CA7: “I guess so. You’re just doing your job” to a request to search is consent

Defendant was in a small roomette on an Amtrak train. When it stopped in Galesburg IL, two police officers went through the train to look at papers, IDs, and ask about hauling cash or drugs. She denied having anything, but consented to a search by saying “I guess so. You’re just doing your job.” That was consent. It was more than mere acquiescence to a claim of authority. United States v. Radford, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 8865 (7th Cir. May 22, 2017):

Radford further argues that even if she wasn’t seized, her response to Mings’s request to search her bags was not a voluntary consent to search. She may not have known that she could refuse. But the Supreme Court in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, supra, 412 U.S. at 227, 248-49, held that the lack of such knowledge is not dispositive. Radford contends that her response—”I guess so. You’re just doing your job.”—is so noncommittal as not to amount to a “yes.” It’s true that some phrases offered in response to a request to search, like “whatever,” “resistance is futile,” or the line uttered in United States v. Worley, 193 F.3d 380 (6th Cir. 1999), “you’ve got the badge, I guess you can,” could indicate acquiescence rather than consent. But “I guess so” does literally mean “yes,” even if half-heartedly, and nothing otherwise indicated that her response was not voluntary.