CT: Defendant volunteered officer could “check” car, and this was an invitation to search

Defendant’s invitation to “check” the car (“Morgan then asked whether the defendant had anything ‘illegal’ in the Altima. The defendant replied that all he had in the car was some beer on the floor by the passenger seat, and told Morgan that he could ‘go ahead and check. You can check if you want.’”) was a consent to search. Also, two questions did not unduly prolong the stop in this case. The court also [fell for the trap and] applied Meuhler v. Mena to a traffic stop to justify the questions, rejecting other state’s cases. There were only two questions, and they were not unreasonable [anyway]. State v. Jenkins, 298 Conn. 209, 3 A.3d 806 (2010) [with two dissents here and here] (revg State v. Jenkins, 104 Conn. App. 417, 934 A.2d 281 (2007)):

Post-Jimeno case law makes clear that, on the basis of the exchange between Morgan and the defendant, Morgan reasonably could have understood the defendant’s invitation to “check” the Altima as an invitation to search the interior of the car and unlocked compartments therein, including its center console. First, Morgan’s question about the presence of “anything illegal” in the car reasonably is understood as directing the defendant’s attention to contraband such as narcotics or weapons, despite the fact that he did not mention those items specifically. See United States v. Canipe, 569 F.3d 597, 606 (6th Cir.) (“[w]hen [the investigator] asked [the defendant] whether he had anything in his vehicle that might be unlawful or about which he should know, his questioning placed [the defendant] on notice that any unlawful item would be the subject of his search”), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___ , 130 S. Ct. 655, 175 L. Ed. 2d 499 (2009); United States v. Snow, 44 F.3d 133, 135 (2d Cir. 1995) (“[i]t is self-evident that a police officer seeking general permission to search a vehicle is looking for evidence of illegal activity”); cf. State v. McConnelee, 690 N.W.2d 27, 31 (Iowa 2004) (“[c]onsidering their conversation was limited to the nature of the leafy substance that was in plain view, we think it unlikely that the defendant would respond to the officer’s comments with an unsolicited invitation to the officer to ‘search the whole car’”). Moreover, a general consent to search a vehicle “reasonably include[s] permission to search any container that might have held illegal objects.” United States v. Canipe, supra, 606; see also United States v. Snow, supra, 135 (“[i]t is just as obvious that such evidence [of illegal activity] might be hidden in closed containers”); United States v. Harris, 928 F.2d 1113, 1118 (11th Cir. 1991) (“the defendant knew the officer was looking for drugs; therefore, both [the] defendant and the officer would reasonably interpret the consent as constituting consent to search in places where narcotics would reasonably be hidden”); cf. United States v. Neely, 564 F.3d 346, 351 (4th Cir. 2009) (per curiam) (containers “physically part of” area to be searched are included within scope of consent, but consent limited to trunk does not “physically encompass the interior of [a] vehicle”).

[Meuhler v. Mena is a search warrant case and a detention of a person at the search. A search under a warrant is far different than a highway stop without prior judicial authorization. To me, that makes all the difference. See the dissents.]