California v. Greenwood

California v. Greenwood
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 11, 1988 Decided May 16, 1988
Full case name	California v. Billy Greenwood and Dyanne Van Houten
Citations	486 U.S. 35 (more) 108 S. Ct. 1625; 100 L. Ed. 2d 30; 56 U.S.L.W. 4409
Case history
Prior	Drug charges against defendants dismissed by California Superior Court (unpublished). Affirmed, California Court of Appeal, 182 Cal.App.3d 729 (1986). Cert. granted, 483 U.S. 1019 (1987).
Holding
The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of waste left for collection outside the curtilage of a home. California Court of Appeal reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Case opinions
Majority	White, joined by Rehnquist, Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia
Dissent	Brennan, joined by Marshall
Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. IV, XIV; Cal. Const., Art. I, § 28(d)

California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of a home.^[1]

This case has been widely cited as "trashing"^[2][3] the Fourth Amendment with critics stating "the decision fails to recognize any reasonable expectation of privacy in the telling items Americans throw away" and that those who wish to preserve the privacy of their trash must now "resort to other, more expensive, self-help measures such as an investment in a trash compactor or a paper shredder."