Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/486/35/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 00:33:31+00:00

Document:
2. Also without merit is Greenwood's contention that the California constitutional amendment violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Just as this Court's Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule decisions have not required suppression where the benefits of deterring minor police misconduct were overbalanced by the societal costs of exclusion, California was not foreclosed by the Due Process Clause from concluding that the benefits of excluding relevant evidence of criminal activity do not outweigh the costs when the police conduct at issue does not violate federal law. Pp. 486 U. S. 44-45.
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. 486 U. S. 45. KENNEDY, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
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.
The warrantless search and seizure of the garbage bags left at the curb outside the Greenwood house would violate the Fourth Amendment only if respondents manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in their garbage that society accepts as objectively reasonable. O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U. S. 709, 480 U. S. 715 (1987); California v. Ciraolo, 476 U. S. 207, 476 U. S. 211 (1986); Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170, 466 U. S. 177 (1984); Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 389 U. S. 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). Respondents do not disagree with this standard.
however, unless society is prepared to accept that expectation as objectively reasonable.
public inspection and, in a manner of speaking, public consumption, for the express purpose of having strangers take it,"
Furthermore, as we have held, the police cannot reasonably be expected to avert their eyes from evidence of criminal activity that could have been observed by any member of the public. Hence, "[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection." Katz v. United States, supra, at 389 U. S. 351. We held in Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735 (1979), for example, that the police did not violate the Fourth Amendment by causing a pen register to be installed at the telephone company's offices to record the telephone numbers dialed by a criminal suspect. An individual has no legitimate expectation of privacy in the numbers dialed on his telephone, we reasoned, because he voluntarily conveys those numbers to the telephone company when he uses the telephone. Again, we observed that "a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties." Id. at 442 U. S. 743-744.
Similarly, we held in California v. Ciraolo, supra, that the police were not required by the Fourth Amendment to obtain a warrant before conducting surveillance of the respondent's fenced backyard from a private plane flying at an altitude of 1,000 feet. We concluded that the respondent's expectation that his yard was protected from such surveillance was unreasonable, because "[a]ny member of the public flying in this airspace who glanced down could have seen everything that these officers observed." Id. at 476 U. S. 213-214.
"the overwhelming weight of authority rejects the proposition that a reasonable expectation of privacy exists with respect to trash discarded outside the home and the curtilege [sic] thereof."
with regard to garbage left for collection at the side of a public street. Respondent's 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.
Greenwood finally urges as an additional ground for affirmance that the California constitutional amendment eliminating the exclusionary rule for evidence seized in violation of state but not federal law violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In his view, having recognized a state law right to be free from warrantless searches of garbage, California may not under the Due Process Clause deprive its citizens of what he describes as "the only effective deterrent" to violations of this right. Greenwood concedes that no direct support for his position can be found in the decisions of this Court. He relies instead on cases holding that individuals are entitled to certain procedural protections before they can be deprived of a liberty or property interest created by state law. See Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 (1983); Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480 (1980).
"the magnitude of the benefit conferred on . . . guilty defendants [in such circumstances] offends basic concepts of the criminal justice system."
Id. at 468 U. S. 908 (citing Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 428 U. S. 490 (1976)).
The Court of Appeal also held that respondent Van Houten had standing to seek the suppression of evidence discovered during the April 4 search of Greenwood's home. 182 Cal.App.3d at 735, 227 Cal.Rptr. at 542-543.
For example, State v. Ronngren, 361 N.W.2d 224 (N. D.1985), involved the search of a garbage bag that a dog, acting "at the behest of no one," id. at 228, had dragged from the defendants' yard into the yard of a neighbor. The neighbor deposited the bag in his own trash can, which he later permitted the police to search. The North Dakota Supreme Court held that the search of the garbage bag did not violate the defendants' Fourth Amendment rights.
"the 'Rich lady' from Westmont who, once a week, puts on rubber gloves and hip boots and wades into the town garbage dump looking for labels and other proofs of purchase"
Even the refuse of prominent Americans has not been invulnerable. In 1975, for example, a reporter for a weekly tabloid seized five bags of garbage from the sidewalk outside the home of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Washington Post, July 9, 1975, p. A1, col. 8. A newspaper editorial criticizing this journalistic "trash-picking" observed that "[e]vidently . . . everybody does it.'" Washington Post, July 10, 1975, p. A18, col. 1. We of course do not, as the dissent implies, "bas[e] [our] conclusion" that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their garbage on this "sole incident." Post at 486 U. S. 51.
Given that the dissenters are among the tiny minority of judges whose views are contrary to ours, we are distinctly unimpressed with the dissent's prediction that "society will be shocked to learn" of today's decision. Post at 486 U. S. 46.
that members of our society will be shocked to learn that the Court, the ultimate guarantor of liberty, deems unreasonable our expectation that the aspects of our private lives that are concealed safely in a trash bag will not become public.
"A container which can support a reasonable expectation of privacy may not be searched, even on probable cause, without a warrant."
United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U. S. 109, 120, n. 466 U. S. 17 (1984) (citations omitted). Thus, as the Court observes, if Greenwood had a reasonable expectatlon that the contents of the bags that he placed on the curb would remain private, the warrantless search of those bags violated the Fourth Amendment. Ante at 486 U. S. 39.
"[l]etters and sealed packages . . . in the mail are as fully guarded from examination and inspection . . . as if they were retained by the parties forwarding them in their own domiciles."
Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, 96 U. S. 733. In short, so long as a package is "closed against inspection," the Fourth Amendment protects its contents, "wherever they may be," and the police must obtain a warrant to search it just "as is required when papers are subjected to search in one's own household." Ibid. Accord, United States v. Van Leeuwen, 397 U. S. 249 (1970).
protected by the Fourth Amendment,"
"[E]ven if one wished to import such a distinction into the Fourth Amendment, it is difficult if not impossible to perceive any objective criteria by which that task might be accomplished. What one person may put into a suitcase, another may put into a paper bag. . . . And . . . no court, no constable, no citizen, can sensibly be asked to distinguish the relative 'privacy interests' in a closed suitcase, briefcase, portfolio, duffelbag, or box."
in Robbins . . . that a constitutional distinction between 'worthy' and 'unworthy' containers would be improper,"
"the central purpose of the Fourth Amendment. . . . [A] traveler who carries a toothbrush and a few articles of clothing in a paper bag or knotted scarf [may] claim an equal right to conceal his possessions from official inspection as the sophisticated executive with the locked attache case."
"As Justice Stewart stated in Robbins, the Fourth Amendment provides protection to the owner of every container that conceals its contents from plain view."
Id. at 456 U. S. 822-823 (emphasis added; footnote and citation omitted). See also Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 466 U. S. 129 (opinion of WHITE, J.).
Accordingly, we have found a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of a 200-pound "double-locked footlocker," United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 433 U. S. 11 (1977); a "comparatively small, unlocked suitcase," Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753, 442 U. S. 762, n. 9 (1979); a "totebag," Robbins, 453 U.S. at 453 U. S. 422; and "packages wrapped in green opaque plastic," ibid. See also Ross, supra, at 456 U. S. 801, 456 U. S. 822-823 (suggesting that a warrant would have been required to search a "lunchtype' brown paper bag" and a "zippered red leather pouch" had they not been found in an automobile); Jacobsen, supra, at 466 U. S. 111, 466 U. S. 114-115 (suggesting that a warrantless search of an "ordinary cardboard box wrapped in brown paper" would have violated the Fourth Amendment had a private party not already opened it).
worthy as "packages wrapped in green opaque plastic" and "double-locked footlocker[s]." Cf. Robbins, supra, at 453 U. S. 441 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting) (objecting to Court's discovery of reasonable expectation of privacy in contents of "two plastic garbage bags").
to protect. Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170, 466 U. S. 180 (1984) (quoting Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 116 U. S. 630 (1886)). See also United States v. Dunn, 480 U. S. 294, 480 U. S. 300 (1987).
"property interest [in trash] does not settle the matter for Fourth Amendment purposes, for the reach of the Fourth Amendment is not determined by state property law."
Henry Kissinger's trash and published his findings, Kissinger was "really revolted" by the intrusion, and his wife suffered "grave anguish." N.Y. Times, July 9, 1975, p. A1, col. 8. The public response roundly condemning the reporter demonstrates that society not only recognized those reactions as reasonable, but shared them as well. Commentators variously characterized his conduct as "a disgusting invasion of personal privacy," Flieger, Investigative Trash, U.S. News & World Report, July 28, 1975, p. 72 (editor's page); "indefensible . . . as civilized behavior," Washington Post, July 10, 1975, p. A18, col. 1 (editorial); and contrary to "the way decent people behave in relation to each other," ibid.
"prohibit[ing] anyone, except authorized employees of the Town . . . to rummage into, pick up, collect, move or otherwise interfere with articles or materials placed on . . . any public street for collection."
United States v. Dzialak, 441 F.2d 212, 215 (CA2 1971) (paraphrasing ordinance for town of Cheektowaga, New York). See also United States v. Vahalik, 606 F.2d 99, 100 (CA5 1979) (per curiam); Magda v. Benson, 536 F.2d 111, 112 (CA6 1976) (per curiam); People v. Rooney, 175 Cal.App.3d 634, 645, 221 Cal.Rptr. 49, 56 (1985), cert. dism'd, 483 U. S. 307 (1987); People v. Krivda, 5 Cal.3d 357, 366, 486 P.2d 1262, 1268 (1971), vacated and remanded, 409 U. S. 33 (1972); State v. Brown, 20 Ohio App.3d 36, 38, n. 3, 484 N.E.2d 215, 218, n. 3 (1984). In fact, the California Constitution, as interpreted by the State's highest court, guarantees a right of privacy in trash vis-a-vis government officials.2 See Krivda, supra, (recognizing right); In re Lance W., 37 Cal.3d 873, 886-887, 694 P.2d 744, 752-753 (1985) (later constitutional amendment abolished exclusionary remedy, but left intact the substance of the right).
"police cannot reasonably be expected to avert their eyes from evidence of criminal activity that could have been observed by any member of the public,"
"[t]he Fourth Amendment is implicated only if the authorities use information with respect to which the expectation of privacy has not already been frustrated,"
and California v. Ciraolo, 476 U. S. 207, 476 U. S. 213-214 (1986) (emphasis added), which held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit police from observing what "[a]ny member of the public flying in this airspace who glanced down could have seen."
to adhere to norms of privacy that members of the public plainly acknowledge.
The mere possibility that unwelcome meddlers might open and rummage through the containers does not negate the expectation of privacy in their contents any more than the possibility of a burglary negates an expectation of privacy in the home; or the possibility of a private intrusion negates an expectation of privacy in an unopened package; or the possibility that an operator will listen in on a telephone conversation negates an expectation of privacy in the words spoken on the telephone. "What a person . . . seeks to preserve as private, even in an area aceessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected." Katz, 389 U.S. at 389 U. S. 351-352. We have therefore repeatedly rejected attempts to justify a State's invasion of privacy on the ground that the privacy is not absolute. See Chapman v. United States, 365 U. S. 610, 365 U. S. 616-617 (1961) (search of a house invaded tenant's Fourth Amendment rights even though landlord had authority to enter house for some purposes); Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483, 376 U. S. 487-490 (1964) (implicit consent to janitorial personnel to enter motel room does not amount to consent to police search of room); O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U. S. 709, 480 U. S. 717 (1987) (a government employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his office, even though "it is the nature of government offices that others -- such as fellow employees, supervisors, consensual visitors, and the general public -- may have frequent access to an individual's office"). As JUSTICE SCALIA aptly put it, the Fourth Amendment protects "privacy . . . not solitude." O'Connor, supra, at 480 U. S. 730 (opinion concurring in judgment).
"respondents placed their refuse at the curb for the express purpose of conveying it to a third party, . . . who might himself have sorted through respondents' trash or permitted others, such as the police, to do so."
"sanctity of [the] home and the privacies of life," Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. at 116 U. S. 630, and then monitor them arbitrarily and without judicial oversight -- a society that is not prepared to recognize as reasonable an individual's expectation of privacy in the most private of personal effects sealed in an opaque container and disposed of in a manner designed to commingle it imminently and inextricably with the trash of others. Ante at 486 U. S. 39. The American society with which I am familiar "chooses to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance," Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 333 U. S. 14 (1948), and is more dedicated to individual liberty and more sensitive to intrusions on the sanctity of the home than the Court is willing to acknowledge.
See 453 U.S. at 453 U. S. 436 (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting); id. at 437 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting); id. at 444 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). But see id. at 436 U. S. 433-434 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment) (rejecting position that all containers, even "the most trivial," like "a cigar box or a Dixie cup," are entitled to the same Fourth Amendment protection). Cf. New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454, 453 U. S. 460-461, n. 4 (1981) (defining "container," for purposes of search incident to a lawful custodial arrest, as "any object capable of holding another object," including "luggage, boxes, bags, clothing, and the like").
In addition to finding that Robbins had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his duffelbag and plastic-wrapped packages, the Court also held that the automobile exception to the warrant requirement, see Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 267 U. S. 153 (1925), did not apply to packages found in an automobile. The Court overruled the latter determination in United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798 (1982), but reaffirmed that where, as here, the automobile exception is inapplicable, police may not conduct a warrantless search of any container that conceals its contents.
Both to support its position that society recognizes no reasonable privacy interest in sealed, opaque trash bags and to refute the prediction that "society will be shocked to learn" of that conclusion, supra, at 46, the Court relies heavily upon a collection of lower court cases finding no Fourth Amendment bar to trash searches. But the authority that leads the Court to be "distinctly unimpressed" with our position, ante at 486 U. S. 43, n. 5, is itself impressively undistinguished. Of 11 Federal Court of Appeals cases cited by the Court, at least 2 are factually or legally distinguishable, see United States v. O'Bryant, 775 F.2d 1528, 1533-1534 (CA11 1985) (police may search an apparently valuable briefcase "discarded next to an overflowing trash bin on a busy city street"); United States v. Thornton, 241 U.S.App.D.C. 46, 56, 746 F.2d 39, 49 (1984) (reasonable federal agents could believe in good faith that a trash search is legal), and 7 rely entirely or almost entirely on an abandonment theory that, as noted infra at 486 U. S. 51, the Court has discredited, see United States v. Dela Espriella, 781 F.2d 1432, 1437 (CA9 1986) ("The question, then, becomes whether placing garbage for collection constitutes abandonment of property"); United States v. Terry, 702 F.2d 299, 308-309 (CA2) ("[T]he circumstances in this case clearly evidence abandonment by Williams of his trash"), cert. denied sub nom. Williams v. United States, 461 U.S. 931 (1983); United States v. Reicherter, 647 F.2d 397, 399 (CA3 1981) ("[T]he placing of trash in garbage cans at a time and place for anticipated collection by public employees for hauling to a public dump signifies abandonment"); United States v. Vahalik, 606 F.2d 99, 100-101 (CA5 1979) (per curiam) ("[T]he act of placing garbage for collection is an act of abandonment which terminates any fourth amendment protection"), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1081 (1980); United States v. Crowell, 586 F.2d 1020, 1025 (CA4 1978) ("The act of placing [garbage] for collection is an act of abandonment and what happens to it thereafter is not within the protection of the fourth amendment"), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 959 (1979); Magda v. Benson, 536 F.2d 111, 112 (CA6 1976) (per curiam) ("[F]ederal case law . . . holds that garbage . . . is abandoned and no longer protected by the Fourth Amendment"); United States v. Mustone, 469 F.2d 970, 972 (CA1 1972) (when defendant "deposited the bags on the sidewalk, he abandoned them"). A reading of the Court's collection of state court cases reveals an equally unimpressive pattern.
Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128, 439 U. S. 143-144, n. 12 (1978). See ante at 486 U. S. 43 ("[T]he Fourth Amendment analysis must turn on such factors as our societal understanding that certain areas deserve the most scrupulous protection from government invasion'") (quoting Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170, 466 U. S. 178 (1984)); Robbins v. California, 453 U. S. 420, 453 U. S. 428 (1981) (plurality opinion) ("Expectations of privacy are established by general social norms"); Dow Chemical Co. v. United States, 476 U. S. 227, 476 U. S. 248 (1986) (opinion of Powell, J.); Bush & Bly, Expectation of Privacy Analysis and Warrantless Trash Reconnaissance after Katz v. United States, 23 Ariz.L.Rev. 283, 293 (1981) ("[S]ocial custom . . . serves as the most basic foundation of a great many legitimate privacy expectations") (citation omitted).
To be sure, statutes criminalizing interference with the mails might reinforce the expectation of privacy in mail, see, e.g., 18 U.S.C. §§ 1701-1705, 1708, but the expectation of privacy in no way depends on statutory protection. In fact, none of the cases cited in the text even mention such statutes in finding Fourth Amendment protection in materials handed over to public or private carriers for delivery.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.