U.S. v. Mojica

In prosecution on drug-trafficking crimes, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence seized from detached garage of defendant’s home, even though defendant argued that his wife did not have authority to give consent to police to search said garage. Officers could properly believe that defendant’s wife had apparent authority to give officers consent to search garage where: (1) spouse presumptively has authority to consent to search of all areas of homestead; (2) wife told officers that she had been married to defendant for 21 years and had lived with defendant at current residence for ten years; and (3) no one told officers at time of search that wife was denied access to garage. Ct. rejected defendant’s contention that officers could not reasonably believe that wife had authority to consent to said search where wife did not have key to garage and had told officers that she had not been in garage for 1.5 months. Also, Dist. Ct. did not err in finding that defendant was responsible for 18.04 kilograms of cocaine, where said amount was derived from information in presentence report, as well as testimony from individual regarding his actual sales of cocaine.