There is a reason this was a 5-3 opinion.
This ruling is a nightmare.
I am a libertarian. I believe the SCOTUS has bent far too directly to an authoritarian vision of the Constitution.
However, this is an opinion that will make it difficult for police to know when to bother with real crimes. It will cause nothing but more litigation. That is not the purpose of law, to decide on each situation as it occurs. The ideal law is a brightline rule society must follow, and those rules strictly enforced would present little or no discretion to police intent on harassment. However, here Souter says:
"W]here the defendant has victimized the third-party . . . the emergency nature of the situation is suchthat the third-party consent should validate a warrantless search despite defendant’s objections” (internal quotation marks omitted; third omission in original)). The undoubted
right of the police to enter in order to protect a victim, however, has nothing to do with the question in this case, whether a search with the consent of one cotenant
is good against another, standing at the door and expressly refusing consent."
Basically, he admits that in a domestic violence situation where there is disagreement over the search, the police may enter...but not in THIS domestic violence situation where there is disagreement over the search. In most situations where the police may confront domestic violence there are back-door ways around the search requirement--but not THIS situation. Breyer notes in his concurring opinion that "the Fourth Amendment does not insist upon bright-line rules."
But that is horseshit. Police work is based upon knowing the rules, and here, the court did not pick a rule at all. It is simply continuing the O'Connor reign of terror, now in the criminal law context. Any lawyer reading this knows damn well it'll create no certainty, just more lawyering, and that is why EVERY SINGLE LIBERAL on the court was for this opinion. It is an ABA dream opinion.
I don't agree with Roberts or Thomas 100%, but Roberts is dead-bang right in saying that:
"The rule the majority fashions does not implement the high office of the Fourth Amendment to protect privacy, but instead provides protection on a random and happenstance basis, protecting, for example, a co-occupant who happens to be at the front door when the other occupant consents to a search, but not one napping or watching television in the next room."
What does this mean for school lockers and drugs? What about all the other non-exceptions the same liberals have voted AGAINST? This is a nightmare, and again, the only people who should be happy with it are lawyers.
One thing I forgot to add: If the majority wanted to strengthen the 4th amendment, they could have. If the dissent wanted to eviscerate it, they could have. The gutless majority didn't. The gutsy dissenters didn't either, because that was not at all their purpose in dissenting. Both Roberts and Thomas point out that this is lousy law. It follows neither precedent nor common sense, and we should expect both from the SCOTUS, not O'Connorish vacillation.