CA6: Defendant objected to wife’s ability to consent, and the police had to honor his objection; suppressed

Defendant and his wife got into a domestic dispute, and she called the police to tell them about his illegal firearms. They came to the scene and she consented to the search. He was there and vociferously objected. The police searched anyway. The search violated Randolph. Moreover, the defendant’s objections put the police on notice that she probably did not have apparent authority to consent. United States v. Tatman, 397 Fed. Appx. 152 (6th Cir. 2010).*

The central argument here was whether there was a conditional plea or not. There was a letter defense counsel had that was not in the file and the USAO could not corroborate that talked about reserving the search issue for appeal. It was not in the plea agreement. “On this record, we can not even determine if the district court was ever made aware of the disputed letter. We would therefore ordinarily remand this matter to the district court so that it could make findings of fact that would resolve the issue of whether there was an agreement to allow Davis to enter a conditional plea so that he could pursue his Fourth Amendment claim on appeal. Here, however, a remand is not necessary because Davis’s Fourth Amendment claim is frivolous.” United States v. Davis, 393 Fed. Appx. 895 (3d Cir. 2010).*