What steps must a police officer must take to verify the identity of a person inviting him into a residence, when entering for a protective purpose?

A police officer, looking for a motel manager in order to retrieve a dirty needle, knocked at the motel room where he knew the manager had lived three months earlier. A woman unknown to him answered the door, looking stunned or possibly high. He asked if the manager was there, and she said she didn’t know. He asked if he could come in, and she said “yeah, sure.” There is no evidence that the woman possessed actual authority to grant entry to the room.

Inside, he saw three men and a quantity of marijuana. To avoid jeopardizing a larger investigation in progress, he told them that he was there to pick up a needle, and would not arrest them if they showed their hands. He then saw that one of them had a gun, called for backup, and the defendant was arrested.

A trial judge excluded the seized evidence because of the officer’s warrantless entry into the hotel room. The Commonwealth appealed, and the Appeals Court reversed, with one justice dissenting.  The SJC granted further appellate review.

The Commonwealth’s proposed basis for the officer’s warrantless entry into the hotel room is the unknown woman’s apparent authority to invite him in.

The Appeals Court ruled that her apparent authority was sufficient, where (1) the officer had no intention to conduct a search, for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, and (2) the woman was present in the hotel room at 10:00 P.M., and gave him no reason to believe she did not have authority over the room.

The dissenting justice challenged point (2), arguing that the majority misconceived the burden of proof: the Commonwealth should present positive indications of affirmative authority, rather than lack of negative indications, and here the officer knew nothing about the woman indicating that she had authority to invite him in. The dissent raises the specter of an officer going door to door on some superficially innocuous errand, entering homes on the invitation of any person who does not actually announce themselves to lack authority.

In requested further appellate review, the defendant also challenges point (1), arguing that the officer’s subjective intent to search should not be relevant — only the officer’s reasonable belief as to the occupant’s authority to permit entry.

As events this summer show, there are difficult lines to be drawn when police seek to enter a home for protective purposes. This case will allow the Court to guide police action on the doorstep, by deciding whether police have an affirmative duty to verify the source of their consent to enter a home, and whether that duty changes depending whether they are there to conduct a search or seizure, or to protect the occupants.