Court Opinion

ID: 9525699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:06:33.322755+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:16:36.717814
License: Public Domain

NAJAM, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because I believe an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of trash left out for collection and that a warrantless search of closed, opaque garbage containers violates the prohibition against unreasonable search or seizure in Article 1, § 11 of the Indiana Constitution.
The fact that trash in a closed, opaque container put out for disposal is readily accessible to animals and others who may choose to rummage and snoop is insufficient grounds to conclude under constitutional analysis that the owner has abandoned and impliedly consented to a war-rantless search of his trash.
Today, in urban areas, the use of private incinerators is often prohibited by ordinance. Most of our citizens have no other practical alternative means to dispose of correspondence, financial documents and other personal information and effects than to deliver them to a municipal or private trash hauler for disposal. The individual’s reasonable expectation is that this material will either be destroyed or buried forever under large quantities of dirt and other trash in the privacy of a sanitary landfill. Thus, I cannot agree with the majority’s premise that the defendant has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his trash concealed in a closed, opaque container. Many years hence, perhaps an archeologist will search through these leftovers of our civilization and find something interesting, but on that occasion no individual constitutional rights will be implicated.
Because this case involves drug related crime, the conclusion reached by the majority might at first seem harmless enough, but the majority opinion creates an unlimited license for the government to invade the privacy of virtually every household in the state of Indiana. This is equivalent to a new warrantless search exception. The majority’s opinion strips away the shield of probable cause and the right of privacy embodied in the constitutional right of our people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable search and seizure. IND. CONST, art. I, § 11.
The majority approves and adopts the rationale of Greenwood v. California (1988), 486 U.S. 35, 108 S.Ct. 1625, 100 L.Ed.2d 30. However, under our system of federalism, we are not always required to follow the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation when we construe the Indiana Constitution. Our Constitution provides independent and adequate state grounds for Indiana to chart its own course *574and to impose higher standards on searches and seizures, and we should not merely adopt the minimum standards of the Fourth Amendment but should develop our own constitutional jurisprudence on this issue. Thus, I concur with the holding in the recent opinion of our Fifth District in Moran v. State (1993), 625 N.E.2d 1231.
In Callender v. State (1922), 193 Ind. 91, 138 N.E. 817, our supreme court held that evidence obtained through an unconstitutional search and seizure would be inadmissible in a subsequent prosecution. Id. at 819. As has been often noted, the exclusionary rule adopted in Callender predated by almost 40 years the United States Supreme Court decision in Mapp v. Ohio (1961), 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081. There is no reason that Indiana cannot once again, on the present issue, invoke its own Constitution.
A warrantless and nonconsensual search is presumed to be unreasonable. See Murrell v. State (1981), 421 N.E.2d 638, 640. A judicially issued search warrant is a condition precedent to a valid search and seizure, except under a few, narrowly drawn exceptions where the exigencies of the situation mandate an immediate response. Richard v. State (1985), Ind.App., 482 N.E.2d 282, 285. These exceptions include (1) risk of bodily harm or death, (2) to aid a person in need of assistance, (3) to protect private property and (4) actual or imminent destruction or removal of evidence before a search warrant can be obtained. Sayre v. State (1984), Ind.App., 471 N.E.2d 708, 714, trans. denied. None of the exigent circumstances which would support a lawful warrantless search applies to the facts in this case.
Here, the police should have sought the issuance of a warrant to search Bell’s garbage bags. Both the State and the majority opinion acknowledge that Officer Whit-low had received several tips that Bell was dealing in marijuana. With that information, assuming that his sources were reliable, Whitlow could have easily submitted the question of probable cause to a judge for determination. Instead, acting without prior judicial approval, Whitlow caused the garbage bags to be seized by other officers and then used the contraband he found in Bell’s garbage to obtain a warrant to search his home, automobiles and business. It is axiomatic that probable cause must be established before the search and not as a result of the search. Snyder v. State (1984), Ind.App., 460 N.E.2d 522, 526, trans. denied.
The defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence seized from the warrantless search of the garbage bags, and under the subsequent search warrant, should have been granted.
Accordingly, on both constitutional grounds and on the facts of this case, I dissent.