Police departments and other law enforcement agencies may use a variety of tactics to enforce drug prohibition statutes. They may conduct sting operations using confidential informants or undercover agents.
They might stake out locations where they know drug transactions regularly happen and then arrest people in the act of selling or acquiring controlled substances. They might even conduct searches of private property looking for indications of drug distribution or production.
Typically, searches of private property require probable cause, permission or warrants. In a few scenarios, police officers may be able to justify warrantless searches without probable cause. Can they rifle through a person’s trash containers looking for evidence of drug manufacturing or trafficking?
There are standards for garbage searches
Believe it or not, the Supreme Court has previously ruled on a case related to a warrantless search of refuse bins. The ruling from that case plays a key role in determining whether the state can use evidence gathered from trash containers.
The current standard confuses some people. The law considers the contents of a garbage bin abandoned property once a person puts the bin out at the street for pickup. However, police officers generally cannot search bins that are still on private property and are not at the curb for pickup.
The bins on private property are part of the residence’s curtilage. That is a legal way of saying that it is an extension of the interior living spaces of the property. As such, there is established legal protection against warrantless searches.
People don’t have to worry about law enforcement professionals searching their bins while they are next to the garage, in the backyard or inside a fence. However, filled bins left out for collection are subject to searches. Items that people throw away while in police custody or at work are also vulnerable to collection by nearby police officers.
Being aware of how the state gathers evidence of alleged drug crimes can help people avoid scenarios in which they unintentionally implicate themselves. People hoping to fight pending drug charges often need to review how the state gathered its evidence, as well as the process used to analyze that evidence, with a skilled legal team, which is okay. Working with an attorney to exclude evidence obtained illegally can help a defendant fight their charges.
