Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 107

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

9 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

Byrd  v.  United  States,  584  U. S.  ___,  ___–___  (2018)  (slip 
op., at 7–9) (“general property-based concept[s] guid[e] the
resolution  of  this  case”).  So  there  may  be  some  occasions 
where Katz is capable of principled application—though it
may  simply  wind  up  approximating  the  more  traditional 
option I will discuss in a moment.  Sometimes it may also 
be  possible  to  apply  Katz  by  analogizing  from  precedent
when  the  line  between  an  existing  case  and  a  new  fact
pattern  is  short  and  direct.  But  so  far  this  Court  has 
declined  to  tie  itself  to  any  significant  restraints  like 
these.  See  ante,  at  5,  n. 1  (“[W]hile  property  rights  are
often  informative,  our  cases  by  no  means  suggest  that 
such  an  interest  is  ‘fundamental’  or  ‘dispositive’  in  deter-
mining which expectations of privacy are legitimate”). 

As  a  result,  Katz  has  yielded  an  often  unpredictable—
and  sometimes  unbelievable—jurisprudence.  Smith  and 
Miller  are  only  two  examples;  there  are  many  others. 
Take  Florida  v.  Riley,  488  U. S.  445  (1989),  which  says
that a police helicopter hovering 400 feet above a person’s
property  invades  no  reasonable  expectation  of  privacy.
Try  that  one  out  on  your  neighbors.    Or  California  v. 
Greenwood, 486 U. S. 35 (1988), which holds that a person 
has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the garbage he
puts  out  for  collection.    In  that  case,  the  Court  said  that 
the  homeowners  forfeited  their  privacy  interests  because 
“[i]t 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.”    Id.,  at  40  (footnotes  omitted).  But  the 
habits of raccoons don’t prove much about the habits of the 
country.  I doubt, too, that most people spotting a neighbor 
rummaging  through  their  garbage  would  think  they 
lacked  reasonable  grounds  to  confront  the  rummager.
Making the decision all the stranger, California state law 
expressly  protected  a  homeowner’s  property  rights  in 
discarded trash.  Id., at 43.  Yet rather than defer to that