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Valtierra v. State

In this case concerning the scope of a consent to search under the Fourth Amendment, it was objectively reasonable for the police officer to conclude that the resident's general consent to come inside the apartment to find and talk to a 13-year-old runaway included consent to walk down the open hallway to knock on the bathroom door. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Nos. PD-0906-09, PD-0907-09, PD-0908-09, and PD-0909-09, 05-06-2010

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OPINION

This appeal concerns the scope of a consent to search under the Fourth Amendment. Both the trial court and the court of appeals agreed that Heriberto Valtierra consented to have police officers enter his apartment to talk to Erica, a 13-year-old runaway. The question before us is whether, viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, the evidence is sufficient to show that the scope of Heriberto’s consent extended to the officer’s act of walking down the open hallway to knock on the bathroom door where Erica was said to be taking a shower. The trial court upheld the officer’s actions, but on the basis of a “protective sweep” or “exigent circumstances.” The Fourth Court of Appeals found that the officer did not have consent to walk down the hallway, nor were there exigent circumstances warranting a protective sweep.*fn1 Because the record supports implied, if not explicit, consent to walk some twenty feet to the bathroom door, we conclude that the officer’s actions were reasonable and within the scope of the original consent to enter and investigate Erica’s whereabouts. We therefore reverse the court of appeals’s judgment and remand these cases for further proceedings.

I.

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