WA: Actual owner has superior authority to consent, even over objection of bailee

The permitted user of a vehicle has a reasonable expectation of privacy in it, but the owner has paramount authority to consent and can even override the refusal of the user, a bailee, to consent. State v. Vanhollebeke, 2016 Wash. App. LEXIS 2989 (Dec. 13, 2016) (following Hardy v. Commonwealth, 17 Va. App. 677, 440 S.E.2d 434 (1994)):

¶26 The Randolph Court reasoned that “[t]he constant element in assessing Fourth Amendment reasonableness in the consent cases, then, is the great significance given to widely shared social expectations, which are naturally enough influenced by the law of property, but not controlled by its rules.” Id. at 111. When a cotenant is present and objects to a visitor’s entry into the home, social expectations require exclusion of the visitor. Id. at 114. The Court further explained that “[u]nless the people living together fall within some recognized hierarchy, like a household of parent and child or barracks housing military personnel of different grades, there is no societal understanding of superior and inferior.” Id.

¶27 It would be inappropriate to extend Randolph to this situation for several reasons. First, Randolph recognized that different societal expectations may arise when cotenants belong to a recognized hierarchy. The fact that Mr. Casteel owned the truck and gave Mr. Vanhollebeke permission to only borrow it created a “societal understanding of superior and inferior,” so that he had the “right or authority to prevail over the express wishes” of Mr. Vanhollebeke. Id.

¶28 Second, other courts that have considered whether to extend Randolph to vehicles have declined to do so because of society’s lessened expectation of privacy in vehicles as compared to homes. See, e.g., Sevilla-Carcamo v. State, 335 Ga. App. 788, 795, 783 S.E.2d 150 (2016) (declining “invitation to extend … Randolph given the well-established differential treatment of residences and automobiles under the Fourth Amendment”); State v. Copeland, 399 S.W.3d 159, 165 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013); United States v. Lumpkins, 687 F.3d 1011, 1014 (8th Cir. 2012) (suggesting that, because Randolph relied on “‘the centuries-old principle of respect for the privacy of the home,’” it does not apply to cars) (quoting Randolph, 547 U.S. at 115).

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