Case Name: California v. Greenwood
Year: Argued 1988 ; Decided 1988
Result: 6-2 in favor of California
Related Constitutional Issue/ Amendment: 4th Amendment dealing with search and seizure without a warrant
Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties
Significance/ Precedent: the Court held that garbage placed at the curbside is unprotected by the Fourth Amendment. The Court argued that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy for trash on public streets "readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public." You are only allowed to search a trashcan if it is on the curb side without a warrant.
Quote from Majority Opinion: “An expectation of privacy does not give rise to Fourth Amendment protection, however, unless society is prepared to accept that expectation as objectively reasonable. It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left on or at the side of a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public. Moreover, respondents placed their refuse at the curb for the express purpose of conveying it to a third party, the trash collector, who might himself have sorted through respondents’ trash or permitted others, such as the police, to do so. What a person knowingly exposed to the public, even in his own him or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. We have already concluded that society as a whole possesses no such understandings with regard to garbage left for collection at the side of a public street. Respondents argument is no less than a suggestion that concepts of privacy under
the laws of each State are to determine the reach of the Fourth Amendment. We do not accept this submission."
6-Word Summary: Warrantless trashcan search, curbsides are legal
Year: Argued 1988 ; Decided 1988
Result: 6-2 in favor of California
Related Constitutional Issue/ Amendment: 4th Amendment dealing with search and seizure without a warrant
Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties
Significance/ Precedent: the Court held that garbage placed at the curbside is unprotected by the Fourth Amendment. The Court argued that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy for trash on public streets "readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public." You are only allowed to search a trashcan if it is on the curb side without a warrant.
Quote from Majority Opinion: “An expectation of privacy does not give rise to Fourth Amendment protection, however, unless society is prepared to accept that expectation as objectively reasonable. It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left on or at the side of a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public. Moreover, respondents placed their refuse at the curb for the express purpose of conveying it to a third party, the trash collector, who might himself have sorted through respondents’ trash or permitted others, such as the police, to do so. What a person knowingly exposed to the public, even in his own him or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. We have already concluded that society as a whole possesses no such understandings with regard to garbage left for collection at the side of a public street. Respondents argument is no less than a suggestion that concepts of privacy under
the laws of each State are to determine the reach of the Fourth Amendment. We do not accept this submission."
6-Word Summary: Warrantless trashcan search, curbsides are legal