California v. Greenwood

The case I have chosen for my Legal Brief is California v. Greenwood. This case was argued January 11, 1988 and decided May 16, 1988. On the petitioner’s side was the State of California. On the respondent side was Billy Greenwood. Billy Greenwood was a suspected narcotics trafficker. Acting on this information, police obtained objects indicative of narcotic use from trash bags left out on Greenwood’s curb outside of his home. After these findings, police obtained warrants to search Greenwood’s home and discovered controlled substances cocaine and marijuana and arrested respondents on felony charges. Finding enough information to search Greenwood’s home would not have been possible had the police not searched through his garbage. The State Supreme Court dismissed Greenwood’s charges due to the fact that warrantless trash searches violate the Fourth Amendment and the California Constitution. However, on Federal levels, Greenwood lost his case due to the fact that no warrant is necessary to search through Greenwood’s trash, which was placed on a public street. "Also without merit is Greenwood's contention that the California constitutional amendment violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Just as this Court's Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule decisions have not required suppression where the benefits of deterring minor police misconduct were overbalanced by the societal costs of exclusion, California was not foreclosed by the Due Process Clause from concluding that the benefits of excluding relevant evidence of criminal activity do not outweigh the costs when the police conduct at issue does not violate federal law."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0486_0035_ZS.html
Also against Greenwood, website, http://law.jrank.org/pages/13057/California-v-Greenwood.html states, "Brennan summed up his dissent by stating:
'In holding that the warrantless search of Greenwood's trash was consistent with the Fourth Amendment, the Court paints a grim picture of our society . . . The American society with which I am familiar . . . is more dedicated to individual liberty and more sensitive to intrusions on the sanctity of the home than the Court is willing to acknowledge.'"
I chose to do my Legal Brief on California v. Greenwood because it is of great interest to me. I find cases involving the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution very interesting due to their sensitivity. Very little mistakes of unconstitutional search and seizure by the police can cause all charges of the respondent to be dropped.