Unreasonable Searches and the Supreme Court

In an important Supreme Court decision, a 5-3 split in which a liberal/moderate majority won out, the Court ruled that police cannot search a home without a warrant if one resident consents while another resident (who is present at the time of the search) does not consent to the search (LA Times story here). Chief Justice Roberts, who was joined by conservative justices Thomas and Scalia, wrote a "strong dissent" in favor of such searches being allowed. Justice Souter wrote the majority opinion, and argued that (as paraphrased in an LA Times article),

"'No sensible person' would think he was free to enter a house if one of its two occupants stood in the doorway and said, 'Stay out.'"

It still strikes me as odd (despite this being the most common outcome in such debates) that the supposedly "small government" justices were those in favor of such strong state powers here, while the "big government" liberals were those defending the sanctity of private property rights and privacy against government intrusion. To those who claimed that Roberts would unreasonably favor strong executive powers, this case provides an example of such bias. Whether or not Roberts' court will be defined by such pro-executive sentiment is yet to be seen, but this case offers some hope in that Roberts was not able to rally a majority to support his views of (overly) strong executive powers.