« Case of the Month: People v. Hofsheier | Main | United States v. Zavala—Booker revived! »
My Thoughts on Georgia v. Randolph
In Georgia v. Randolph, a case decided this week, the Supreme Court held that when one co-occupant of a residence consents to police entry into the home, and the other co-occupant, who is present on scene, objects, the police may not enter the home.
My first thought is that it will be unusual for circumstances analogous to those in Georgia v. Randolph to occurr. How often is the co-occupant present when the police arrive? The dissent is concerned about the impact upon victims of domestic violence. Putting asside the issue of whether Roberts and Scalia are not being true to their conservative judicial philosophy by permitting their fourth amendment analysis to be bent by concerns over a popular, albiet important, social issue, the dissent just has no idea how domestic violence cases are investigated. When a purported domestic abuse victim calls 911 reporting that the alleged abuser is in the house, responding officers know what to do to ensure their entry into the home is justified by the "exigent circumstance" of preventing further domestic abuse or by preserving evidence of domestic abuse. In practice, it is fairly easy for officers responding to a domestic violence call to either obtain the needed consent, or to adequatly justify their entry into the home. Right or wrong, the courts seem very willing to listen to an officer's justification for the entry.