The High Court's latest search case, Georgia v. Randolph, portends well for the State in Brigham City v. Stuart. Randolph holds that a physically present co-tenant may override another co-tenant's consent to a warrantless search. The dissent raised concerns about the effect of this decision on domestic violence prevention. The majority countered:

No question has been raised, or reasonably could be, about the authority of the police to enter a dwelling to protect a resident from domestic violence; so long as they have good reason to believe such a threat exists, it would be silly to suggest that the police would commit a tort by entering, say, to give a complaining tenant the opportunity to collect belongings and get out safely, or to determine whether violence (or threat of violence) has just occurred or is about to (or soon will) occur, however much a spouse or other cotenant objected. (And since the police would then be lawfully in the premises, there is no question that they could seize any evidence in plain view or take further action supported by any consequent probable cause, see Texas v. Brown, 460 U. S. 730, 737–739 (1983) (plurality opinion).) Thus, the question whether the police might lawfully enter over objection in order to provide any protection that might be reasonable is easily answered yes. See 4 LaFave §8.3(d), at 161 (“[E]ven when . . . two persons quite clearly have equal rights in the place, as where two individuals are sharing an apartment on an equal basis, there may nonetheless sometimes exist a basis for giving greater recognition to the interests of one over the other. . . . [W]here the defendant has victimized the third-party . . . the emergency nature of the situation is suchthat the third-party consent should validate a warrantless search despite defendant’s objections” (internal quotation marks omitted; third omission in original)). The undoubted right of the police to enter in order to protect a victim, however, has nothing to do with the question in this case, whether a search with the consent of one cotenant is good against another, standing at the door and expressly refusing consent.