straw and the residue as evidence. Id., at 9.
Sergeant Murray’s entry into the Randolphs’ home at
the invitation of Mrs. Randolph to be shown evidence of
respondent’s cocaine use does not constitute a Fourth
Amendment search. Under this Court’s precedents, only
the action of an agent of the government can constitute a
search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment,
because that Amendment “was intended as a restraint
upon the activities of sovereign authority, and was not
intended to be a limitation upon other than governmental
agencies.” Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U. S. 465, 475 (1921)
(emphasis added). See also Coolidge, 403 U. S., at 487.
Applying this principle in Coolidge, the Court held that
when a citizen leads police officers into a home shared
with her spouse to show them evidence relevant to their
investigation into a crime, that citizen is not acting as an
agent of the police, and thus no Fourth Amendment search
has occurred. Id., at 488–498.
Review of the facts in Coolidge clearly demonstrates
that it governs this case. While the police interrogated
Coolidge as part of their investigation into a murder, two
other officers were sent to his house to speak with his
wife. Id., at 485. During the course of questioning Mrs.
Coolidge, the police asked whether her husband owned
any guns. Id., at 486. Mrs. Coolidge replied in the af-
firmative, and offered to retrieve the weapons for the
police, apparently operating under the assumption that
doing so would help to exonerate her husband. Ibid. The
police accompanied Mrs. Coolidge to the bedroom to collect
the guns, as well as clothing that Mrs. Coolidge told them
her husband had been wearing the night of the murder.
Ibid.
Before this Court, Coolidge argued that the evidence of
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 3

THOMAS, J., dissenting

the guns and clothing should be suppressed as the product
of an unlawful search because Mrs. Coolidge was acting as
an “ ‘instrument,’ ” or agent, of the police by complying
with a “ ‘demand’ ” made by them. Id., at 487. The Court
recognized that, had Mrs. Coolidge sought out the guns to
give to police wholly on her own initiative, “there can be no
doubt under existing law that the articles would later
have been admissible in evidence.” Ibid. That she did so
in cooperation with police pursuant to their request did
not transform her into their agent; after all, “it is no part
of the policy underlying the Fourth and Fourteenth
Amendments to discourage citizens from aiding to the
utmost of their ability in the apprehension of criminals.”
Id., at 488. Because the police were “acting normally and
properly” when they asked about any guns, and question-
ing Mrs. Coolidge about the clothing was “logical and in no
way coercive,” the Fourth Amendment did not require
police to “avert their eyes” when Mrs. Coolidge produced
the guns and clothes for inspection.1 Id., at 488–489.
This case is indistinguishable from Coolidge, compelling
the conclusion that Mrs. Randolph was not acting as an
agent of the police when she admitted Sergeant Murray
into her home and led him to the incriminating evidence.2
——————
1 Although the Court has described Coolidge as a “third-party con-
sent” case, United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164, 171 (1974), the
Court’s opinion, by its own terms, does not rest on its conception of Mrs.
Coolidge’s authority to consent to a search of her house or the possible
relevance of Mr. Coolidge’s absence from the scene. Coolidge, 403 U. S.,
at 487 (“[W]e need not consider the petitioner’s further argument that
Mrs. Coolidge could not or did not ‘waive’ her husband’s constitutional
protection against unreasonable searches and seizures”). See also
Walter v. United States, 447 U. S. 649, 660–661, n. 2 (1980) (White, J.,
concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“Similarly, in Coolidge
v. New Hampshire, the Court held that a wife’s voluntary action in
turning over to police her husband’s guns and clothing did not consti-
tute a search and seizure by the government”).
2 The Courts of Appeals have disagreed over the appropriate inquiry
4 GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH

THOMAS, J., dissenting

Just as Mrs. Coolidge could, of her own accord, have of-
fered her husband’s weapons and clothing to the police
without implicating the Fourth Amendment, so too could
Mrs. Randolph have simply retrieved the straw from the
house and given it to Sergeant Murray. Indeed, the ma-
jority appears to concede as much. Ante, at 11-12 (“The co-
tenant acting on his own initiative may be able to deliver
evidence to the police, Coolidge, supra, at 487–489 . . . ,
and can tell the police what he knows, for use before a
magistrate in getting a warrant”). Drawing a constitu-
tionally significant distinction between what occurred here
and Mrs. Randolph’s independent production of the rele-
vant evidence is both inconsistent with Coolidge and
unduly formalistic.3
Accordingly, the trial court appropriately denied re-
spondent’s motion to suppress the evidence Mrs. Randolph
provided to the police and the evidence obtained as a
result of the consequent search warrant. I would therefore
reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Georgia.

——————
to be performed in determining whether involvement of the police
transforms a private individual into an agent or instrument of the
police. See United States v. Pervaz, 118 F. 3d 1, 5–6 (CA1 1997) (sum-
marizing approaches of various Circuits). The similarity between this
case and Coolidge avoids any need to resolve this broader dispute in the
present case.
3 That Sergeant Murray, unlike the officers in Coolidge, may have

intended to perform a general search of the house is inconsequential, as
he ultimately did not do so; he viewed only those items shown to him by
Mrs. Randolph. Nor is it relevant that, while Mrs. Coolidge intended to
aid the police in apprehending a criminal because she believed doing so
would exonerate her husband, Mrs. Randolph believed aiding the police
would implicate her husband.