holding that a search “conducted without a warrant issued upon probable cause is per se unreasonable... subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions” and that “one of the specifically established exceptions to the requirements of both a warrant and probable cause is a search that is conducted pursuant to consent.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)
How later courts described this case
- holding that a search “conducted without a warrant issued upon probable cause is per se unreasonable... subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions” and that “one of the specifically established exceptions to the requirements of both a warrant and probable cause is a search that is conducted pursuant to consent.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)
- stating that if a defendant’s confession is not “ ‘the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker’ ” and “ ‘if his will has been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired, the use of his confession offends due process’ ” (quoting Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 602, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1961))
- holding that “knowledge of a right to refuse [consent] is not a prerequisite of a voluntary consent” and noting that “[a]lmost without exception, the requirement of a knowing and intelligent waiver has been applied only to those rights which the Constitution guarantees to a criminal defendant in order to preserve a fair trial”
- stating that, in the context of an automobile search, “if under all circumstances it has appeared that the consent was not given voluntarily — that it was coerced by threats or force, or granted only in submission to a claim of lawful authority — then we have found the consent invalid and the search unreasonable.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Questioned by State of Arizona v. Francisco L Encinas Valenzuela, 239 Ariz. 299 (2016)
The parties did not brief these issues, and the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence after Schneckloth has cast doubt on pinpointing the correct approach.
Distinguished
Distinguished by People v. Goforth, 222 Mich. App. 306 (1997)
People v Reed, 393 Mich 342, 363-364; 224 NW2d 867 (1975), followed Schneckloth and held that a waiver analysis is inapplicable to consent searches.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion and its judgment.
At the time Kaufman v. United States, 394 U. S. 217 (1969), was decided, I, as a member of the Court of Appeals (but not of its panel) whose order was there reversed, found myself in agreement with the views expressed by Mr. Justice Harlan, writing for himself and my Brother Stewart in dissent. Id., at 242 . My attitude has not changed in the four years that have passed since Kaufman was decided.
Although I agree with nearly all that Mr. Justice Powell has to say in his detailed and persuasive concurring opinion, post, p. 250, I refrain from joining it at this time because, as Mr. Justice Stewart’s opinion reveals, it is not necessary to reconsider Kaufman in order to decide the present case.