Case Name: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph R. REDMON, Defendant-Appellant
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1998-03-10
Citations: 138 F.3d 1109
Docket Number: No. 96-3361
Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph R. REDMON, Defendant-Appellant.
Judges: Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and CUMMINGS, BAÚER, WOOD, Jr., COFFEY, FLAUM, EASTERBROOK, RIPPLE, MANION, KANNE, ROVNER, DIANE P. WOOD, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 3d Series
Volume: 138
Pages: 1109–1139

Head Matter:
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph R. REDMON, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 96-3361.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Argued Feb: 27, 1997.
Reargued En Bane Nov. 25, 1997.
Decided March 10, 1998.
Richard N. Cox, Office of the United States Attorney, Urbana, IL, Rodger A. Heaton (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Springfield, IL, for Plaintiff-Ap-pellee.
Kevin M. Schad (argued), Cincinnati, OH, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and CUMMINGS, BAÚER, WOOD, Jr., COFFEY, FLAUM, EASTERBROOK, RIPPLE, MANION, KANNE, ROVNER, DIANE P. WOOD, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
HARLINGTON WOOD, Jr., Circuit Judge.
While most people have a good idea what "garbage" is, many people do not realize that garbage can cause some serious constitutional issues. This is such a case.
The defendant, Joseph R. Redmon, was indicted in April 1996, charged with the possession of over 400 grams of cocaine, with intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). After the district court denied his pretrial motion to suppress evidence, Redmon entered a conditional plea of guilty reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion. In September 1996 the district court sentenced Redmon as a career offender, and this appeal followed. Redmon raises two issues: first, whether the warrantless searches of his garbage cans violated his Fourth Amendment right of protection from "unreasonable searches," and secondly, a sentencing issue. The facts follow in more detail as they are critical to the consideration of the search warrant constitutionality problem.
Factual Considerations
In early 1993 a joint federal and local drug enforcement task force in Urbana, Illinois began tracing a shipment of about a pound of cocaine sent from California to a fictitious address in Urbana, Illinois. From an infor: mant the task force determined a man named Shaw was expecting such a package. An undercover agent delivered the package to Shaw who, when interrogated, claimed he had received it, not for himself but for another person who used the alias "Blackbelt." Blackbelt was later identified as defendant Joseph Redmon, residing at 1319 Harding Drive in Urbana.
Redmon's Harding Drive address was found to be the eastern-most unit of an eight-unit townhouse, all units sharing a common wall. The structure is located on the southwest comer of the intersection of Vawter Street and Harding Drive. Redmon's townhouse and its entrance actually face east on Vawter Street, although his one-car connected garage faces north on Harding Drive. His garage is also connected to his neighbor's garage. The two neighbors share a common driveway which extends north from their connecting garages about twenty-four feet to a four-foot wide public sidewalk and then slightly less than an additional ten feet to Harding Drive. The common driveway is about twenty-five feet wide. ,
Access to the townhouses of Redmon and his neighbor could be gained only by first proceeding up their common driveway towards the front of the connected garages. Then from the comer of his side of the garage, Redmon's sidewalk leads to the left around the comer of the garage to his front door. Access to his adjacent neighbor's townhouse is also gained by proceeding up the common driveway towards the garages and then proceeding to the right on a sidewalk around the opposite comer of the garage to the neighbor's front dpor which faces Harding Drive.
The constitutional garbage issue arises as a result of police surveillance of Redmon's townhouse based on their narcotic suspicions. During the surveillance, Redmon was observed carrying his garbage cans out of his garage and placing them on the driveway between the garage doors for collection on collection days: Then after the garbage had been collected Redmon would carry his empty garbage cans back inside his garage. At times Redmon also placed plastic trash bags outside for collection in addition to his garbage cans. The cans were customarily placed for collection between Redmon's garage door and his neighbor's. A city ordinance at that time prohibited garbage from being put curbside for collection.
The police acted on their suspicions on January 4, 1996, January 22, 1996, and March 14, 1996, when without search warrants they removed the contents of Redmon's garbage cans while the cans were sitting just outside his garage on the common driveway awaiting collection. The garbage can searches not only confirmed the fact that Redmon resided at that address, but also confirmed police suspicions by revealing evidence of drug dealing. The garbage contained clear plastic bags shown to be commonly used in packing and shipping cocaine. The bags field-tested positive for cocaine. A glass vial test tube wrapped in a Spanish language newspaper was also found. It likewise tested positive for cocaine. Rubber and tape packages were found, commonly used in packaging shipments of cocaine. Those packages also tested positive for cocaine. Based on this garbage can evidence a search warrant for Redmon's residence was issued in March 1996 by the district judge. That residence search, as anticipated by the police, produced the packages of cocaine charged in the indictment.
Search Issue
Redmon objects to the search of his house accomplished with a warrant which was issued based on evidence uncovered during the warrantless garbage can searches. First, it is claimed that the garbage cans were located within the curtilage of Redmon's residence. Secondly, Redmon argues that the containers and their contents had not been "abandoned." Thirdly, it is claimed that Redmon had a "reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of his garbage cans." The war-rantless searches of the garbage cans, Red-mon argues, were therefore in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Redmon sought to quash the residential search warrant obtained on the basis of the garbage can evidence and to suppress the resulting evidence. Redmon's motion was denied by the district judge.
Discussion of the Searches
As we approach this search problem we shall not endeavor to fashion some convenient rule to fit all situations. That might be useful in some difficult cases for the police and others, including drug dealers, but many situations, as is this one, can reasonably be expected to be primarily fact-based not lending themselves to bright line rules. We do not mean to imply that the decision in this case upholding the garbage can searches means that anybody's garbage cans placed on the driveway adjacent to his or her garage, regardless of the other facts and circumstances, can henceforth be searched without a warrant. Each case of this nature will involve the weighing of all the relevant factors and the exercise of a fair judgment with due regard for the important constitutional guarantees as defined by Supreme Court and other conforming precedents. Nor does the affirmance of this conviction mean that this court is issuing a pass to the police to violate the Fourth Amendment. The police, whenever they have sufficient grounds and a warrant would be required, absent urgent circumstances, must seek search warrants to properly serve their own and the public purposes. Nor are we suggesting on the other hand that every police peek into a suspicious garbage can, regardless of the surrounding circumstances, requires a warrant. Nor do all those who want to keep their garbage secret need, because of this decision, resort to storing it under their beds. Nor do the important drug war efforts justify the commission of constitutional violations by the police. However, after considering all the factual circumstances of this case, these police searches, in our judgment, do not violate the constitution.
This case would be over if there was a Supreme Court-case "on all fours," but there is none, nor are there any duplicates in any other circuit which we have been able to find. There are numerous other garbage eases, some similar and some not so similar. Many of those cases would require an unproductive effort to sort out or distinguish the various factual circumstances regardless of the holdings of the cases. There are, however, some applicable guiding principles found in the cases.
Many of the cases mention "curtilage" as a factor, that is an imaginary boundary line between privacy and accessibility to the public. Sometimes that line may be easy to locate as where, for instance, a fence or wall around the home keeps out the public. Sometimes, however, the determination can be difficult. The district court did not use the term, but that is of no consequence if the right criteria are otherwise applied. "The mere intonation of curtilage, however, does not end the inquiry." United States v. Hedrick, 922 F.2d 396, 399 (7th Cir.1991). A curtilage line is not necessarily the property line. Nor can it be located merely by taking measurements from some other ease or precedent and then by use of a tape measure trying to determine where the curtilage is in a different case.
Both parties cite our case, United States v. Hedrick, 922 F.2d 396 (7th Cir.1991), to support their positions. The defendant first directs us to wording in Hedrick which he sees as supporting his position. It seems at first to do so. The quote is as follows, "garbage cans located 20(sic) feet from the garage and approximately 50(sic) feet from the back door of the house were technically within the cur-tilage of the house, in which privacy expectations are most heightened." Id. at 399. That quote, however, must be considered in the context of the whole case. Hedrick, based on other considerations besides mere measurements, held the search valid. Defendant's argument reveals the folly of trying to decide these cases merely by a tape measure comparison.
Redmon then argues with more substance that he had an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the garbage cans placed next to his attached garage, and that he was therefore protected from unreasonable searches and seizures of the incriminating evidence. That is the issue. This reasonableness determination can best be begun by considering additional language found in Hedrick. Then the zone of privacy or curti-lage may be determined after considering all the factors, and not just the feet and inches.
In Hedrick, the court looked to California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 108 S.Ct. 1625, 100 L.Ed.2d 30 (1988), for guidance.. In Greenwood, the police also had their illegal drug suspicions as in the present case. A surveillance of Greenwood's home was conducted. A cooperative trash collector picked up the plastic garbage bags in front of Greenwood's house and turned the bags over to the police. A search of the bags revealed items indicative of narcotics use. That information was used by the police to secure a warrant to search Greenwood's home. The search produced cocaine and hashish leading to the arrest of Greenwood. Greenwood was admitted to bail but soon he followed the same garbage routine and so did the police. Consequently, Greenwood was arrested a second time.
The seizure of Greenwood's garbage bags left at the curb, the Court held, would be a Fourth Amendment violation "only if respondents manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in their garbage that society accepts as objectively reasonable." Greenwood, 486 U.S. at 39,108 S.Ct. at 1628. Greenwood did not disagree with that standard, but he asserted that he did have an expectation of privacy in his trash. His trash, he explained, was only temporarily at the street waiting to be picked up, then to be mixed with other trash and finally to be deposited at the garbage dump with little likelihood it would be inspected by anyone. The Court accepted the personal privacy expectation of Greenwood under those circumstances, as well as Greenwood's belief that his trash would not become known to the police or public. The Court, however, imposed an important condition on that privacy expectation if Fourth Amendment protection was to be justified. That constitutional protection does not arise, the Court explains, "unless society is prepared to accept that expectation as objectively reasonable." Id. at 39-40, 108 S.Ct. at 1628. The Court concluded that Greenwood exposed his garbage to the public sufficiently to defeat his Fourth Amendment claim. The Court in support of its conclusion notes that curbside trash is readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public. Id. at 40, 108 S.Ct. at 1628-29. Furthermore, the Court noted that the trash was put at the curb for "the express purpose of conveying it to a third party, the trash collector, who might himself have sorted through [Greenwood's] trash or permitted others, such as the police, to do so." Id. Expecting his trash to be picked up by strangers, it was held that Greenwood could have had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the incriminating evidence he discarded in his trash. Id. at 41, 108 S.Ct. at 1629. That trash was therefore not subject to Fourth Amendment protection. We reach the same conclusion in the present case even though it is not strictly a curbside collection.
In the present case, Redmon, because of. a local ordinance at the time, could not put his trash at curbside. He therefore had little choice except to keep the cans somewhere on his own property to be available when collection was scheduled. Redmon, in effect, chose the front of the joint garage on the shared driveway-sidewalk to be his curb for garbage pickup purposes.
Before Greenwood we had come to a similar conclusion in United States v. Kramer, 711 F.2d 789 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 962, 104 S.Ct. 397, 78 L.Ed.2d 339 (1983), cited with approval in Greenwood. Greenwood, 486 U.S. at 42, 108 S.Ct. at 1629-30. In Kramer, this court went directly to the point in affirming the conviction and holding "that the special protection the Fourth Amendment accords people in their 'persons, houses, papers and effects' does not extend to their discarded garbage." Kramer, 711 F.2d at 792 (citations omitted). That may fit the definition of garbage some use that, "Garbage is garbage." The district court found Kramer's garbage to have been "abandoned." Id. This court noted in Kramer that there are personal things some do not want other people to see. People sometimes, nevertheless, just throw those things in their trash. Kramer then mentions certain alternatives those people can follow to keep then-secrets from being discovered in their garbage cans. Id. We see no need here, however, to further instruct drug dealers on how to avoid arrest by not making the mistake Redmon made in his case. It was Redmon's mistake, not the mistake of the police. His garbage cans were purposefully placed by him outside his garage for collection and could not be considered some sort of personal safety deposit boxes designed for his illegal purposes. Not all good police work is unconstitutional.
Another pertinent issue in Kramer arose because Kramer claimed the police had trespassed on his property to collect the bags from an area apparently inside his low perimeter fence. Kramer, 711 F.2d at 792. The court assumed for its purposes that the garbage was on defendant's property when it was collected. In Kramer a distinction is drawn, for example, from a situation in which the police break into a defendant's house without a warrant and take the contents of the wastebasket in the bedroom. Id. at 793. If that,, or anything close to that, was the factual situation in our present case, that evidence, of course, would not be admissible against Redmon. He would be free to go home to 1319 Harding Drive to be more careful next time, but we might consider sanctions against the government for a frivolous appeal. Kramer's trash had been collected from just inside his knee-high chain fence along the street curb thirty feet from his house. It was held no privacy interests were infringed. Id. at 794. At first glance Kramer appears to be an easier ease than the present case because Kramer's trash was near to the curb. Redmon's "curb" for practical collection purposes was necessarily not at curbside, but on his joint walk-driveway. The paths to the front doors passing near the garbage cans without any obstruction were open to use by friends and guests of himself and his neighbors, as well as solicitors, strangers, postal people, and a myriad of others including animals, and even snoops mentioned by the Supreme Court in Greenwood. Greenwood, 486 U.S. at 40, 108 S.Ct. at 1628-29. Urban dogs and raccoons, though not specifically singled out by the Supreme Court, can be very ingenious in their intrusions of garbage cans. They can easily have their fun with the garbage, spreading it out on the driveway for all to see.
Greenwood concludes its garbage discussion by emphasizing that Fourth Amendment protection must "turn on such factors as 'our societal understanding that certain areas deserve the most scrupulous protection from government invasion.'" Greenwood, 486 U.S. at 43, 108 S.Ct. at 1630 (citation omitted). The Court's conclusion is that our society would not accept as reasonable a claim to an expectation of privacy in trash left for collection in an area accessible to the public. Id. at 41, 108 S.Ct. at 1629. After considering all the factual circumstances in the present case, that is likewise our conclusion.
In Hedrick, we elaborated on the Greenwood holding which, as we mentioned, had cited our Kramer case, 711 F.2d 789 (7th Cir.1983), with favor. As noted in Hedrick, the Kramer decision had been based both upon the theories of abandonment' and exposure to the public. Hedrick, 922 F.2d at 398. The continued viability of the abandonment approach, we noted in Hedrick, was questionable. Id. But whether the abandonment approach still remains questionable is likewise questionable. Redmon injected the abandonment analysis in his argument in the district court by claiming that his garbage had "not been abandoned." At oral argument Redmon's counsel was asked whether or not Redmon's taking his garbage out of his garage and leaving it where it was to be picked up by the collectors evidenced "abandonment." Counsel's candid answer was to the effect that there was "some sort of abandonment," but he argued that abandonment was not the proper focus.
It appears, nevertheless, that Red-mon's garbage was abandoned when he moved it out of his garage and placed it for collection. We see no reason that Redmon's abandonment intent should also be abandoned so that it cannot be considered along with other factors in making the Fourth Amendment determination. Counsel was asked where he would draw the curtilage line in the Redmon circumstances. He had some difficulty, as do we, with that concept when trying to be specific. The answer can best be found in Greenwood's discussion which took note, among other factors, that the can had been placed so that it would be picked up by the collector, a third party stranger. Greenwood, 486 U.S. at 40, 108 S.Ct. at 1628-29. Redmon does not claim that the collector was a friend or family member. The Court, in Greenwood, notes that the garbage collector could have sorted through it. himself; or permitted others including the police to do so. Id. The same situation is present here.
In Hedrick, we considered the accessibility and exposure of the discarded garbage to the public. Hedrick, 922 F.2d at 398. We also noted that the visibility of the yard to the public was a factor rendering the expectation of privacy unreasonable. Id. at 399. It takes little more than a look at the plat, government exhibit # 1, showing the Red-mon location at the intersection of two city streets and the short common driveway-sidewalk arrangement with his neighbor to see how very publicly exposed and accessible Redmon left his garbage. Redmon, no doubt, did not intend to sacrifice the privacy of his garbage cans which would reveal illegal drug materials. Under the ' particular circumstances, however, his expectation was not reasonable, and not an expectation which we believe society is prepared to accept or should accept whether in downstate Illinois or elsewhere in this country. The district court came to the same conclusion.
Redmon also suggests that our case, United States v. Pace, 898 F.2d 1218 (7th Cir. 1990), is inconsistent with the conclusion reached in the present case. We fail to see the significance of Pace in Redmon's circumstances; at least Pace does not involve garbage. In Pace, police entered the garage of a suspect to detain the suspect whom they had cause to believe might be an assassin in a drug situation. The facts in Pace are interesting, but irrelevant in the Redmon conviction. We held in Pace that it was reasonable for police to enter the garage without a warrant even assuming the garage was part of the curtilage. Id. at 1228-29. In footnote 2, we explained the factors to be considered for a curtilage determination which include "the proximity of the area to the home itself, the nature of the uses to which the home is put, whether the area is within an enclosure surrounding the home, and the steps the resident has taken to protect the area from observation by passersby." Pace, 898 F.2d at 1229 n. 2 (citing United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 301, 107 S.Ct. 1134, 1139, 94 L.Ed.2d 326). We believe our decision in Redmon passes all the tests. Sentencing Issues
At the time of Redmon's present offense, March 19, 1996, he was twenty-nine years old. He had a 1989 Illinois felony conviction for possession of cocaine with intent to deliver and a 1986 Illinois aggravated battery conviction. In the Sentencing Commission Enabling Act, Congress directed the Sentencing Commission to specify a sentence of imprisonment "at or near the maximum term authorized" for an adult defendant convicted of a violent crime or felony drug offense who had two such prior convictions. 28 U.S.C. § 994(h). To implement that congressional requirement, the Sentencing Commission promulgated § 4B1.1 of the Guidelines, entitled "Career Offender," which provides in pertinent part this qualification for that enhancement:
A defendant is a career offender if (1) the defendant was at least eighteen years old at the time of the instant offense, (2) the instant offense of conviction is a felony that is either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense, and (3) the defendant has at least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense.
Amendment 506 to the Commentary to § 4B1.1 provides that "offense statutory maximum" means only "the maximum term of imprisonment authorized for the offense of conviction . not including any increase in that maximum term under a sentencing enhancement provision that applies because of the defendant's prior criminal record." U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, Amendment 506. However, in United States v. Hernandez, 79 F.3d 584 (7th Cir.1996), we held that Amendment 506 is inconsistent with § 994(h)'s unambiguous statutory direction and therefore is not entitled to deference.
Following Hernandez, the district court applied § 4B1.1 to Redmon without reference to Amendment 506. As applied including the enhancements, § 4B1.1 raised Redmon's base offense level to 34 from 32. Despite our precedent, Redmon contends that the district court erred in refusing to follow Amendment 506 in applying § 4B1.1 to him. In support of his argument, he relies on United States v. LaBonte, 70 F.3d 1396 (1st Cir.1995), rev'd, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 1673, 137 L.Ed.2d 1001 (1997), in which the First Circuit upheld the validity of Amendment 506. At the time Redmon filed his appeal, the Supreme Court had granted certiorari in LaBonte. Thus, Red-mon requested this court to hold its decision on his sentencing issue in abeyance, reasoning that if the Supreme Court affirmed LaBonte, it would be implicitly reversing Hernandez, and as such, he would be entitled to a new sentencing.
The Supreme Court recently issued its opinion in LaBonte, reversing the First Circuit and adopting a holding consistent with our opinion in Hernandez. Therefore, Red-mon's appeal must fail, and his sentence is affirmed.
The sentencing issue as dealt with in the original panel opinion and set out above was not raised for en bane consideration by the court and therefore remains unchanged.
The district court is Affirmed in all respects.
Government Exhibit #2
View of Redmon's and his neighbor's connected garages and joint driveway-walkways. The garbage cans were placed between the garage doors for collection.
The exhibit also shows the public walk where it crosses the driveway and at the bottom of the photo can be seen a section of Harding Drive and the street curb.
Government Exhibit #5
View of Redmon's garbage cans out for collection. The walk to his front door goes around the corner of his garage to the left.
Government Exhibit #3
View of Redmon's house from Vawter Street.
. Redmon was sentenced to 188 months of imprisonment, six years of supervised release following his imprisonment, and a $50 special assessment.
. Government Exhibit #3, a photo reproduced in the addendum, shows the view of the east side and entrance to Redmon's townhouse as seen from Vawter Street. The windowless wall to the right of the entrance is the side of Redmon's part of the garage. Some of the driveway can be seen.
.Government Exhibit # 1, included in the addendum, illustrates the layout of Redmon's and his attached neighbor's townhouses. Redmon's side is indicated on the plat as '1319" and his neighbor's as "1317."
. Government Exhibit #2, reproduced in the addendum, is a view of the connected garages of Redmon and his neighbor and the shared driveway. Redmon's walk to his front door extends to the left around the comer of the garage and his neighbor's walk to his front door extends to the right around the garage to the neighbor's front door. Government Exhibit # 5 shows the garbage cans placed in front of the garage on collection day for pickup.
. At one point Redmon's counsel objected to characterizing the garbage cans as garbage cans instead of as some variety of all-purpose plastic containers. That argument appears to have been abandoned, likely because the particular cans looked like garbage cans and- smelled like garbage cans and not like some all-purpose containers. This distinction was noted in our case of United States v. Hedrick, 922 F.2d 396, 399 (7th Cir.1991).
. There is another respondent in Greenwood, who is not specifically included in this synopsis as his presence makes no difference for these purposes.
. See also United States v. Shanks, 97 F.3d 977, 980 (7th Cir.1996) (holding that the defendant in that case could not have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in incriminating evidence when the garbage was in containers readily accessible and visible from public thoroughfares).