Officers Delighted That Court Trashed Garbage Ruling

The smell was foul and the work pure drudgery, but the science of garbology--systematically searching someone’s garbage--was a useful investigative tool to gather evidence against suspected drug traffickers, Laguna Beach Police Officer Jenny L. Jones recalled Monday.

Jones was one of two Laguna police officers who, in April and May, 1984, donned rubber gloves and sifted through trash from the Fayette Place home ofr Billy E. Greenwood, suspected of being a drug dealer.

After finding narcotics paraphernalia--razor blades, straws and empty packets--covered with a white powdery substance that turned out to be cocaine, Jones and investigator Robert Rahaeuser obtained a search warrant and arrested Greenwood, 44, and Dyanne Van Houten, 29, on suspicion of possessing cocaine for sale.

California courts threw out the charges, however, ruling that police were not allowed to search curbside garbage without a warrant and that Greenwood and Van Houten’s privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment had been violated.

On Monday, Jones was delighted to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the California decision. In its 6-2 ruling, the high court ruled that Americans’ right to privacy does not extend to garbage once it’s put out for collection.

“I’m really, really happy about the court decision,” the 33-year-old police officer said. For now, she said, the Supreme Court has ruled that searching garbage is “just another tool” that police officers may use in a criminal case.

Neither Greenwood, Van Houten nor their attorneys could be reached for comment Monday.

Michael J. Pear, the Orange County deputy district attorney who prosecuted the original case, said that in light of Monday’s ruling, his office will file new narcotics possession charges against the two defendants.

Although police searches of garbage without a warrant now are permissible, Pear said he believed garbage searches would continue to be an unusual police tactic.

“Number one, looking through garbage isn’t something people do because it’s fun to do,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a realistic fear that police are now going to launch in and go looking through your garbage.”

Rather, Pear said, “in some cases, when there’s no other lead--a drug trafficking or bookmaking case--there may be other information” that is available only through a search of a suspect’s garbage.

The Laguna Beach case began when local police received a tip from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) that Greenwood was suspected of “very large scale” trafficking in narcotics, including sales of 1,000 pounds of “Thai weed,” a potent marijuana from Thailand, Officer Jones recalled.

Jones and investigator Rahaeuser spent two months watching Greenwood’s two-story Spanish-style house and noted an unusual amount of foot and vehicular traffic.

The activity appeared to indicate narcotics sales were taking place, but “we didn’t have enough evidence to secure a search warrant,” Jones recalled. So they decided to check Greenwood’s garbage.

“We’d wait for him to put his trash out in the street,” she said. “We’d contact the trash man before he picked up to make sure the bin was completely empty.” And after the garbage was picked up by the trash collector, Jones and Rahaeuser would carry about three cans worth of garbage back to the police station. There they would don rubber gloves and spend two to three hours going through it.

“It’s not a pleasant thing. . . . It doesn’t smell very good,” she said.

But in the first search, on April 6, 1984, the officers struck pay dirt. Mixed with old food and other discarded items, they found marijuana packaging, sheets that apparently recorded drug sales, cocaine residue on razors and straws, as well as a 50-pound Ohaus scale. A second search on May 4, 1984, yielded similar evidence, Jones said.

But Orange County Superior Court Judge David Carter dismissed the drug charges filed against Greenwood and Van Houten on grounds that the garbage cannot be searched without a warrant. In June, 1986, the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana upheld Carter’s ruling, citing a 1971 state Supreme Court decision that residents’ right to privacy extends to their trash cans.

That ruling was complicated, however, by Proposition 8, a 1982 initiative known as the Victims’ Bill of Rights, which allowed trial use of evidence gained in unlawful police searches--unless that use violates federal restrictions.

In arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court this January, Greenwood’s attorney, Michael Garey of Santa Ana, argued that “an opaque garbage bag reveals much about life styles, contains many secrets.” But Deputy Dist. Atty. Pear countered that “there is no expectation of privacy” when garbage is set out on the street.

Pear said he was pleased with the high court ruling and planned a private celebration Monday evening. He added jovially, “I imagine I shall celebrate--but leaving no trace in my garbage.”