Some time ago, I received an email from a researcher asking whether a minor may consent to the search of his or her cell phone. The question made me realize how little I knew about children’s authority to consent to searches more generally. So I cracked some law books, and wrote this post as a primer for anyone who may be as uninformed as I was.
Children aren’t the same as adults. Most readers of this blog know that adults can waive their Fourth Amendment rights by voluntarily consenting to a search of their property. But the rules for children could be different. The law often treats minors differently than adults. For example, most contracts entered into by children are voidable. See, e.g., Creech ex rel. Creech v. Melnik, 147 N.C. App. 471 (2001). Most offenses committed by minors are treated as juvenile offenses rather than crimes. And minors suspected of criminal or delinquent behavior are entitled to enhanced procedural protections, such as the additional Miranda-type rights set forth in G.S. 7B-2101.
Minors may consent to searches. In light of the above, perhaps one could argue that minors should not be able to consent to searches at all. But that is not the law in North Carolina. In State v. Fincher, 309 N.C. 1 (1983), the Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled that a 17-year-old’s consent to the search of his room was valid. Nor have other jurisdictions prohibited consent searches of minors’ property. See generally Megan Annitto, Consent Searches of Minors, 38 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 1 (2014) (collecting cases, all of which start from the premise that consent searches involving minors are permissible if voluntary, and opining that “despite both limitations placed on minor capacity to make decisions in other areas of law, such as contracts, and psychological data about the coercion inherent in police encounters[,] the value of consent searches to law enforcement is simply too high” for courts to preclude consent searches involving minors altogether).
Determining whether a child’s consent is voluntary. Although minors may consent to certain searches, their consent must be voluntary to be effective, and a child’s age is pertinent to the voluntariness analysis. The Supreme Court’s seminal decision on consent searches is Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218 (1973). It established a totality-of-the-circumstances test for voluntariness, and discussed “youth” as a pertinent factor. The role of age in criminal procedure has only grown since then. In J. D. B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. 261 (2011), the Court held that a child’s age must inform the analysis of whether the child is in custody for Miranda purposes. The Court’s reasoning – that children lack the understanding characteristic of adults and are more easily influenced and overwhelmed – would be pertinent to a court considering whether a youth’s consent to search is voluntary. Some commentators believe that age should be an even greater consideration than it is under current law. See Annitto, supra; Bryce Anderson, Note, The Costs of Youth: Voluntary Searches and the Law’s Failure to Meaningfully Account for Age, 62 Ariz. L. Rev. 241 (2020) (arguing that courts “can and should take steps to offer greater protection for juveniles when it comes to granting consent for searches”).
Searches of residences. Most of the existing case law on minors and consent searches involves residential searches. The principal question courts have addressed is whether a minor may consent to a search of a parent’s home. I always thought that the answer to that question was no, perhaps with an exception for kids on the brink of majority who are home alone for an extended period of time. But it turns out that the answer may be yes, perhaps with an exception for young children or children who manifestly lack authority over the premises. See John Boudreau et al., Consent to Search by Children and Grandchildren, 68 Am. Jur. 2d Searches and Seizures § 172 (Jan. 2025 update) (“A child may consent to a search of his or her parent’s home.”); Barbara E. Bergman et al., 4 Wharton’s Criminal Procedure § 28:13 (14th ed.) (June 2023 update) (stating that “courts frequently uphold searches on the basis of a child’s consent”).
Courts have also considered what is more or less the mirror image of the above question, namely, whether a parent can consent to a search of a child’s bedroom. The answer to that is usually yes, though it might be otherwise if the parent has relinquished the right to access the room, and some personal containers in the room might be beyond a parent’s consent. See generally Bergman, supra; Restatement of the Law – Children and the Law § 12.11, Parental Consent to Search of a Minor’s Possessions and Person, TD No 3 (2021) (September 2024 update) (“A parent ordinarily can give valid consent to a search of the common areas in a home and of a minor’s bedroom. Courts have found that parents have the authority to access their child’s room, and that that authority also gives them authority to consent to a search.”).
Searches of personal property. Although parents typically may consent to searches of their kids’ rooms, only a minor normally may consent to a search of a minor’s personal property away from home or a minor’s person. For example, if an officer wants to conduct a consent search of a minor’s purse or backpack, the officer would need permission from the minor. See Restatement, supra (“Outside the home, a minor has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the minor’s person and in personal belongings in the minor’s possession, such as purses, backpacks, and closed or locked containers. Parents usually respect their children’s interest in privacy over their personal possessions, and the court likewise will respect the minor’s legitimate expectation of privacy.”)
I think of backpacks and purses as easier cases than cars and cell phones. As a parent, I can confirm that I think of my seventeen-year-old’s backpack as hers, but I think of the car she drives and the phone she carries as being mostly hers while still belonging in part to my wife and me. We pay to register and insure the car. We bought the phone and pay T-Mobile to keep Instagram flowing to it. So we feel like we’ve got a bit of a stake. Courts also have struggled a bit with these issues. The Restatement cited above says that “[a] parent can give consent to the search of a car in the minor’s possession if the parent owns the car” and asserts, while noting a lack of authority on the matter, that “[a] parent can give valid consent to a search of a minor’s cell phone if the parent has requested and received access to the child’s phone, or if the parent owns the phone, or pays the phone bill,” but probably cannot “if [the] minor owns the cell phone and does not share the password with the parent or allow access.”
That sounds reasonable at first blush. However, I am unsure that courts will eventually adopt such a nuanced rule, because an officer is not likely to know who bought a minor’s phone, who pays how much of the bill, and whether the parents have the passcode or otherwise exercise authority over the phone. The doctrine of apparent authority may have a role to play here as well. See United States v. Gardner, 887 F.3d 780 (6th Cir. 2018) (holding that a 17-year-old who was a victim of sex trafficking by her boyfriend had at least apparent authority to consent to a search of a phone he gave her where she had the phone with her, alone in a hotel room, she used it to communicate with clients, and she knew the passcode). Cf. In re J.F.S., 300 A.3d 748 (D.C. Ct. App. 2023) (holding that a mother had at least apparent authority to consent to the seizure of her son’s cell phone where her son lived in her home, she paid for the phone and it was in her name, and she acted as though she had authority to seize it by demanding that he give it to her).
To tie back to the beginning of this post, it seems clear that yes, a minor can consent to a search of his or her own cell phone. In re M.S., 32 Cal.App.5th 1177 (Cal. Ct. App. 2019) (holding that a minor’s consent was valid where she agreed to allow an officer search her phone and signed a consent form; the trial court “impliedly consider[ed] her obvious chronological age” in finding her consent voluntary). Whether there may be any limits to that – for example, for a very young minor who obviously does not own the phone he or she is carrying – and whether parents or others might also consent, are likely to be the subjects of future litigation.
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