Florida v. Jimeno

The Fourth Amendment is satisfied when, under the circumstances, it is objectively reasonable for the officer to believe that the scope of the suspect’s consent permitted him to open a particular container within the automobile. The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness. The Fourth Amendment does not proscribe all searches, only those which are unreasonable.

The Court has long approved consensual searches because it is reasonable for law enforcement officers to conduct a search once they have been permitted to do so. However, the scope of a search is generally limited by its expressed object. A suspect may limit the scope of the search to which he consents. In this case, the terms of the authorization to search were simple. The defendant granted the officer permission to search his car and did not place any express limitation on the scope of the search. The officer had informed the defendant that he would be looking for narcotics in the car. Therefore it was reasonable for the officer to conclude that the general consent to search the car included consent to search containers within that car that might contain drugs