3.Court Decision

The court ruled in a 6-2 win for California. This case set a precedent for future court cases. Establishing a common law that law enforcement can have warrantless trash searches. In previous court cases judges ruled against the defendant. As said before in Katz vs. United States the police officers arrived at the farm on a tip not expecting to look over the fence and see illegal drugs being grown. Katz was then arrested and charged with growing narcotics. The Supreme Court ruled that the police were in the right to be on the property without a warrant. Anything that can be seen by the public is not considered private. It becomes public knowledge and anyone has the rights. The public has a reasonable right to privacy. Justice White stated "It 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." http://law.jrank.org "A single bag of trash testifies eloquently to the eating, reading and recreational habits of the person who produced it." http://law.jrank.org Brennan http://law.jrank.org. The opposing Justices also spoke on the case Judge Brenan spoke on behalf of Justice Marshall who also opposed the decision."Scrutiny of another's trash is contrary to commonly accepted notions of civilized behavior . . . Society will be shocked to learn thatthe 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." http://law.jrank.org While you can expect your trash to be a private and personal thing it no longer becomes personal when you set it on the curb in an opaque plastic bag. http://law.jrank.org/pages/13057/California-v-Greenwood.html. The Justices refferred back to the framers of the constitution and the weight it may have had on this case. "The Framers of the Fourth Amendment understood that "unreasonable searches" of "papers and effects" -- no less than "unreasonable searches" of "persons and houses" -- infringe privacy. Justice Brennan http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0486_0035_ZD.html