''California v. Greenwood'', 486 U.S. 35 (1988), was a

case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...

in which the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of

garbage Garbage, trash, rubbish, or refuse is waste material that is discarded by humans, usually due to a perceived lack of utility. The term generally does not encompass bodily waste products, purely liquid or gaseous wastes, or toxic waste produc ...

left for collection outside the

curtilage In common law, the curtilage of a house or dwelling is the land immediately surrounding it, including any closely associated buildings and structures, but excluding any associated " open fields beyond". In feudal times every castle with its depen ...

of a

home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...

Background

In early 1984, Investigator Jenny Stracner of the

Laguna Beach Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish for "Lagoon") is a seaside resort city located in southern Orange County, California, in the United States. It is known for its mild year-round climate, scenic coves, environmental preservation efforts, and a ...

Police Department learned from various sources that Billy Greenwood might be selling

illegal drugs The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances. While some drugs are illegal to possess, many governments regulate the ...

out of his single-family home. In April, Stracner asked the neighborhood's regular

trash collector A waste collector, also known as a garbageman, garbage collector, trashman (in the US), binman or (rarely) dustman (in the UK), is a person employed by a public or private enterprise to collect and dispose of municipal solid waste (refuse) and r ...

to pick up the plastic garbage bags that Greenwood left on the curb in front of his house. In the garbage, she found evidence of drug use. She used that information to obtain a warrant to search Greenwood's home. When officers searched the house, they found

cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...

and

marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...

. Greenwood and Dyanne Van Houten were arrested and released on

bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countries ...

. In May, another investigator again had the garbage collectors pick up the garbage bag left on the curb. The garbage again contained evidence of drugs, the police obtained another search warrant, and they found more drugs and evidence of

drug trafficking A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via insuffla ...

in the house. The California Superior Court dismissed the charges against Greenwood and Van Houten on the ground that unwarranted trash searches violated the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, as well as the

California Constitution The Constitution of California ( es, Constitución de California) is the primary organizing law for the U.S. state of California, describing the duties, powers, structures and functions of the government of California. California's original co ...

. The

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

affirmed. The

Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...

refused to hear the appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court granted

certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...

and reversed the judgment of the California Court of Appeal.

Opinion of the Court

By a 6–2 vote (

Justice Kennedy Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated to the court in 1987 by Preside ...

took no part in the case), the Court held that under the Fourth Amendment, no warrant was necessary to search the trash because Greenwood had no

reasonable expectation of privacy Expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is related to, but is not the same as, a ''right to privacy ...

in it. Although Greenwood had hidden the trash from view by putting it in opaque plastic bags and expected it to be on the street only a short time before it would be taken to the dump, the Court believed it to be “common knowledge” that garbage at the side of the street is “readily accessible to

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

ren,

scavenger Scavengers are animals that consume dead organisms that have died from causes other than predation or have been killed by other predators. While scavenging generally refers to carnivores feeding on carrion, it is also a herbivorous feeding b ...

s, snoops, and other members of the public.” Moreover, Greenwood had left the trash there expressly so that the trash collector, a stranger, could take it. Quoting ''

Katz v. United States ''Katz v. United States'', 389 U.S. 347 (1967), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court redefined what constitutes a "search" or "seizure" with regard to the protections of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ...

'', the court concluded that " at a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection." Greenwood argued that the evidence should be excluded under the

, which the California Supreme Court had interpreted to prohibit warrantless searches of garbage left at the curb (''People v. Krivda'', 1971). However, the Constitution had been amended in 1982 by the passage of

Proposition 8 Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a constitutional amendment, state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the California state elections, November 2008, Novem ...

, also known as the "Victims' Bill of Rights." One of its provisions, the Truth-in-Evidence Act, eliminated the

exclusionary rule In the United States, the exclusionary rule is a legal rule, based on constitutional law, that prevents evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights from being used in a court of law. This may be consider ...

for unconstitutionally obtained evidence. The Court rejected Greenwood's claim that the amendment violated the

Due Process Clause In United States constitutional law, a Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the government except as ...

. 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."

Dissent

Justice Brennan reasoned that the possibility the police or other “unwelcome meddlers” might rummage through the trash bags “does not negate the

expectation of privacy Expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is related to, but is not the same as, a ''right to privacy ...

in their contents any more than the possibility of a burglary negates an expectation of privacy in the home.” Under '' United States v. Chadwick'', the bags could not have been searched without a search warrant had Greenwood been carrying them in public. 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!”

References

External links

* *
ThinkQuest - California v. Greenwood
{{US4thAmendment, scope, state=expanded United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court 1988 in United States case law Waste in the United States 1988 in California Legal history of California Laguna Beach, California Law enforcement in California United States Fourth Amendment case law

Background

Opinion of the Court

Dissent

See also

References

External links