Spring Term, 2015
Supreme Court of the United States
CALIFORNIA
Petitioner
V.
GREENWOOD
Respondent
Filed By:
Karly Simpson and Judith Pickering
Counsel for the Respondent
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WORD COUNT: 1440
Facts: On April 6, 1984, after receiving information that respondent Greenwood might be
engaged in narcotics trafficking, the police obtained from his regular trash collector the garbage
bags left on the curb in front of his house. Based on items found from this warrantless search and
seizure, police obtained warrants to search the house, where they discovered controlled
substances. Respondent was arrested on felony narcotics charges. After posting bail, the police
again obtained Greenwood’s trash with help from the regular trash collector. Again, evidence of
narcotics use was found. A warrant was issued for a search of the house. Without the evidence
found during the search of Greenwood’s trash, the police would not have had the probable cause
needed to search the house.
Law: Fourth Amendment
Legal Question: After placing a sealed opaque garbage bag containing intimate details on the
curb for mandated trash collection, did Greenwood have a reasonable expectation of privacy that
the police is prohibited from rummaging through his trash without a warrant under the Fourth
Amendment?
Standard: Katz Test:
1. A person must have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy.
2. That expectation must be one that society is prepared to recognize as “reasonable.”
Reasoning:
1. The Fourth Amendment is designed to protect the “sanctity of a man’s home and
the privacies of life” from governmental intrusion.
 The makers of our constitution recognized the significance of a man’s spiritual nature and
intellect. We agree with Brandeis when in Olmstead v. United States he said that the right
to be let alone is the most comprehensive of rights and is the right most valued by
civilized men. In order to protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the
government upon the privacy if the individual, whatever the means employed, must be
deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment protects people,
not just property.
 To permit a police officer to rummage through one’s trash merely upon his request,
without any judicial control, and then use that evidence against the individual in court is
to lack judicial process and control, undermine the purpose of the Fourth Amendment,
and thereby open the door to a vast and unlimited range of very real abuses of police
power.
 According to purpose of the Fourth Amendment, United States v. White (1971), United
States v. Miller (1976), and Smith v. Maryland (1979) were wrongly decided because
they presented a false picture of reality. In handing over information to a third party,
these individuals did not relinquish all expectations of privacy for their property. Whether
property is intellectual or physical, there was a distinct purpose and relationship that
allowed for third party involvement to be entrusted with said information.
 Marshall’s dissent in Smith v. Maryland says, “It is idle to speak of “assuming” risks in
contexts where, as a practical matter, individuals have no realistic alternative.” Those
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who use a phone, a bank, and a trash system do not assume the risk because in order to
function in society, individuals must and are often required to utilize these services.
Privacy is not all or nothing; privacy does not equal secrecy. One can reveal private
information to third parties, like a bank, a phone company, or a trash company for a
limited purpose, maintain the information’s inherent privacy, and expect confidentiality
between the two parties be maintained.
If the Court is to hold that the warrantless search of Greenwood’s holding that the
warrantless search of Greenwood’s trash was consistent with the Fourth Amendment, a
grim picture of our society will be painted.
In knowing that almost every human activity ultimately manifests itself in waste
products, we argue that Greenwood’s trash deserves protection from the Fourth
Amendment.
2. Greenwood exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy.
 Greenwood and other residents of Orange County cannot avoid placing trash on the curb
for disposable. Willing abandonment did not take place; the use of a trash system is
mandated. The Orange County Code commands that “[he] must "remov[e] from the
premises at least once each week" all "solid waste created, produced or accumulated in or
about [his] dwelling house.”
 Greenwood relinquished possession of his trash for a limited purpose, as mandated, over
to the third party trash company upon the reasonable expectation that it would be used
only for the limited purpose (disposal) and that the confidence placed in a third party will
not be betrayed.
 Just because Greenwood relinquished the trash for the limited purpose of its disposal
does not mean that the government can search it without a warrant.
 Even if the trash service was not mandated and more voluntary, Greenwood still does not
relinquish his privacy expectation in it.
 Opposing counsel argues that police cannot be expected to avert their eyes from what a
person knowingly exposes to the public. However, Greenwood’s trash was not strewn all
over the curb for all to see. His personal contents were not in plain view of the public. All
that was exposed to the public were the exteriors of several opaque, sealed containers.
 Robbins v. California (1981) held that “unless the container is such that its contents may
be said to be in plain view, those contents are fully protected by the Fourth Amendment.”
 “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 (1984).
 It was also determined in Robbins v. California (1981) that a constitutional distinction
between ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ containers would be improper and a distinction
between “paper bags, locked trunks, lunch buckets, and orange crates” would be
inconsistent with “the central purpose of the Fourth Amendment…[A] traveler who
carries his [few possessions]... in a knotted scarf may claim an equal right to conceal his
possessions from official inspection as the sophisticated executive with the locked attache
case.”
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3. Society recognizes Greenwood’s expectation of privacy as reasonable.
 Many municipalities “prohibit anyone, except authorized employees of the Town… to
rummage into, pick up, collect, move or otherwise interfere with articles or materials
placed on...any public street for collection.”
 All residents of Orange County are required to dispose of their trash in the same way
Greenwood did, under the regulations of the mandated trash service system. All residents
share Greenwood’s confidence in the third party trash collectors whose purpose is to
dispose of the trash, not to allow the government to rummage through it.
 Any resident using bags to discard rather than transport his/her personal effects does not
make the contents in the bag inherently any less private, and thus does not diminish
his/her expectation of privacy.
 The contents of trash are vastly more revealing than the limited content of phone and
bank records in cases like Smith v. Maryland (1979) and United States v. Miller (1976).
Like rifling through desk drawers or intercepting phone calls, rummaging through trash
can divulge the target’s financial and professional status, political affiliations and
inclinations, private thoughts, personal relationships, and romantic interests.
 It cannot be doubted that a sealed trash bag harbors telling evidence of the “intimate
activity associated with the ‘sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life,” which
the Fourth Amendment is designed to protect. Oliver v. United States (1984) quoting
Boyd v. United States (1886))
 When a tabloid reporter examined then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's trash and
published his findings, the public response condemning the reporter demonstrates that
society not only recognized those reactions as reasonable, but shared them as well.
Commentators variously characterized his conduct as "a disgusting invasion of personal
privacy," Flieger, Investigative Trash, U.S. News & World Report, July 28, 1975, p. 72
(editor's page); "indefensible . . . as civilized behavior," Washington Post, July 10, 1975,
p. A18, col. 1 (editorial); and contrary to "the way decent people behave in relation to
each other," ibid.
 The holding in People v. Krivda (1971) reinforces that residents in California have a
reasonable expectation that garbage is to be protected and that warrantless trash searches
violate the Fourth Amendment.
 Finally, the mere possibility that unwelcome meddlers might open and rummage through
the containers does not negate the expectation of privacy in their contents any more than
the possibility of a burglary negates an expectation of privacy in the home; or the
possibility of a private intrusion negates an expectation of privacy in an unopened
package; or the possibility that an operator will listen in on a telephone conversation
negates an expectation of privacy in the words spoken on the telephone.
 "What a person . . . seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public,
may be constitutionally protected." Katz v. United States (1967)
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