United States v. Matlock (1974)
US Supreme Court
P-Mac Daddy

Procedure: The district court suppressed evidence seized by police pursuant to Matlock’s girlfriend’s consent to search a room of a house in which both were cohabitants. The court of appeals affirmed the lower court’s determination and the Supreme Court of the USA reverses the court of appeals decision.

Facts: The respondent Matlock (not Ben) was indicted in February of 1971 for robbing a FDIC insured bank in Wisconsin. Back on November 12, 1970 he was arrested in the front yard of his residence in Pardeeville (Town named for Ram’s LB Jack Pardee) Wisconsin. The home was leased from the owner, a Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, and included their daughter Mrs. Gayle Graff, whom Matlock was residing with in a single bedroom. Though the officer’s were aware at the time of the November arrest of Matlock that he lived there, they did not ask him which room he resided or if he would give them consent to search his room. Although denied at the suppression hearing it was found that Mrs. Graff did consent to the officer’s searching the room in which she and Mr. Matlock cohabitated. The east bedroom of the house was searched and $4995 in cash was discovered in a diaper bag in the only closet in the room. The issue in the district court was whether Mrs. Graff’s relationship to the east bedroom was sufficient to make her consent to search against Matlock valid. The lower courts determined it was not!

Issue: Whether the evidence presented by the United States with respect to the voluntary consent of a third party to search the living quarters of the respondent was legally sufficient to render the seized materials admissible in evidence at the respondent’s criminal trial?

Holding: Yes, the Court indicated that where two or more persons have joint access to or control of premises “it is reasonable to recognize that any of the cohabitants 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 common area to be searched.” Assumption of the risk! (Crim Pro in a Nutshell pg. 147-148)

Reasoning: (White) More recent authority here clearly indicates that the consent of one who possesses common authority over premises or effects is valid against the absent, non-consenting person with whom that authority is shared. Mrs. Graff made out of court statements to the effect that she and Matlock were married and living together in the house. They feel that the Government has sustained its burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that Mrs. Graff did in fact give police her consent to search the east bedroom which she shared with Mr. Matlock and that the $4995 should have been admitted in to evidence. Matlock assumed the risk when he started living in the same bedroom with this bitch, meaning as a co-inhabitant she could permit police to search their room, even if that search is to her boyfriend’s own detriment.