Police officers went to Brett Parkins’ home to search it because he was suspected of aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft. Parkins’ girlfriend was about to allow the officers to enter his Huntington Beach, California, home when he yelled, “Don’t let the cops in and don’t talk to them.” Shortly after, she let them in anyway. The issues presented in U.S.A v. Parkins clarify the parameters of warrantless searches consented to by co-tenants.

Parkins moved to suppress the search and his subsequent statements to the police, but the district court denied his motions. The Ninth Circuit reversed in part, saying the facts met the Supreme Court’s test for warrantless searches, but it permitted the admission of Parkins’s post-arrest statements.

The police had gone to Parkins’ home after a laser struck the helicopter they were riding in while they searched for a car that had been involved in a hit-and-run accident. Knowing that “laser beams pose a serious safety risk” because they interfere with a pilot’s vision, they identified the area from which the laser beams originated. Several other aircraft had been hit with similar beams in the past six months, and lasers presented a “repeat problem.”

After the laser hit this helicopter, the police used a thermal camera to identify the shooter. The picture showed a “man with a stocky build and large stomach, wearing shorts and a hat.” After seeing another laser, the police went to the defendant’s apartment building to search for it and the man who shot it. When they got there, they saw Parkins, who resembled the man whose picture was taken by the thermal camera. They knocked on his door, and his girlfriend opened it after denying that Parkins was home. They said they had just seen him. Parkins then went to the door but denied he had a laser.

The police sat Parkins down and detained him for “a chat” that took place down a flight of stairs and a short walk from his apartment. Meanwhile, other officers returned to Parkins’ home and asked his live-in girlfriend if they could search for a laser. She agreed, and the officer went to his car to get a consent form. Parkins then tried to stop her from signing by shouting at her with instructions to deny entry and not talk to the police. After twenty minutes, the police put him in handcuffs and took him to a police car. They then proceeded to search his home and found the laser.

A grand jury indicted Parkins with one count of “aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 39A, which says “whoever knowingly aims the beam of a laser pointer at an aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States…shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years or both.”

Parkins moved to suppress the search and his post-arrest statements, arguing they were “fruits of a warrantless search and/or seizure.” He said the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights and that his statements to the police during his detention should be suppressed. Presiding District Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha of the Central District of California Appeal denied his appeal, but Circuit Judge John B. Owens, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, reversed with concurrences by Circuit Judges Susan P. Graber and Morgan Christen.

Owens explained that the district court focused on two Supreme Court cases that dealt with “warrantless searches involving the consent of a co-tenant.” The first, U.S. v Matlock, held that

the consent of one who possesses common authority over premises or effects is valid as against the absent, non-consenting person with whom that authority is shared. The second, Georgia v. Randolph, held that warrantless searches of a shared home cannot be “over the express refusal of consent by a physically present resident.”

The district court had concluded that “a defendant can validly object to a search of his residence only if he is standing at the door and expressly refusing consent.” Since Parkins was not “at the door” when his girlfriend consented to the search, the judge concluded that the warrantless search was valid. The district court also found that Parkins’ statements outside his apartment were “not the product of custodial interrogation, so they were not protected by his Miranda rights, which require police to tell those arrested that they have the right to remain silent and that anything they say “can and will be used against them in a court of law.”

The Ninth Circuit thus affirmed the district court’s refusal to suppress any of Parkins’ pre-arrest statements but reversed its ruling regarding the constitutionality of the warrantless search. The appellate court first addressed Parkins’ Fourth Amendment claims. After reviewing a number of cases regarding “co-tenant consent,” Owens wrote that two factors are necessary to void a search: physical presence and expressed refusal. The court disagreed with the district court’s interpretation of Randolph and concluded that Parkins did not have to be “at the door,” that he had been present on the premises, and that he “expressly refused consent.” Owens added that “a defendant need not stand at the doorway to count as being physically present—presence on the premises (including its immediate vicinity) is sufficient.”

The opinion went on to explain that “Parkins was well within the immediate vicinity of his apartment when he objected to the officers’ presence at his apartment.” Judge Owens added that the police officers actually heard him object to the search when he said, “Don’t let the cops in.” He said that a reasonable person would have understood Parkins’ desire to keep his home private. Owens then turned to Parkins’ statements, both pre- and post-arrest. Because Parkins’ pre-arrest statements were made outside his apartment over a period of 20 minutes, and before his arrest, the opinion determined that they were not subject to Miranda, since they were not a “custodial interrogation.”

His post-arrest statements, however, were not to be suppressed because although they were made during “jailhouse interviews,” they were not found to be “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Rather, the police had sufficient probable cause to detain Parkins “independent of the unlawful apartment search,” including the description of Parkins obtained by the thermal camera on the helicopter and statements by neighbors who called him “the laser guy.” The Ninth Circuit concluded that “Parkins’s jailhouse statements were not an exploitation of the illegal entry into home.”