An hour later, permission was given. You don’t think people ever change their minds? Nor was he arrested as a pretense to get him out of the way.
“Held:
1. When the prosecution seeks to justify a warrantless search by proof of voluntary consent, it is not limited to proof that consent was given by the defendant, but may show that permission to search was obtained from a third party who possessed common authority over or other sufficient relationship to the premises or effects sought to be inspected.”
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/415/164/
Yes, people change their minds. I’m not saying this isn’t a tricky case—it was—just that, in my reading of the facts, the Court got it wrong.
And yes, in this case, the cops did not arrest him as a pretense to get him out of the house, but it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for cops to do exactly that under the precedent set in this case.
Again, this was a tricky case. But, all told, under all the circumstances, these cops could have, and should have, gotten a warrant to search the premises.