In the absence of a decision by the California Supreme Court on the issue of consent for searches and seizures, what is the effect of the consent process in the context of this issue?

In the absence of a decision by the high court directly on point, we must fulfill our independent constitutional obligation to interpret the federal constitutional guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures (see Cal. Const., art. XX, 3 [judicial officers swear an oath to support the Constitution] ), recognizing that the decisions of the lower federal courts are persuasive but not controlling. (See Raven v. Deukmejian (1990) 52 Cal.3d 336, 352, 276 Cal.Rptr. 326, 801 P.2d

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1. The Relevance of Consent