. Quoting Katz v. United States, the court concluded that "[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. With the emergence of the reasonable-expectation-o-privacy analysis, see Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 389 U. S. 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring); Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735, 442 U. S. 740 (1979), we have reaffirmed this fundamental principle.

An expectation of privacy does not give rise to Fourth Amendment constitutional protection unless society is prepared to accept that expectation as objectively reasonable. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p. 486 U. S. 45. Merely leaving them on the curb for the garbage man to collect, Brennan argued, should not be found to remove that expectation of privacy, for “scrutiny of another's trash is contrary to commonly accepted notions of civilized behavior.”, Last edited on 26 September 2020, at 02:51, List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Rehnquist Court, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=California_v._Greenwood&oldid=980359016, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. N.p., n.d. 12, 317 N.W.2d 266 (1982); Commonwealth v. Minton, 288 Pa.Super. Record 113. United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U. S. 109, 120, n. 466 U. S. 17 (1984) (citations omitted). . 05 Oct. 2012. See also Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 466 U. S. 129 (opinion of WHITE, J.). Every Bundle includes the complete text from each of the titles below: PLUS: Hundreds of law school topic-related videos from The Understanding Law Video Lecture Series™: Monthly Subscription ($19 / Month) Annual Subscription ($175 / Year). So long as a package is closed against inspection, the Fourth Amendment protects its contents, wherever they may be, and the police must obtain a warrant to search it. We do not accept this submission. everybody does it.'" In the first place, Greenwood can hardly be faulted for leaving trash on his curb when a county ordinance, commanded him to do so, Orange County Code § 4-3-45(a) (1986) (must "remov[e] from the premises at least once each week" all "solid waste created, produced or accumulated in or about [his] dwelling house"), and prohibited him from disposing of it in any other way, see Orange County Code § 3-3-85 (1988) (burning trash is unlawful). . 182 Cal. Justice Byron White (“J. Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170, 466 U. S. 180 (1984) (quoting Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 116 U. S. 630 (1886)). The respondent deserves no less protection just because he used the bags to discard rather than transport his personal effects. 86-684 . 46, 56, and n. 11, 746 F.2d 39, 49, and n. 11 (1984), the court observed that, "the overwhelming weight of authority rejects the proposition that a reasonable expectation of privacy exists with respect to trash discarded outside the home and the curtilege [sic] thereof.".

WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and BLACKMUN, STEVENS, O'CONNOR, and SCALIA, JJ., joined. It cannot be doubted that a sealed trash bag harbors telling evidence of the "intimate activity associated with the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life,'" which the Fourth Amendment is designed. The respondent, Greenwood (the “respondent”), was arrested for narcotics trafficking based upon evidence obtained as a result of a police search of his trash. "sanctity of [the] home and the privacies of life," Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. at 116 U. S. 630, and then monitor them arbitrarily and without judicial oversight -- a society that is not prepared to recognize as reasonable an individual's expectation of privacy in the most private of personal effects sealed in an opaque container and disposed of in a manner designed to commingle it imminently and inextricably with the trash of others.

It held that so long as the police conduct did not violate federal law, "California could permissibly conclude that the benefits of excluding relevant evidence of criminal activity do not outweigh the costs. When, acting on their own, "animals, children, scavengers, snoops, [or] other members of the public," ante at 486 U. S. 40 (footnotes omitted), actually rummage through a bag of trash and expose its contents to plain view, "police cannot reasonably be expected to avert their eyes from evidence of criminal activity that could have been observed by any member of the public,", ante at 486 U. S. 41. Pp. In addition, of those state appellate courts that have considered the issue, the vast majority have held that the police may conduct warrantless searches and seizures of garbage discarded in public areas. The officer searched through the rubbish. California v. Greenwood established limits on what the Fourth Amendment protects from illegal searches and seizures. denied, 440 U.S. 959 (1979); Magda v. Benson, 536 F.2d 111, 112-113 (CA6 1976) (per curiam); United States v. Mustone, 469 F.2d 970, 972-974 (CA1 1972). [Footnote 2/2], A trash bag, like any of the above-mentioned containers, "is a common repository for one's personal effects" and, even more than many of them, is "therefore . as if they were retained by the parties forwarding them in their own domiciles.".

2. In United States v. Thornton, 241 U.S.App.D.C. . Again, we observed that "a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties." So far as Fourth Amendment protection is concerned, opaque plastic bags are every bit as.

Rptr. Jan 11, 1988 . We conclude, in accordance with the vast majority of lower courts that have addressed the issue, that it does not. California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of a home. The expectation of privacy must be reasonable for Fourth Amendment constitutional protection to stand.

. Post at 486 U. S. 46. Greenwood was again arrested. App. ), cert. . ." Just as this Court's Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule decisions have not required suppression where the benefits of deterring minor police misconduct were overbalanced by the societal costs of exclusion, California was not foreclosed by the Due Process Clause from concluding that the benefits of excluding relevant evidence of criminal activity do not outweigh the costs when the police conduct at issue does not violate federal law. Respondents deserve no less protection just because Greenwood used the bags to discard, rather than to transport, his personal effects. [A] traveler who carries a toothbrush and a few articles of clothing in a paper bag or knotted scarf [may] claim an equal right to conceal his possessions from official inspection as the sophisticated executive with the locked attache case. 486 U. S. 44-45. As the author of the Court's opinion observed last Term, a defendant's, "property interest [in trash] does not settle the matter for Fourth Amendment purposes, for the reach of the Fourth Amendment is not determined by state property law. Rptr. Ante at 486 U. S. 39. Ante at 486 U. S. 40, and n. 4. California v. Greenwood | Casebriefs. For example, a nationally syndicated consumer columnist has suggested that apartment dwellers obtain cents-off coupons by "mak[ing] friends with the fellow who handles the trash" in their buildings, and has recounted the tale of, "the 'Rich lady' from Westmont who, once a week, puts on rubber gloves and hip boots and wades into the town garbage dump looking for labels and other proofs of purchase". [Footnote 1]. Hence, he argues that the Fourth Amendment should itself vindicate that right. The Nature and Scope of Fourteenth Amendment Due Process; The Applicability of the Bill of Rights to the States, The Right to Counsel, Transcripts and Other Aids; Poverty, Equality and the Adversary System, Lineups, Showups and Other Pre-Trial Identification Procedures, Speedy Trial and Other Speedy Disposition, LSAT Logic Games (June 2007 Practice Exam), LSAT Logical Reasoning I (June 2007 Practice Exam), LSAT Logical Reasoning II (June 2007 Practice Exam), Pennsylvania Bd. Stracner sought to investigate this information by conducting a surveillance of Greenwood's home. . The North Dakota Supreme Court held that the search of the garbage bag did not violate the defendants' Fourth Amendment rights. Rather, it only requires them. with regard to garbage left for collection at the side of a public street. 86-684. however, unless society is prepared to accept that expectation as objectively reasonable. Oral Argument - January 11, 1988; Opinion Announcement - May 16, 1988; Opinions. On April 6, 1984, Stracner asked the neighborhood's regular trash collector to pick up the plastic garbage bags that Greenwood had left on the curb in front of his house and to turn the bags over to her without mixing their contents with garbage from other houses.

. Decided May 16, 1988. any public street for collection.". . Even the refuse of prominent Americans has not been invulnerable. (b) Greenwood's alternative argument that his expectation of privacy in his garbage should be deemed reasonable as a matter of federal constitutional law because the warrantless search and seizure of his garbage was impermissible as a matter of California law under Krivda. . denied, 444 U.S. 1081 (1980); United States v. Crowell, 586 F.2d 1020, 1025 (CA4 1978) ("The act of placing [garbage] for collection is an act of abandonment and what happens to it thereafter is not within the protection of the fourth amendment"), cert. United States v. Dzialak, 441 F.2d 212, 215 (CA2 1971) (paraphrasing ordinance for town of Cheektowaga, New York).

See also United States v. Vahalik, 606 F.2d 99, 100 (CA5 1979) (per curiam); Magda v. Benson, 536 F.2d 111, 112 (CA6 1976) (per curiam); People v. Rooney, 175 Cal. Ante at 486 U. S. 39. Rptr.

Police officers encountered both respondents at the house later that day when they arrived to execute the warrant. Syllabus ; View Case ; Petitioner California . 3d 729, 486 P.2d 1262 (1971).

at 468 U. S. 908 (citing Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 428 U. S. 490 (1976)). I suspect, therefore. . ", Ante at 486 U. S. 40. What one person may put into a suitcase, another may put into a paper bag. 486 U. S. 43-44. [Footnote 2/1], More recently, in United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798 (1982), the Court, relying on the, in Robbins . See Cal.Const., Art.

But Krivda, a decision binding on the Court of Appeal, also held that the fruits of warrantless trash searches were to be excluded under federal, law.

The police discovered quantities of cocaine and hashish during their search of the house.