It may sound odd, but police often search the contents of a suspect’s garbage in order to gather evidence against him.
Unsurprisingly, these searches–when conducted without a search warrant–are frequently challenged by criminal defense attorneys. They argue that rummaging through trash without the owner’s consent amounts to an unreasonable search under Article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights:
Every subject has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches, and seizures, of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions.
When police go through someone’s rubbish without permission and without a warrant, the key issue becomes “the degree to which the garbage at issue was exposed, or accessible, to the public.” See Commonwealth v. Krisco Corp., 421 Mass. 37 (1995).
According to the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) writing in Krisco Corp.,
It is well established that, in general, government agents may make a warrantless search of areas in which the public has free access, including areas in which trash or garbage is discarded.
Thus, if you leave your trash on the curb for removal by trash collectors, you have relinquished all expectations of privacy and the police can freely search its contents.
However, you do have an expectation of privacy when trash is closer to your dwelling (within the “curtilage”) and not accessible to the public. See the ridiculously-named case of U.S. v. Certain Real Property Located at 987 Fisher Rd., 719 F. Supp. 1396, 1404 (E.D. Mich. 1989).
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