Court Opinion

ID: 9491039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:02:04.614431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:28.557642
License: Public Domain

FLAUM, Circuit Judge,
joined by EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge, concurring.
In the context of warrantless trash searches, the Supreme Court has instructed courts to base their assessments of reasonableness on the degree of public accessibility of the trash. See California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 41, 108 S.Ct. 1625, 1629, 100 L.Ed.2d 30 (1988). The Court today concludes that Joseph Redmon had no reasonable expectation of privacy in garbage that he left at the point of collection where it was readily accessible to the public. I agree that this is the proper disposition of the present case. While I am sympathetic to the policy concerns raised by the dissenters, I cannot reach their ultimate conclusion because I do not believe that Greenwood’s ready accessibility test contains an “outside the curtilage” limitation. Rather, location is merely one factor in evaluating the accessibility of garbage. Until the Supreme Court imposes a curtilage limitation on Greenwood, I do not believe that we can appropriately infer it.
I.
The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The Supreme Court has interpreted this constitutional safeguard to bar searches and seizures by the Government that violate a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.” See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). The Court has stated that “[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection” and therefore cannot support a reasonable expectation of privacy. Id. at 351, 88 S.Ct. at 511. In the context of trash searches, a person is considered to have knowingly exposed any trash that is “readily accessible” to the public (and thereby to have forfeited any reasonable expectation of privacy in the trash). Greenwood, 486 U.S. at 40, 108 S.Ct. at 1628-29. The determination of ready accessibility is highly fact-bound, yet because it is essentially a reformulation of *1121the ultimate determination of reasonableness, it receives plenary review from an appellate court. See Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, -, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 1663, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996).
A review of the applicable case law of this Circuit and the Supreme Court demonstrates that the search of Redmon’s garbage was reasonable. The starting point is the Supreme Court’s decision in Greenwood, 486 U.S. at 35, 108 S.Ct. at 1626. In that case, police searched garbage bags that Greenwood had left for collection on the street curb in front of his house.1 A trash collector picked up the garbage and then turned it over to the police, who found evidence of narcotics violations inside the trash bags. The Court held that there could be no reasonable expectation of privacy in the discarded inculpatory items 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, 108 S.Ct. at 1628-29 (footnotes omitted). Moreover, the Court stated, Greenwood left the garbage at the point of collection for the purpose of conveying it to a third party, who might have rummaged through the bags or allowed someone else to do so. Id. at 40-41, 108 S.Ct. at 1628-29. Greenwood could have no reasonable expectation of privacy in his garbage under these circumstances because it was readily accessible to inspection by the public.
Greenwood concerned a search of garbage outside the curtilage, but the constitutional standard announced in that case is not confined to searches outside the curtilage. Rather, Greenwood mandates that the touchstone of reasonableness in this context is whether the trash is readily accessible to the public; location is merely one factor in that inquiry. The Greenwood Court stated that “society would not accept as reasonable respondents’ 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. Location is a factor in assessing the “readiness” of accessibility, but it is not the only or ultimate consideration.
My dissenting colleagues express disagreement with the holding of Greenwood, but since overruling Greenwood is not in our power, they dráw a proverbial line in the sand at the curtilage. Under this approach, garbage outside the curtilage would be fair game for warrantless searches, but once a court determines that the garbage is located within the curtilage, the search would become unconstitutional. While I can identify with the coré concerns expressed by the dissenters, I do not believe that their approach is compatible with the controlling authority.
Our Circuit has applied a curtilage-neutral accessibility standard in approving three warrantless trash searches since Greenwood2 Our most recent case of this sort was United States v. Shanks, 97 F.3d 977, 978 (7th Cir.1996), cert. denied — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 1002, 136 L.Ed.2d 881 (1997). Police in that case searched garbage containers *1122located adjacent to a public alley and next to a garage twenty feet from the appellant’s residence. The Court did not address whether the containers were located at the point of collection. In assessing the reasonableness of the warrantless search, we noted that “the mere intonation of curtilage does not end the inquiry,” id. at 979. Shanks did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his garbage “[e]ven assuming that the garbage containers were within the curtilage of Shanks’ home,” id., because the containers were readily accessible from a public thoroughfare and because such garbage is commonly invaded by snoops, scavengers, and other members of the public. Id. at 980.
In United States v. Hedrick, 922 F.2d 396 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 847, 112 S.Ct. 147, 116 L.Ed.2d 113 (1991), we allowed officers to search garbage at the point of collection in a location that we explicitly held to be within the curtilage of the appellant’s home. See id. at 399 (“Therefore, the garbage cans located 20 feet from the garage and approximately 50 feet from the back door of the house were technically within the curtilage of the home, in which privacy interests are most heightened.”). We nonetheless emphasized that “applying the Greenwood analysis to garbage within the curtilage, the relevant inquiry is whether the garbage cans were so readily accessible to the public that they exposed the contents to the public for Fourth Amendment purposes.” Id. at 400 (emphasis added); see also id. at 399 (“[Containers or sheds within the curtilage would not be protected if their contents could be viewed by people routinely passing on the street or overhead.”). We affirmed the search in Hedrick because the garbage cans were, readily accessible to the public in light of the relatively short distance between the cans and the public sidewalk, as well as the fact that the cans were normally collected from that location by a sanitation service. Id. at 400. The Court’s determination of ready accessibility also took into consider-' ation Greenwood’s observations regarding the common practices of our recurring cast of “scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public in sorting through garbage.” Id.
Our first consideration of a. warrantless trash search after Greenwood occurred in United States v. Dunkel, 900 F.2d 105 (7th Cir.1990), vacated in part on other grounds, 498 U.S. 1043, 111 S.Ct. 747, 112 L.Ed.2d 768 (1991). In that ease, a government informant found incriminating financial records in a dumpster' located within an area that the appellant claimed to be the “curtilage” of his business. Seven other commercial tenants shared this dumpster, which was located on the outer edge of the building’s parking lot. We affirmed the district court’s holding that the search did not violate Dunkel’s Fourth Amendment rights because the dumpster was accessible to the public (especially to the other seven commercial tenants). Id. at 106-07. In doing so, we did not formally address Dunkel’s curtilage argument other than to dismiss its relevance to his Fourth Amendment claim: “Intoning ‘curtilage’ does not alter the fact that the parking lot was open to all comers — not only Dunkel’s invitees but also those of his seven tenants.” Id. at 107. Finally, we offered an endorsement of the ready accessibility test: “Someone who tosses documents into a dumpster to which hundreds of people have ready access has no legitimate expectation of privacy in the dumpster or its contents.” Id. Shanks, Hed-rick, and Dunkel therefore reflect our Circuit’s understanding that — regardless of cur-tilage issues — warrantless searches of readily accessible trash do not violate the Fourth Amendment.
This view is consistent with our trash search cases that preceded the Supreme Court’s decision in Greenwood. In United States v. Shelby, 573 F.2d 971 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 841, 99 S.Ct. 132, 58 L.Ed.2d 139 (1978), we held that a warrant-less search of garbage was constitutionally permissible. In that case, police officers obtained a search warrant of the appellant’s house based upon evidence found in a war-rantless search of his garbage. At the be*1123hest of the police, sanitation workers — as was their usual custom — removed the trash by reaching over a small fence on the appellant’s property adjoining a public alley. The trash was located inside a low fence on the appellant’s property, and we assumed that area to be within the curtilage of his home. See id. at 974 n. 7. Despite that fact, we nevertheless held that “the ‘seizure’ of the garbage from the defendant’s curtilage did not violate the Fourth Amendment,” id. (emphasis added), because the appellant could have no reasonable expectation of privacy in garbage placed at the point of collection and within easy public access, see id. at 973-74.
Similarly, in United States v. Kramer, 711 F.2d 789, 794 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 962, 104 S.Ct. 397, 78 L.Ed.2d 339 (1983), we held that the appellant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his garbage that the police searched without a warrant. The police removed plastic garbage bags from containers located by the roadside in front of Kramer’s house; the cans were at the point of collection inside a knee-high fence. Kramer sought to suppress records of marijuana sales found amidst his garbage. In affirming the district court’s denial of Kramer’s motion to suppress the records, we stated quite curtly that “the special protection the Fourth Amendment accords people in their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects’ does not extend to their discarded garbage.” Id. at 792.
I consider the Court’s holding today to be plainly compelled by Greenwood. I do not necessarily share the view of garbage expounded by the Supreme Court, but that is of little moment to the present task; Greenwood is the law and we must apply it. Whatever ambiguities one can mine from the Greenwood decision with regard to the importance of curtilage (which I do not find), I think that our Circuit precedent fills in those gaps. I recognize that Circuit law is vulnerable to revision upon en banc review, but I believe that our cases have executed Greenwood’s mandate faithfully and do not warrant reconsideration. Without further direction from the Supreme Court, I cannot subscribe to limiting Greenwood in the manner proposed by the dissenters and thereby overrule a significant body of our precedent.
I agree with the Majority that Redmon’s garbage in this case was readily accessible to the public. Our decisions demonstrate that the placement of trash at the point of collection goes a long way toward establishing ready accessibility. See Hedrick, 922 F.2d at 400; Kramer, 711 F.2d at 794; Shelby, 573 F.2d at 973; see also Greenwood, 486 U.S. at 41, 108 S.Ct. at 1629. In the instant case, Redmon placed his garbage on his driveway, which served as his usual point of collection. As the Majority opinion points out, a municipal ordinance forbade Redmon from depositing his garbage for collection at the curbside. In other words, once Redmon left the trash for collection in his driveway, it occupied a space that — for purposes of his expectation of privacy in the garbage (and, as I will argue later, his abandonment of the trash)— was not much different than the curbside collection point chosen in other cases.
Besides its role as the point of collection, the driveway location severely limited Red-mon’s reasonable expectation of privacy in his trash in other ways, as well. Redmon shared the driveway with his next-door neighbor. Once he placed his garbage in an area of property shared with this neighbor, he gave the neighbor (and the neighbor’s visitors and guests) access to the trash. People generally exclude others from certain areas in order to maintain privacy, and they understand that their expectation of privacy diminishes (if not evaporates) as others gain access to those areas.
In addition, the driveway served as part of the walkway to Redmon and his neighbor’s front doors. Invited guests of both Redmon and his neighbor, as well as members of the general public (implicit guests, as the Majority notes), were required to walk past the trash cans sitting in the driveway. This does not imply that the guests were likely to begin rummaging through the contents of the nearby trash cans or bags;. it does, however, suggest that the trash was readily accessible to members of the public who desired to do so. The relatively short distance between the garbage in the driveway and the public *1124sidewalk also supports the Government’s position that the trash was readily accessible.
The totality of circumstances in this case convinces me that Redmon did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the searched garbage. The trash was readily accessible to the public — the applicable standard prescribed by Greenwood.3 Thus, I concur in the decision of the Court today.
II.
My dissenting colleagues make much of the importance of curtilage in the determination of Redmon’s expectation of privacy. I must respectfully disagree with their approach. I believe that the analytical circularity of the curtilage inquiry only confuses what is already a difficult task in deciding Fourth Amendment issues. I think that cur-tilage is a vestigial concept largely lacking in substantive content, and I feel the need to comment on its role in our warrantless trash search eases.
Curtilage receives protection' under the Fourth Amendment because it is “an area intimately linked to the home, both physically and psychologically, where privacy expectations are most heightened.” California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213, 106 S.Ct. 1809, 1812, 90 L.Ed.2d 210 (1986). The Supreme Court has stated that curtilage is “the area to which extends the intimate activity associated with the ‘sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life.’” Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 180, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 1742, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984) (quoting Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 630, 6 S.Ct. 524, 532, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886)). The Court has prescribed a multi-factor test to guide curti-lage determinations:
[C]urtilage questions should be resolved with particular reference to four factors: the proximity of the area claimed to be curtilage to the home, whether the area is ■included within an enclosure surrounding the home, the nature of the uses to which the area is put, and the steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by.
United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 301, 107 S.Ct. 1134, 1139, 94 L.Ed.2d 326 (1987). The third of these factors, by the Court’s own admission, is the “centrally relevant consideration,” id., and the “primary focus,” id. at 301 n. 4, 107 S.Ct. at 1140 n. 4; this accords with the Court’s long-standing definition of curtilage from Boyd. Curtilage is thus essentially defined as an area that receives heightened Fourth Amendment protection by virtue of the uses to which it is put and the extent to which those uses are exposed to the public.
To my mind, this is yet another in a long line of tests that merely restates the ultimate Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness. When we decide that trash is within the curtilage, we have concluded that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in that trash based, among other things, on the degree of exposure of that trash to the public. Indeed, activities are regarded as “intimate” or “private” precisely because the general public is excluded from them in some fashion. This is no different than the inquiry prescribed by the “ready accessibility” test. By definition, an area containing trash can-, not be defined as curtilage if it is readily accessible to the public; similarly, by definition, the trash contained therein cannot receive Fourth Amendment protection if it is ■readily accessible. Put another way, if someone takes enough steps to guard the privacy of a particular area so that it is deemed to be curtilage, they will also have exhibited a reasonable expectation of privacy in the trash found in that area. For this reason, any time that courts declared that trash was searched *1125in the curtilage of a defendant’s home, they would have already decided that the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the trash.4
In this way, curtilage is a descriptive— rather than a -prescriptive — term in our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Curti-lage cannot define a defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy when the very same reasonable expectation is the basis for defining curtilage in the first place. Thus, instead of aiding our Fourth Amendment inquiry in trash search cases, curtilage merely adds another co-extensive layer of tests and factors to the reasonableness . calculus. For these reasons, I cannot join my colleagues’ dissenting opinions that rely on curtilage to bring clarity — or a change of any sort — to our constitutional inquiry in trash search cases.
III.
Finally, I would also like to comment on the role of abandonment theory in cases involving warrantless searches of garbage. Abandonment is a consideration when assessing the reasonableness of a defendant’s expectation of privacy in his garbage — specifically, in assessing the" degree of public accessibility of his trash. Abandonment of property sends a message tó members of the public implicitly granting them permission to approach, to investigate, and — if they so desire — to convert the property to their own uses. In this way, I believe that abandonment principles can inform a court’s evaluation of the ready accessibility of garbage.
A The Continuing Viability of Abandonment Theory
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of abandonment theory in trash search cases have been greátly exaggerated. Justice Brennan’s dissenting opinion in Greenwood made two references to the Majority’s supposed rejection of abandonment theory. See 486 U.S. at 49 n. 2, 108 S.Ct. at 1633 n. 2 (Brennan, J., dissenting) '(noting that many of the courts of appeals cases cited approvingly by the Majority “rely entirely on an abandonment theory that, as noted infra, at 1629, the Court has discredited.”); id. at 50, 108 S.Ct. at 1634 (“The Court properly rejects the State’s attempt to distinguish trash searches from other searches on the theory that trash is abandoned and therefore not entitled to an expectation of privacy.”). A careful reader of Greenwood, however, will search in vain for the Majority’s purported disavowal of abandonment theory.
In fact, the page cited by Justice Brennan for this proposition demonstrates that abandonment was an important component of the Majority’s holding that Greenwood’s garbage was readily accessible. After noting that “respondents exposed their garbage to the public sufficiently to defeat their claim to Fourth Amendment protection,” id. at 40, 108 S.Ct. at 1628, the Court went on to explain that this conclusion was appropriate because, among other things, “respondents placed their refuse at the curb for the express purpose of conveying it to a third party, the trash collector, who might himself have sorted through respondents’ trash or permitted others, such as the police, to do so.” Id. In summing up the rationale for its holding, the Court again noted the importance of abandonment principles: “Accordingly, having deposited their garbage ‘in an area particularly suited for public inspection and, in a manner of speaking, public consumption, for the express purpose of having strangers take it,’ respondents could have had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the inculpatory items that they discarded.” *1126Id. at 40-41, 108 S.Ct. at 1628-29 (citation omitted). The quoted passage in this summation came from a Third Circuit case which squarely held that placement of trash at the point of collection signifies abandonment. United States v. Reicherter, 647 F.2d 397, 399 (3d Cir.1981).
Indeed, Reicherter was not the only lower court opinion applying abandonment theory that the Greenwood Court cited with approval. The Court stated that “[o]ur conclusion that society would not accept as reasonable respondents’ claim to an expectation of privacy in trash left for collection in an area accessible to the public is reinforced by the unanimous rejection of similar claims by the Federal Courts of Appeals.” Greenwood, 486 U.S. at 41, 108 S.Ct. at 1629. In support of this proposition, the Court cited nine cases, seven of which expressly based their holdings on an abandonment theory. Id. at 41-42, 108 S.Ct. at 1629-30. In addition, the Court referenced fifteen decisions from state appellate courts involving warrantless trash searches; nine of these state courts utilized an abandonment theory in approving the disputed searches. Id. at 42-43, 108 S.Ct. at 1629-30. Perhaps in part for these reasons, the First Circuit has stated that, contrary to Justice Brennan’s interpretation, Greenwood did not reject abandonment theory as an element of its holding. See United States v. Scott, 975 F.2d 927, 930 n. 1 (1st Cir.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 1042, 113 S.Ct. 1877, 123 L.Ed.2d 495 (1993).
One of the federal appellate decisions cited approvingly by the Greenwood Court was our decision in United States v. Kramer, 711 F.2d 789, 792 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 962, 104 S.Ct. 397, 78 L.Ed.2d 339 (1983), in which we approved a warrantless trash search based on abandonment theory. The Kramer Court stated quite bluntly that all garbage was to be considered abandoned: “We agree with the trial judge that the special protection the Fourth Amendment accords people in their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects’ does not extend to then-discarded garbage____ There is nothing unfair about requiring that people not discard things they want to keep secret, or destroy them before they do.” Id. Kramer, in turn, relied upon our earlier decision in United States v. Shelby, 573 F.2d 971, 973 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 841, 99 S.Ct. 132, 58 L.Ed.2d 139 (1978), which also applied abandonment theory to determine the constitutionality of a warrantless garbage search:
In our view the placing of trash in the garbage cans at the time and place for anticipated collection by public employees for hauling to a public dump signifies abandonment. Defendant may have decided to assume the risk, calculating no one would think to search in his garbage can, or he may have been careless, but whatever his reason he evidenced an intent in a convenient but risky way to permanently disassociate himself from the incriminating contents.
As I explain later, I do not agree that abandonment theory compels Kramer and Shelby's broad conclusion that garbage never enjoys constitutional protection, but I do not interpret Greenwood to preclude the continued application of. abandonment principles.

B. The Contours of Abandonment Theory

The basic rule of abandonment theory is that police inspections of abandoned property are not “searches” and therefore are not regulated by the Fourth Amendment. For instance, police may lawfully seize contraband cast away by a fleeing suspect because the contraband has been abandoned by the suspect. See California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 629, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 1552, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991). Similarly, a closed container is considered abandoned and therefore subject to search when the suspect disavows ownership of the container. See, e.g., United States v. Knox, 839 F.2d 285, 293 (6th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1019, 109 S.Ct. 1742, 104 L.Ed.2d 179 (1989). Abandonment, in the sense of discard, has even been extended by some courts-to justify warrantless thermal scans, although I think these cases may stretch abandonment theory too far. See, e.g., United States v. Pinson, 24 F.3d 1056, 1058-59 (8th Cir.) (relying on abandonment principles to uphold thermal scans because they detect discarded heat), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1057, 115 S.Ct. 664, 130 L.Ed.2d 598 (1994).
Courts often distinguish the concept of abandonment in the Fourth Amendment con*1127text from abandonment as defined by property law. In property law, abandonment is a term denoting total relinquishment of property rights, which thereby enables a finder or subsequent possessor of the property to assert an unassailable interest. When describing abandonment in the constitutional sense, however, many courts explain that the relevant inquiry is not whether the defendant abandoned the property; rather, the issue is whether the defendant abandoned his or her reasonable expectation of privacy in the property by relinquishing possession or disavowing ownership. See, e.g., United States v. Barlow, 17 F.3d 85, 88 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 850, 115 S.Ct. 148, 130 L.Ed.2d 88 (1994); New Jersey v. Hempele, 120 N.J. 182, 576 A.2d 793, 808-09 (1990); City of St. Paul v. Vaughn, 306 Minn. 337, 237 N.W.2d 365, 370-71 (1975).
Understood in this way, however, abandonment in the Fourth Amendment context becomes circular. Courts have set forth the following general principle of abandonment theory: Because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in abandoned property, the Fourth Amendment does not regulate inspections of it. But the purported test for abandonment in the constitutional sense is whether the previous owner demonstrates an intent to relinquish his or her expectation of privacy in the property. Thus, the logic reduces to the following tautology: Because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in property in which the owner has relinquished his expectation of privacy, the Fourth Amendment does not regulate inspections of it. This formulation of abandonment in the constitutional sense adds nothing to the analysis. See Hempele, 576 A.2d at 809-10. In short, a conclusion that one has “abandoned” one’s reasonable expectation of privacy is just another way of saying that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, and that therefore a warrantless search may proceed.
Courts have adopted this purported distinction between constitutional and common-law 'abandonment because of the hornbook principle that the boundaries of Fourth Amendment law are not defined by property-law concepts. Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 183-84, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 1743-44, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984). Indeed, there is a real difference between property-law and constitutional abandonment, for courts have repeatedly found abandonment for constitutional purposes in situations that might not support a finding of abandonment in the common-law understanding. For instance, courts have held that suspects fleeing the police who discard or hide incriminating evidence have abandoned that evidence even where it is clear that they intended to return and retrieve the evidence had they eluded capture. See United States v. Thomas, 864 F.2d 843, 845-47 (D.C.Cir.1989); Vaughn, 237 N.W.2d at 370-71. In light of these cases, the difference between constitutional and common-law abandonment may simply be that the level of proof required may be lower, and therefore abandonment may be easier to establish, in the Fourth Amendment context.
In my view, if abandonment is to retain some meaning in the Fourth Amendment-context, it cannot be totally divorced from its property-law antecedents. It is true that the scope of Fourth Amendment protections is independent of property-law concepts, but this does not mean that property-law concepts cannot inform the constitutional inquiry. The same evidence supporting a conclusion of property abandonment in the common-law understanding — such as relinquishment of possession or disavowal of ownership — will almost always support a conclusion of abandonment for Fourth Amendment purposes. For instance, placement of trash at the point of collection sends a strong signal of abandonment of that property; this factor therefore suggests that the garbage is readily accessible to the public. '
As I have indicated earlier, I believe that abandonment concepts, properly understood, can play a useful role as one factor to be considered in our Fourth Amendment “reasonableness” determinations. The key, as always, is the reasonableness of the disputed search, and the more indication there is that property has been abandoned, the more reasonable it becomes to conduct a warrantless search of that property. Relinquishment of possession, disavowal of ownership, and other indicia of abandonment should be considered *1128along with the other relevant factors in our fact-intensive Fourth Amendment inquiries. No one factor can be a talismanic indicator of reasonableness; courts must consider all factors, and abandonment is only one among many. ■ But if abandonment concepts can assist courts in conducting Fourth Amendment inquiries, we should not assent so readily in critics’ tales of its demise.
IV.
I believe that the Supreme Court’s decision in Greenwood speaks broadly enough to cover the circumstances of the present case. Greenwood instructed courts to apply a “ready accessibility” test in trash search eases, and the Court did not limit the scope of this test to locations outside the curtilage. Trash does not enjoy constitutional protection if it is readily accessible to the public, as was Redmon’s in this case, and the location of the garbage is merely one factor in that assessment of ready accessibility. Indeed, I do not believe that a curtilage-based approach would be helpful to our evaluation of reasonableness; it is neither analytically instructive nor consistent with Greenwood and our Circuit’s precedent. Abandonment principles, on the other hand, can provide valuable insights into the ready accessibility of garbage. For these reasons, I concur in the Court’s decision affirming the district court’s denial of Redmon’s motion to suppress.

. The Court assumed that the garbage rested outside the curtilage of Greenwood’s home. See 486 U.S. at 37, 108 S.Ct. at 1627 ("The issue here is whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of a home.”).

. Post-Greenwood cases from other circuits have also applied the accessibility test without regard to curtilage when evaluating the constitutionality of warrantless trash searches. See, e.g., United States v. Hall, 47 F.3d 1091, 1096-97 (11th Cir.) (approving warrantless search of a dumpster located in the parking lot of the appellant's business — his "commercial curtilage" — because it was readily accessible to the public), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 816, 116 S.Ct. 71, 133 L.Ed.2d 31 (1995); United States v. Comeaux, 955 F.2d 586, 589 (8th Cir.) (stating that curtilage was irrelevant to the court’s approval of a warrantless search of a garbage bag located next to the appellant’s garage adjacent to public alley because the bag was readily accessible to the public), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 845, 113 S.Ct. 135, 121 L.Ed.2d 89 (1992); United States v. Wilkinson, 926 F.2d 22, 27 (1st Cir.1991) (approving a War-rantless search of a garbage left for collection on the appellant’s lawn next to the curb based on its ready accessibility and without mentioning curti-lage) (Breyer, C.J.), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1211, 111 S.Ct. 2813, 115 L.Ed.2d 985 (1991), and overruled on other grounds, Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 149-51, 116 S.Ct. 501, 508-09, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995). But see United States v. Certain Real Property Located at 987 Fisher Road, 719 F.Supp. 1396, 1404, 1405-06 (E.D.Mich.1989) (holding that a warrantless *1122search of garbage located within the curtilage of the defendant's home violated his Fourth Amendment rights).

. When determining whether trash is readily accessible, courts must ensure that the term "readily” maintains substantive force. "Readily” does not mean "possibly,” and trash is not readily accessible just because it is visible to passers-by on the street or vulnerable to scavenging expeditions of various enterprising animals and people. Courts must consider all aspects of the search in assessing whether trash was indeed readily accessible. Within this calculus, important factors include the proximity of the garbage to the defendant’s home, the garbage’s distance from any public thoroughfare, the ease with which the public could reach the garbage without disturbing the intimate activities of the defendant’s home life, and the unique societal message of abandonment that attaches to trash as opposed to other objects located on the defendant's property. This non-exhaustive list illustrates that the ready accessibility test essentially reformulates the totali1y-of-circumstances reasonableness standard itself.

. I recognize the apparent inconsistency of arguing both that curtilage is co-extensive with Fourth Amendment protection and that our Circuit has previously held that garbage within the curtilage may be searched without a warrant. Under my theory, a determination that the trash was located in the curtilage should have ended' the Fourth Amendment inquiry. I can only answer this charge by saying that I disagree with the Court’s curtilage determinations in Hedrick, 922 F.2d at 399, which relied on an assumption that the entire front yard of a residential home is ipso facto curtilage, and in Shelby, 573 F.2d at 974 n. 7, which assumed (without deciding) that garbage cans inside a low fence adjacent to a public alley at the point of collection were located in the curtilage. Our other cases in this area did not make formal curtilage determinations because they found it irrelevant (and I would argue, redundant) to their ultimate Fourth Amendment holdings. See Shanks, 97 F.3d at 979-80; Dunkel, 900 F.2d at 107; Kramer, 711 F.2d at 794.