Stuff

State appealed from order of the Superior Court which dismissed drug

charges against defendants. The California Court of Appeal, 182

Cal.App.3d 729, 227 Cal.Rptr. 539, affirmed, and certiorari was

granted. The Supreme Court, Justice White, held that defendants did

not have reasonable expectation of privacy protected by the Fourth

Amendment in garbage which they placed in opaque bags outside their

house for collection by trash collector.

Reversed and remanded.

Justice Brennan dissented and filed an opinion in which Justice

Marshall joined.

Justice Kennedy did not participate.

WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST,

C.J., and BLACKMUN, STEVENS, O'CONNOR, and SCALIA, JJ., joined.

BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, J.,

joined, post, p. ----. KENNEDY, J., took no part in the consideration

or decision of the case.

Michael J. Pear argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the

briefs were Cecil Hicks and Michael R. Capizzi.

Michael Ian Garey, by appointment of the Court, 484 U.S. 808, argued

the cause for respondents and filed a brief for respondent Greenwood.

Richard L. Schwartzberg filed a brief for respondent Van Houten.*

* Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of

California et al. by John K. Van de Kamp, Attorney General of

California, Steve White, Chief Assistant Attorney General, John H.

Sugiyama, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Ronald E. Niver and

Laurence K. Sullivan, Supervising Deputy Attorneys General, and by the

Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Robert

Butterworth of Florida, Warren Price III of Hawaii, Linley E. Pearson

of Indiana, David L. Armstrong of Kentucky, Hubert H. Humphrey III of

Minnesota, LeRoy S. Zimmerman of Pennsylvania, Travis Medlock of South

Carolina, W.J. Michael Cody of Tennessee, Kenneth O. Eikenberry of

Washington, Donald J. Hanaway of Wisconsin, and Joseph B. Meyer of

Wyoming; and for Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., et al.

by Fred E. Inbau, Wayne W. Schmidt, James P. Manak, David Crump,

Courtney A. Evans, Daniel B. Hales, and Jack E. Yelverton.

Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The issue here is whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits the

warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside

the curtilage of a home. We conclude, in accordance with the vast

majority of lower courts that have addressed the issue, that it does

not.

I

In early 1984, Investigator Jenny Stracner of the Laguna Beach Police

Department received information indicating that respondent Greenwood

might be engaged in narcotics trafficking. Stracner learned that a

criminal suspect had informed a federal drug enforcement agent in

February 1984 that a truck filled with illegal drugs was en route to

the Laguna Beach address at which Greenwood resided. In addition, a

neighbor complained of heavy vehicular traffic late at night in front

of Greenwood's single-family home. The neighbor reported that the

vehicles remained at Greenwood's house for only a few minutes.

Stracner sought to investigate this information by conducting a

surveillance of Greenwood's home. She observed several vehicles make

brief stops at the house during the late-night and early morning

hours, and she followed a truck from the house to a residence that had

previously been under investigation as a narcotics-trafficking

location.

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. The

trash collector cleaned his truck bin of other refuse, collected the

garbage bags from the street in front of Greenwood's house, and turned

the bags over to Stracner. The officer searched through the rubbish

*38 and found items indicative of narcotics use. She recited the

information that she had gleaned from the trash search in an affidavit

in support of a warrant to search Greenwood's home.

Police officers encountered both respondents at the house later that

day when they arrived to execute the warrant. The police discovered