One Man's Trash....

The Constitution does not protect your trash if the police want to search through it.

Greenwood had to learn that the hard way: with a felony narcotics conviction. Twice. Greenwood had been suspected of narcotics trafficking when an informant tipped off Investigator Jenny Stracner, who also received complaints from neighbors that Greenwood's single family residence seemed to have a lot of guests late at night. Stracner asked the local trash collector to hold Greenwood's so she could rifle through it. When Stracner went through this garbage, she had enough information to secure a warrant to search Greenwood's home. There, Stracner found cocaine and hashish. When Greenwood was released on bail, a separate investigator continued searching through his trash, finding more evidence of drug trafficking. This officer cuffed him again.

The Fourth Amendment is not as simple as it reads, as we'll see in many posts to come. Many assume that the Fourth Amendment grants "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against . . . searches" without a warrant. But police officers need no warrant to search your trash because of the way the Supreme Court defines a search. To the Supreme Court, one factor to consider is the "reasonable expectation of privacy" we have in the thing to be searched. The majority on the Court felt that no one has an expectation of privacy in what they throw out--trash is left where the public can access it. This is true even if you shred your trash (at least in the northeast).

Not all justices agreed with this conclusion. One (Justice Brennan) argues the difference between public legal access and public access. He claims a burglar has as much public access to your home as your presumed trash; should either be considered differently? Although, not enough agreed with Justice Brennan to make the law any different.

See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (U.S. 1967) (holding a search can be defined by a reasonable expectation of privacy);

See generally California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988);

See generally United States v. Scott, 975 F.2d 927 (1st Cir. 1991) (holding that even though IRS agents posed as trash men, took trash, and painstakingly reassembled shredded documents, there was no constitutional violation).