{"id":6027,"date":"2009-07-12T08:44:59","date_gmt":"2009-07-12T13:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=6027"},"modified":"2009-07-12T08:50:02","modified_gmt":"2009-07-12T13:50:02","slug":"seventh-circuit-criminal-case-of-the-week-silence-and-consent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/07\/seventh-circuit-criminal-case-of-the-week-silence-and-consent\/","title":{"rendered":"Seventh Circuit Criminal Case of the Week: Silence and Consent"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/em><\/p>\n

\"seventh-circuit2\"In 2006, Jarrett James robbed\u00a0the same\u00a0bank in Middleton, Wisconsin, on two different occasions, getting away with about $120,000.\u00a0 He was later apprehended, convicted in federal court, and sentenced to 42 years in prison.\u00a0 His appeal centered on the government’s warrantless seizure of a safe from his mother’s home.\u00a0 The safe\u00a0contained a gun\u00a0matching a description of the\u00a0weapon used in one of the robberies.\u00a0 When the government sought to use the\u00a0gun as evidence against him at trial, James argued unsuccessfully that\u00a0the gun\u00a0should be suppressed because it was obtained in violation of his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.<\/p>\n

In United States v. James <\/a><\/em>(No. 08-3327), the Seventh Circuit (per Judge Flaum) also rejected the Fourth Amendment claim and affirmed James’ conviction.\u00a0 Specifically, the court held that the seizure complied with the Fourth Amendment because\u00a0James’ mother consented to a police officer\u00a0taking\u00a0the safe.\u00a0 The holding is notable because James’ mother never expressly agreed to the seizure; the case thus illustrates circumstances in which Fourth Amendment consent may be inferred from silence.\u00a0 The case also\u00a0raises interesting questions regarding\u00a0the mother’s motivations and the underlying parent-child dynamics.<\/p>\n

With James a suspect in the two Middleton bank robberies,\u00a0detective Darrin Zimmerman interviewed James’ mother, Linda Martin, in October 2006.\u00a0 Martin informed Zimmerman that James was in\u00a0police custody in Nebraska on another charge.\u00a0 A week after this interview, Martin called Zimmerman to tell him that she had received a letter from James regarding\u00a0a gun in\u00a0a safe at her house.\u00a0 Martin stated that she would not open the safe until police came over.\u00a0 (Here, I wonder about the apparent betrayal of trust in the parent-child relationship.\u00a0 Nothing in the Seventh Circuit opinion sheds much light on Martin’s motivations.\u00a0 This was perhaps one of those wrenching cases of\u00a0conflict between a person’s duties as\u00a0citizen and\u00a0as parent.)<\/p>\n

Zimmerman proposed that he come to her house, and Martin did not object.\u00a0 When he arrived, she showed him where the safe was.\u00a0 (We are told that Martin’s lawyer was also present; I’m mystified as to why she retained a lawyer — perhaps it is an indication that she was having second thoughts about\u00a0assisting the police gather evidence against her son.)\u00a0 When Zimmerman stated his intention to seize the safe immediately\u00a0and obtain a warrant to search its contents later, Martin and her lawyer remained silent.\u00a0 Later,\u00a0Martin provided Zimmerman with the keypad code for the safe.<\/p>\n

In addressing James’ Fourth Amendment claim, the Seventh Circuit noted that third-party consent is a well-recognized exception to the general rule that police must obtain a warrant prior to seizing evidence.\u00a0 Martin had legal authority to consent to the seizure because James permitted her to exercise control over the safe.\u00a0 And she did give implied consent, the court decided,\u00a0through her phone call to Zimmerman,\u00a0by leading Zimmerman to the safe,\u00a0and by failing to\u00a0object to Zimmerman’s stated intention to seize the safe.<\/p>\n

Other new criminal cases last week were:<\/p>\n

United States v. Moore <\/a><\/em>(No. 07-3978) (Tinder, J.) (evidence was sufficient to support defendant’s bank robbery conviction).<\/p>\n

United States v. Brown <\/a><\/em>(No. 08-2273) (Tinder, J.) (district court unambiguously accepted plea agreement).<\/p>\n

United States v. Kincaid <\/a><\/em>(No. 08-1953) (Ripple, J.)\u00a0(defendant waived right to present Commerce Clause issue on appeal).<\/p>\n

United States v. Lauderdale <\/a><\/em>(No. 08-2428) (Bauer, J.) (district court did not abuse discretion in refusing to grant mistrial based on alleged prosecutorial misconduct).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2006, Jarrett James robbed\u00a0the same\u00a0bank in Middleton, Wisconsin, on two different occasions, getting away with about $120,000.\u00a0 He was later apprehended, convicted in federal court, and sentenced to 42 years in prison.\u00a0 His appeal centered on the government’s warrantless seizure of a safe from his mother’s home.\u00a0 The safe\u00a0contained a gun\u00a0matching a description of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,28,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-criminal-law-process","category-seventh-circuit","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}