Age of Search consent

It's 12:30 in the morning, the occupants were a sleep all except for their minor child who is 17 yrs old.

The police in street clothes came to the house looking for another person who wasn't there. The minor answered the door.

Does this minor have the right to let the police in if he doesn't have a warrant and don't identify who they are to the minor. If the parent are home and a sleep in their room.

Third Party Consent

First of all, I'm not a lawyer or anything, just a person that wants to give you some information.

The cops could sometimes get a 3rd party to let them into a suspects home and it does count as a valid consent IF he has the authority to do so. For expample: a parent could give consent to search his/her minors' room, the same effect would be to a roomate because of the roomate's mutual rights to the premises (US v. Matlock, 1975). The legality of the search CAN BE spoiled when the cops mistakenly take the consent from someone who ISN'T entitled to give it, which could be in this case, a minor (once again im not too sure about this). The main idea here is if the third party is violated the suspect's legitimate expectation of privacy by granting th cops to enter. Hotel clerks and landlords are NOT entitled to give the cops permission to enter a guests room (Stoner v. California, 1964). The cops can aquire consent to enter the premises indirectly through use of trickery, which whas this example of the 17 year old looked like. Before you let anyone into a house, wrong or right, the police or whatever agency SHOULD have a warrant to be let into a private house. A warrant for arrest (not to be confused with a search warrant) also will legally get the cops into a private home. They could do this for 2 reasons, the unauthorized entry doesn't violate the arrestee's rights and 2 the arrest doesn't violate the householder's rights. If a police officer enters a person's home without a search warrant, and evidence that's incriminating is found it's unusable against the house holder because of the invalid entry.

I guess my thoughts on this, something seems fishy-- plain clothes? The cop should have known better to ask a 17 year old...
hope things work out