NC: Defendant consented to search of trunk and showed trunk key; he did not withdraw consent by equivocal statement

Defendant consented to a search of his trunk, even showing the officers the trunk key. His statement “they’re tearing up my trunk” was not a withdrawal of consent. State v. Schiro, 2012 N.C. App. LEXIS 245 (February 21, 2012)*:

In the case at hand, officers testified to receiving consent from defendant to search his vehicle. Defendant even showed officers which key opened the trunk of his car. Defendant, alternatively, contends he revoked his consent while sitting, arrested, in a nearby patrol car when he “said several times, ‘They’re — man, they’re tearing up my trunk.’” Defendant correctly notes that a person may withdraw his or her consent to a search. State v. Hagin, 203 N.C. App. 561, 564, 691 S.E.2d 429, 433, disc. review denied, 364 N.C. 438, 702 S.E.2d 500 (2010). “The scope of a valid consent search is measured against a standard of objective reasonableness where the court asks ‘what would the typical reasonable person have understood by the exchange between the officer and the suspect?’” Id. at 564, 691 S.E.2d at 432 (quoting Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 251, 114 L. Ed. 2d 297, 302 (1991)). A reasonable person would not have considered defendant’s statements that the officers were “tearing up” his car to be an unequivocal revocation of his consent. Similarly, in State v. Morocco, 99 N.C. App. 421, 430, 393 S.E.2d 545, 550 (1990), our Court held that the trial court did not err in determining that the defendant did not revoke his consent to search his vehicle when he made the ambiguous statement that a tote bag found in his car had nude photographs of his wife. Had defendant, in the case at bar, desired to revoke his consent he should have made it in a clearer statement that a reasonable person would have considered to be a revocation.