No Warrant or Probable Cause Is Required to Search Abandoned Property
CALIFORNIA v. GREENWOOD, Supreme Court of the United States (1988), 486 U.S. 35, 108 S.Ct. 1625
FACTS:
Following complaints of Greenwood's neighbors concerning narcotics trafficking at his Laguna Beach home, police requested the local trash collector to isolate Greenwood's refuse. A search of Greenwood's trash disclosed items which were indicative of narcotics use. From this evidence police procured a search warrant and subjected respondent's house to a thorough search. The discovery of hashish and quantities of cocaine resulted in the arrest of respondent on felony narcotics charges.
Subsequent to Greenwood's release on bail, neighbors renewed their complaints concerning drug trafficking by respondent. A second warrantless search of Greenwood's trash contained additional evidence of drug use. The police conducted a second search of Greenwood's home pursuant to a second search warrant. The search revealed evidence of continued narcotics use and of additional trafficking. Police arrested Greenwood for a second time.
The trial court dismissed the charges against Greenwood after the court ruled that the two police searches violated the Fourth Amendment. The court reasoned that since the trash searches had been conducted without a warrant, any evidence thus obtained was not usable. As a result the actual search warrants for Greenwood's home were flawed due to a lack of probable cause.
Following the prosecutor's unsuccessful appeal to the Court of Appeal, the California Supreme Court denied the State's petition for further review. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari.
PROCEDURAL QUESTION:
Under the Fourth Amendment, where a resident has placed garbage and trash at the curb for pickup, does the resident retain any objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents?
HELD: No.
RATIONALE:
Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court.
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II
The warrantless search and seizure of the garbage bags left at the curb outside the Greenwood house would violate the Fourth Amendment only if respondents manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in their garbage that society accepts as objectively reasonable. [Citations omitted.]
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They assert, however, that they had, and exhibit, an expectation of privacy with respect to the trash that was searched by the police: The trash, which was placed on the street for collection at a fixed time, was contained in opaque plastic bags, which the garbage collector was expected to pick up, mingle with the trash of others, and deposit at the garbage dump. The trash was only temporarily on the street, and there was little likelihood that it would be inspected by anyone.
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Here we conclude that respondents exposed their garbage to the public sufficiently to defeat their claim to Fourth Amendment protection. 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. See Krivda, 5 Cal.3d, at 367, 96 Cal.Rptr., at 69, 483 P.2d, at 1269. Moreover, 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 respondent's trash or permitted others to do so. 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," United States v. Reicherter, 647 F.2d 397, 399 (CA3 1981), respondents could have had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the inculpatory items that they discarded.
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Our conclusion that society would not accept as reasonable respondent's 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. [Citations omitted.]
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V
The judgment of the California Court of Appeal is therefore reversed, and this case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice BRENNAN, with whom Justice MARSHALL joins, dissenting.
Every week for two months, and at least once more a month later, the Laguna Beach police clawed through the trash that respondent Greenwood left in opaque sealed bags on the curb outside his home. Record 113. Complete strangers minutely scrutinized their bounty, undoubtedly dredging up intimate details of Greenwood's private life and habits. The intrusions proceeded without a warrant, and no court before or since has concluded that the police acted on probable cause to believe Greenwood was engaged in any criminal activity.
Scrutiny of another's trash is contrary to commonly accepted notions of civilized behavior. I suspect, therefore, that members of our society will be shocked to learn that the 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.
I
"A container which can support a reasonable expectation of privacy may not be searched, even on probable cause, without a warrant." United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 120, n. 17, [Other citations omitted.] (1984). Thus, as the Court observes, if Greenwood had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the bags that he placed on the curb would remain private, the warrantless search of those bags violated the Fourth Amendment.
Our precedent, therefore, leaves no room to doubt that had respondents been carrying their personal effects in opaque, sealed plastic bags - identical to the ones they placed on the curb - their privacy would have been protected from warrantless police intrusion. So far as Fourth Amendment protection is concerned, opaque plastic bags are every bit as worthy as "packages wrapped in green opaque plastic" and "double-locked footlocker[s]." Cf. Robbins, supra, 453 U.S., at 441, 101 S.Ct., at 2854 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting) (objecting to Court's discovery of reasonable expectation of privacy in contents of "two plastic garbage bags").
Respondents deserve no less protection just because Greenwood used the bags to discard rather than to transport his personal effects. Their contents are not inherently any less private, and Greenwood's decision to discard them, at least in the manner in which he did, does not diminish his expectation of privacy.
I dissent.
Notes
1. The majority in Greenwood believed that placing one's refuse for collection indicates that no expectation of privacy remains in the contents. Would minute details of one's life be discernible in garbage? Would some individuals protest if their neighbors began to inspect the contents of their refuse? Greenwood effectively reaffirms the principle that one retains no expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment in abandoned property.
2. The case of People v. Krivda, 5 Cal.3d 357, 486 P.2d 1262 (1971), mentioned in the majority opinion, recognized an expectation of privacy in the contents of trash in California. At the time Mr. Greenwood placed his refuse at the front of hip property, is it possible that he possessed a legitimate expectation of privacy based on California case law?
3. As mentioned above, as a general rule, no one has a Fourth Amendment expectation in abandoned property. See Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57 (1924). Police may seize and search such property without either probable cause or a warrant so long as they have not illegally caused the individual to abandon the property. If police have unlawfully created the situation where the person throws the property away, the seized evidence has a good chance of being ruled inadmissible in court.
Open Fields Doctrine: A Diminished Expectation of Privacy
UNITED STATES v. DUNN, Supreme Court of the United States (1987), 480 U.S. 294, 107 S.Ct. 1134
FACTS:
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) discovered that respondent Dunn and a codefendant appeared to be in the process of manufacturing amphetamine and phenyl acetone in a barn on Dunn's property. In order to ascertain the truth and to develop probable cause for a search warrant, DEA agents entered respondent's 198 acre ranch. The agents crossed a perimeter fence and an interior fence where they were able to detect an odor of phenylacetic acid emanating from the barn. The officers proceeded to the larger barn, which required that they cross a barbed wire fence and a wooden fence.
When in front of one of the barn's entrances, the officers peered inside the barn and observed what seemed to be a phenyl acetone laboratory. The officers returned twice more, but never entered the barn prior to executing a search warrant issued on the basis of their observations. An additional source of probable cause, on which the judge who issued the search warrant relied, arose from two locating beepers originally legally installed in cans of the precursor chemicals which ended up at the ranch.
Although the District Court refused to suppress the evidence seized pursuant to the search warrant, the Court of Appeals concluded that the warrant had been based on the agents' illegal entry on the respondent's property. Following a variety of appellate maneuvers, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the issue of whether respondent had an expectation of privacy in fields outside the curtilage of his ranch home. [At common law the curtilage included the area around a dwelling house which might reasonably be fenced.]
PROCEDURAL QUESTION:
Where a barn and other out buildings are located in a field beyond the curtilage of a home, does the occupier of the land have an expectation of privacy in those fields absent an effort to prevent observation of the fields?
HELD: No.
RATIONALE:
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court.
II
The curtilage concept originated at common law to extend to the area immediately surrounding a dwelling house the same protection under the law of burglary as was afforded the house itself. The concept plays a part, however, in interpreting the reach of the Fourth Amendment. Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 59 (1924), held that the Fourth Amendment's protection accorded "persons, houses, papers and effects" did not extend to the open fields, the Court observing that the distinction between a person's house and open fields "is as old as the common law. 4 Bl. Comm. 223, 225, 226."
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Drawing upon the Court's own cases and the cumulative experience of the lower courts that have grappled with the task of defining the extent of a home's curtilage, we believe that curtilage 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. See California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. , (1986) (POWELL, J., Dissenting) (Citing Care v. United States, 231 F.2d 22, 25 (CA10), cert. denied, 351 U.S. 932 (1956); United States v. Van Dyke, 643 F.2d 992, 993-994 (CA4 1981)).
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First. The record discloses that the barn was located 50 yards from the fence surrounding the house, and 60 yards from the house itself. 766 F. 2d, at 882-883; 782 F. 2d, at 1228. Standing in isolation, this substantial distance supports no inference that the barn should be treated as an adjunct of the house.
Second. It is also significant that respondent's barn did not lie within the area surrounding the house that was enclosed by a fence. We noted in Oliver, supra, that "for most homes, the boundaries of the curtilage will be clearly marked; and the conception defining the curtilage--as the area around the home to which the activity of home life extends--is a familiar one easily understood from our daily experience." 466 U.S., at 182, n. 12. Viewing the physical layout of respondent's ranch in its entirety, see 782 F.2d, at 1228, it is plain that the fence surrounding the residence serves to demark a specific area of land immediately adjacent to the house that is readily identifiable as part and parcel of the house. Conversely, the barn--the front portion itself enclosed by a fence--and the area immediately surrounding it, stands out as a distinct portion of respondent's ranch, quite separate from the residence.
Third. It is especially significant that the law enforcement officials possessed objective data indicating that the barn was not being used for intimate activities of the home. The aerial photographs showed that the truck Carpenter had been driving that contained the container of phenylacetic acid was backed up to the barn, "apparently," in the words of the Court of Appeals, "for the unloading of its contents." 674 F. 2d, at 1096. When on respondent's property, the officers' suspicion was further directed toward the barn because of "a very strong odor" of phenylacetic acid. App. 165. As the DEA agent approached the barn, he "could hear a motor running, like a pump motor of some sort . . . ." Id., at 17. Furthermore, the officers detected an "extremely strong" odor of phenylacetic acid coming from a small crack in the wall of the barn. Ibid. Finally, as the officers were standing in front of the barn, immediately prior to looking into its interior through the netting material, "the smell was very, very strong . . . [and the officers] could hear the motor running very loudly." Id., at 18. When considered together, the above facts indicated to the officers that the use to which the barn was being put could not fairly be characterized as so associated with the activities and privacies of domestic life that the officers should have deemed the barn as part of respondent's home.
Fourth. Respondent did little to protect the barn area from observation by those standing in the open fields. Nothing in the record suggests that the various interior fences on respondent's property had any function other than that of the typical ranch fence; the fences were designed and constructed to corral livestock, not to prevent persons from observing what lay inside the enclosed areas.
III
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Oliver reaffirmed the precept, established in Hester, that an open field is neither a "house" nor and "effect," and, therefore, "the government's intrusion upon the open fields is not one of the 'unreasonable searches' proscribed by the text of the Fourth Amendment." 466 U.S., at 177. The Court expressly rejected the argument that the erection of fences on an open field--at least of the variety involved in those cases and in the present case--creates a constitutionally protected privacy interest. Id., at 182-193. "[T]he term 'open fields' may include any unoccupied or undeveloped area outside of the curtilage. An open field need be neither 'open' nor a 'field' as those terms are used in common speech."
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Under Oliver and Hester, there is no constitutional difference between police observations conducted while in a public place and while standing in the open fields.
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The officers lawfully viewed the interior of respondent's barn, and their observations were properly considered by the magistrate in issuing a search warrant for respondent's premises. Accordingly, the judgement of the court of Appeals is reversed.
Notes
1. The "open fields" doctrine followed in Dunn originated in Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57 (1924), which held that government agents who trespass over open fields do not violate the restrictions of the Fourth Amendment and need no search warrant to search or enter open areas. Open fields include fenced areas unless extreme measures have been taken by the occupier of the land. The Supreme Court reaffirmed Hester in Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170 (1984), by declaring that open fields are not within the coverage of the Fourth Amendment because fields are not persons, houses, papers, and effects.
2. The Dunn case illustrates the principle that where there is no expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment, the concept of probable cause and the necessity of obtaining a search warrant do not apply. However, the usual rules apply to searching a building within the confines of an open field.
Searches Without Probable Cause
SKINNER v. RAILWAY LABOR EXECUTIVES' ASSOCIATION, Supreme Court of the United States (1989) 489 U.S. 602, 109 S.Ct. 1402
FACTS:
The Federal Railroad Safety Act of 1970 permits the Secretary of Transportation to prescribe the necessary safety rules and regulations for all areas of railroad safety. Since the Secretary made a finding that alcohol and drug abuse by railway employees posed a threat to railway safety, the Secretary instituted regulations which permitted blood and urine tests for employees who are on the job when certain railway accidents occur. In addition, the Federal Railroad Administration [FRA] adopted regulations which would allow railroad companies to administer breath and urine tests to employees who violate specified safety rules. These blood, urine, and breath tests were to be administered without any individualized showing or suspicion of alcohol or drug impairment. Essentially, probable cause for the tests were not a requirement.
In the case at bar, the specific portions of the regulations required toxicological testing of blood and urine following every "major train accident" and after all "impact accidents" involving a reportable human injury. The railroad must provide transportation for all involved crew members to an independent medical facility. The results of the tests must be given to the employees involved and an employee who refuses to take the tests may not perform specific regulated work for nine months.
The respondents, the Railway Labor Executive's Association and several labor unions brought suit to enjoin the Federal Railroad Administration's regulation on Fourth Amendment (and other) grounds.
The federal district court granted summary judgment on behalf of the petitioner railroad employee organizations, but the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court. The theory behind the reversal of the district court concerned the exigencies of accident situations which required swift testing without the requirement of a warrant. In addition, the Court of Appeals held that "accommodation of railroad employees' privacy interest with the significant safety concerns of the government does not require adherence to a probable cause requirement." The Court of Appeals did require that the government have particularized suspicion prior to testing any railroad employee.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether the regulations invalidated by the Court of Appeals violate privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment.
PROCEDURAL QUESTION:
Where governmental regulations require testing of certain employee body fluids and breath without either probable cause or particularized suspicion in an industry where impairment by drugs may have catastrophic consequences, does such a search violate the Fourth Amendment?
HELD: No.
RATIONALE:
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.
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We granted the Government's petition for a writ of certiorari, 486 U.S. , 108 S.Ct. 2033, 100 L.Ed.2d 618 (1988), to consider whether the regulations invalidated by the Court of Appeals violate the Fourth Amendment. We now reverse.
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Our precedents teach that where, as here, the Government seeks to obtain physical evidence from a person, the Fourth Amendment may be relevant at several levels. See, e.g. United States v. Dionisio, 410 U.S. 1, 8, 93 S.Ct. 764, 768, 35 L.Ed.2d 67 (1973). The initial detention necessary to procure the evidence may be a seizure of the person, Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U.S. 291, 294-295, 93 S.Ct. 2000, 2003, 36 L.Ed.2d 900 (1973); Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 726-727, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 1397, 22 L.Ed.2d 676 (1969), if the detention amounts to a meaningful interference with his freedom of movement. INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 215, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 1762, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984).
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We have long recognized that a "compelled intrusio[n] into the body for blood to be analyzed for alcohol content" must be deemed a Fourth Amendment search. See Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 767-768, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1833-1834, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966).
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Unlike the blood-testing procedure at issue in Schmerber, the procedures prescribed by the FRA regulations for collecting and testing urine samples do not entail a surgical intrusion into the body. It is not disputed, however, that chemical analysis of urine, like that of blood, can reveal a host of private medical facts about an employee, including whether she is epileptic, pregnant, or diabetic. Nor can it be disputed that the process of collecting the sample to be tested, which may in some cases involve visual or aural monitoring of the act of urination, itself implicates privacy interests.
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To hold that the Fourth Amendment is applicable to the drug and alcohol testing prescribed by the FRA regulations is only to begin the inquiry into the standards governing such intrusions.
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The Government's interest in regulating the conduct of railroad employees to ensure safety, like its supervision of probationers or regulated industries, or its operation of a government office, school, or prison, "likewise presents `special needs' beyond normal law enforcement that may justify departures from the usual warrant and probable-cause requirements." Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S., at , 107 S.Ct., at 3168.
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An essential purpose of a warrant requirement is to protect privacy interests by assuring citizens subject to a search or seizure that such intrusions are not the random or arbitrary acts of government agents. A warrant assures the citizen that the intrusion is authorized by law, and that it is narrowly limited in its objectives and scope. [citations omitted.] A warrant also provides the detached scrutiny of a neutral magistrate, and thus ensures an objective determination whether an intrusion is justified in any given case. See United States v. Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S., at 9, 97 S.Ct., at 2482. In the present context, however, a warrant would do little to further these aims. Both the circumstances justifying toxicological testing and the permissible limits of such intrusions are defined narrowly and specifically in the regulations that authorize them, and doubtless are well known to covered employees.
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By and large, intrusions on privacy under the FRA regulations are limited. To the extent transportation and like restrictions are necessary to procure the requisite blood, breath, and urine samples for testing, this interference alone is minimal given the employment context in which it takes place.
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The breath tests authorized by Subpart D of the regulations are even less intrusive than the blood tests prescribed by Subpart C. Unlike blood tests, breath tests do not require piercing the skin and may be conducted safely outside a hospital environment and with a minimum of inconvenience or embarrassment. Further, breath tests reveal the level of alcohol in the employee's bloodstream and nothing more.
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A more difficult question is presented by urine tests. Like breath tests, urine tests are not invasive of the body and, under the regulations, may not be used as an occasion for inquiring into private facts unrelated to alcohol or drug use. We recognize, however, that the procedures for collecting the necessary samples, which require employees to perform an excretory function traditionally shielded by great privacy, raise concerns not implicated by blood or breath tests. While we would not characterize these additional privacy concerns as minimal in most contexts, we note that the regulations endeavor to reduce the intrusiveness of the collection process. The regulations do not require that samples be furnished under the direct observation of a monitor, despite the desirability of such a procedure to ensure the integrity of the sample.
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We do not suggest, of course, that the interest in bodily security enjoyed by those employed in a regulated industry must always be considered minimal. Here, however, the covered employees have long been a principal focus of regulatory concern. As the dissenting judge below noted, "[t]he reason is obvious. An idle locomotive, sitting in the roundhouse, is harmless. It becomes lethal when operated negligently by persons who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs." 839 F.2d, at 593. Through some of the privacy interests implicated by the toxicological testing at issue reasonably might be viewed as significant in other contexts, logic and history show that a diminished expectation of privacy attaches to information relating to the physical condition of covered employees and to this reasonable means of procuring such information. We conclude, therefore, that the testing procedures contemplated by Subparts C and D pose only limited threats to the justifiable expectations of privacy of covered employees. By contrast, the government interest in testing without a showing of individualized suspicion is compelling. Employees subject to the tests discharge duties fraught with such risks of injury to others that even a momentary lapse of attention can have disastrous consequences.
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We conclude that the compelling government interests served by the FRA's regulations would be significantly hindered if railroads were required to point to specific facts giving rise to a reasonable suspicion of impairment before testing a given employee. In view of our conclusion that, on the present record, the toxicological testing contemplated by the regulations is not an undue infringement on the justifiable expectations of privacy of covered employees, the Government's compelling interests outweigh privacy concerns.
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Alcohol and drug tests conducted in reliance on the authority of Subpart D cannot be viewed as private action outside the reach of the Fourth Amendment. Because the testing procedures mandated or authorized by Subparts C and D effect searches of the person, they must meet the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement. In light of the limited discretion exercised by the railroad employers under the regulations, the surpassing safety interests served by toxicological tests in this context, and the diminished expectation of privacy that attaches to information pertaining to the fitness of covered employees, we believe that it is reasonable to conduct such tests in the absence of a warrant or reasonable suspicion that any particular employee may be impaired. We hold that the alcohol and drug tests contemplated by Subparts C and D of the FRA's regulations are reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly reversed.
Notes
1. The Court seems to be saying that because the testing rules were promulgated, that fact alone reduces the expectation of privacy that an employee would otherwise have possessed. Would a rule allowing business searches on less than probable cause be justified merely because the rule had been promulgated? Why or why not?
2. The Court balances the compelling interest of the government in drug testing without probable cause or individualized suspicion against the Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy. Does the text of the Fourth Amendment suggest a balancing of interests? Could balancing of interests be covered by the contention that such drug tests are merely "reasonable" searches under the Fourth Amendment?