Court Opinion

ID: 9491042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:02:04.622818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:28.565334
License: Public Domain

MANION, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Garbage bagged and contained for collection presumably has little or no value to the discarder. But this case isn’t just about garbage; it’s about privacy. The issue here is whether police need a warrant to trespass well within an owner’s property line in order to rummage through his garbage.
Redmon’s garbage was placed right next to his attached garage, not at the curb, as in California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 40-42, 108 S.Ct. 1625, 1628-30, 100 L.Ed.2d 30 (1988) (no expectation of privacy in trash left for collection on or at the side of a public street in an area accessible to the public). Surely this area next to the garage is within the curtilage. Chief Judge Posner has persuasively addressed the curtilage issue as well as an owner’s interest in garbage he places there, and I join his dissenting opinion. It is incorrect to say that Redmon’s garbage — like Greenwood’s — could be searched by the police because where it was placed was readily accessible to animals, scavengers, and snoops. Greenwood’s garbage was not on private property; Redmon’s was. The distinction is crucial because unlike in Greenwood, here the police trespassed. And it is incorrect to say that because strangers and snoops could have invaded Redmon’s property and gone through his garbage, it’s okay for the police to do so. They all would be trespassers. They are not friends, or guests, or neighbors, or postal people, or joint owners. They are not invitees, or licensees, or any of the above. They are uninvited, unwelcome, and unauthorized. If an owner sees a scavenger or snooper by his *1133garage rifling through his garbage, when, he tells the intruder to leave or he’ll call the police, the response should not be “We ARE the police!”
In short, the property line should be respected both by private citizens and peace keepers. The line creates a presumption that an intruder has invaded areas the owner expects are private,, unless some other circumstance demonstrates the unreasonableness of. that expectation. In most urban settings, the property line is obvious: it is where the sidewalk stops and the yard begins. A driveway, even one shared (as in this case), typically becomes private past the curb or sidewalk, whichever comes last. In eases of larger properties, the presumption of privacy should be more difficult to overcome the closer the invader gets to the - owner’s dwelling. Redmon’s was not a large estate — it was a townhouse with limited (mostly paved) frontage. His curtilage effectively paralleled his property line. Nevertheless, a police officer entered Redmon’s property and stood next to his garage door, just a few steps from his front door, and picked through his garbage. The officer stood not in the shoes of a friend, a solicitor, a deliverer or even an invited garbage collector. Rather, he stood in the shoes of a trespasser.
When crossing the property line without a warrant (i.e., trespassing), police should be required to overcome the presumption that the property line defines the perimeter of the curtilage where an owner’s expectation of privacy begins. This rule would respect property rights, yet allow, police to do their job. But with the court’s decision today it is hard now to imagine a circumstance wherein police will need a warrant short of entering the house itself.