ABSTRACT
CAPSULE: A hotel clerk cannot give consent to search the room of a hotel guest. FACTS: Two men were described to the police by eyewitnesses after a robbery of a food market in California. Soon thereafter, a checkbook belonging to Stoner was found in an adjacent parking lot and turned over to the police. Checkbook stubs indicated that checks had been made out to a hotel in a nearby city. Upon checking the records in that city, the police learned that Stoner had a criminal record. The police then obtained a photograph of Stoner. Eyewitnesses identified the man in the photograph as one of the men involved in the robbery. Without an arrest or search warrant, the police went to the hotel where the suspect resided. The hotel clerk notified the police that the suspect was not in his room, but consented to open the room for them. After gaining entrance to the room, the police made an extensive search and discovered articles like those described by the eyewitnesses to the robbery. Stoner was arrested two days later in another state and extradited to California. He was charged with and convicted of armed robbery. ISSUE: May a hotel clerk give valid consent to a warrantless search of the room of one of the occupants? NO. SUPREME COURT DECISION: A hotel guest is entitled to protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. This cannot be waived by the consent of a hotel clerk. REASON: “It is important to bear in mind that it was the petitioner’s constitutional right which was at stake here, and not the night clerk’s nor the hotel’s. It was a right, therefore, which only the petitioner could waive by word or deed.” CASE SIGNIFICANCE: A hotel guest has a reasonable expectation of privacy that cannot be waived by the hotel management simply because the management has the key. A wife can consent to the search of a house, parents can consent to the search of a child’s room (with some exceptions), or a roommate to the search of a dormitory room, but a hotel clerk cannot consent to a search of the room of a guest. Note, however, that if the police want to arrest a suspect in a room, the fact that access to the room was made by borrowing a key from the hotel clerk does not invalidate the arrest. The rule on consent, therefore, differs in arrest and in search cases.
