Court Rules Warrantless Trash Searches Legal in Arkansas Drug Case

As the saying goes, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.  That’s what viewers often see on PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow.”  The same can be true in a much different setting.  What someone casually discards as worthless or insignificant, law enforcement may prize as proof of a crime. 

Back in January 2018, Arkansas and federal authorities believed that Cameron Bryant was involved in a drug-trafficking conspiracy. Officers followed one of his suspected co-conspirators to 3 Treasure Hill Circle in Little Rock after they observed that individual sell methamphetamine to a confidential source.  Officers determined that Bryant and another member of the suspected conspiracy, Sparkle Hobbs a/k/a Sparkle Bryant, resided there.

Several weeks later, officers collected four trash bags from the trash bin in front of the Treasure Hill address. They recovered a vacuum-sealed bag containing a white, crystalline substance that field-tested positive for methamphetamine.  In addition, they found an empty vacuum-seal bag, a green, leafy substance, mail addressed to 3 Treasure Hill Circle and an empty box of ammunition.

After the trash pull, officers spoke with their confidential source who set up a methamphetamine purchase with a suspected co-conspirator believed to be supplied by Bryant, the same co-conspirator they had previously seen at the Treasure Hill address. Surveillance corroborated this impression: officers witnessed Bryant and the co-conspirator leave the Treasure Hill address together; Bryant followed the co-conspirator to a location where the co-conspirator sold drugs to the confidential source; and the co-conspirator then got into Bryant's car immediately after the sale.

With this information, the officers obtained a warrant to search the Treasure Hill address. When officers entered the home, Ms. Hobbs stated no one else was present, but an officer conducting a safety sweep found Bryant, her husband, under a bed that had a gun lying on it.  After arresting Bryant and Hobbs, the officers completed their search of the residence and seized drugs and drug paraphernalia. In March, Bryant and Hobbs were indicted on federal drug charges. Though initially detained, Bryant was released in April 2019 pending trial.

Sometime later, authorities began to suspect that Bryant was dealing drugs while on pretrial release. In July 2020, federal agents observed him leave his then-residence at 17 Connolly Court in Little Rock, and drive to a Dollar General store. After agents twice witnessed Bryant sell drugs, they tried to arrest him. He attempted to escape but was later caught. Officers secured search warrants for the Connolly Court address, as well as for Bryant's cell phones and car. Agents found about one ounce of fentanyl and $5,712.00 in cash at the house and more fentanyl and $8,165.00 in cash in the car. The search of Bryant's cell phones revealed numerous text messages evidencing his drug distribution.

A grand jury eventually returned a superseding indictment charging Bryant with seven counts related to his drug possession and distribution. He filed motions to suppress five categories of evidence: (1) items obtained from the warrantless trash pull; (2) items obtained from the subsequent search of the Treasure Hill address; (3) information obtained from the search of his cell phones; (4) items obtained from the search of the Connolly Court address; and (5) items obtained from the search of his car.   A motion to suppress is a request by a criminal defendant to exclude evidence from trial based on constitutional or other legal rights.

After U.S. District Judge Kristine G. Baker denied the motions, Bryant then entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in exchange for the dismissal of the remaining charges. His plea agreement allowed him to appeal the denial of his motions to suppress, and so he did.  

A three-judge appellate panel was unpersuaded by his argument that the evidence from each of the four warrant-authorized searches should be suppressed.  The panel focused on his argument that the district court wrongly allowed the evidence obtained by officers from the warrantless trash pull.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ensures the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." Even the most casual watcher of police procedural TV shows knows that governmental authorities must obtain a warrant prior to a search.  Searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumed to be unreasonable. A judge can issue a warrant only when "probable cause” exists as shown by statements law enforcement officers submit under oath.  A warrant must identify the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

To determine whether probable cause exists, the issuing judge must make a common-sense decision based on the circumstances set forth in the affidavit as to whether it is likely that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.  Reviewing courts generally defer to that determination.  But even when a warrant was issued without probable cause, disputed evidence will nonetheless be admitted if it was objectively reasonable for the officer executing a search warrant to have relied in good faith on the judge's determination that there was probable cause to issue the warrant.

In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court held that searching someone’s garbage without a warrant is unconstitutional only if he has an expectation of privacy in his garbage that society accepts as objectively reasonable.  California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35.  Following that decision, a solid majority of federal and state courts have consistently ruled that no reasonable expectation of privacy exists with respect to trash left for collection in an area accessible to the public such as a street curb.  Traditionally, the law does protect a garbage can or bag that is situated “within the curtilage” of one’s home. The curtilage is the immediate land and buildings surrounding the house, making the trash safe from warrantless police searches when, for example, it is in a garage, on the porch, or in the yard. 

 When trash collectors arrive and lift a trash container from the curb, they are free to rummage through it if they desire.  And if the trash collector can search through your trash, so can the police.  In fact, police officers now and then ask collection crews to hold off dumping a trash bag or the contents of a can into a truck until they can examine what the bag or can contains.  The minority of courts holding that police officers may not search a garbage container, even at curbside, typically cite a state constitutional provision or other state law protecting an individual’s interest in the privacy of their garbage, superseding what the Fourth Amendment might allow.

Supporting the warrant application for the Treasure Hill address, an officer swore that law enforcement "collected four white trash bags from the trash receptacle at #3 Treasure Hill Circle in Little Rock." According to the affidavit, "[t]he receptacle was located at the end of the driveway near the street waiting for pickup."  

Bryant complained that the affidavit was defective for not "objectively describing the distance between the location of the garbage and [Bryant's] house, . . . [or] whether there w[ere] any 'no trespass' signs near the end of the driveway," for not explaining whether "the garbage was found and pulled on a regularly-scheduled collection day," and for not providing any other details.

“[T]he absence of these details does not call into doubt that the trash was ‘readily accessible to the public,’” said the appellate panel. “Our cases establish that no reasonable expectation of privacy exists under the circumstances that are described in the warrant affidavit. Thus, the denial of the motion to suppress the trash pull evidence was proper.”

United States v. Bryant, No. 23-3254, 8th Cir., July 31, 2024.

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Postscript:  No plea agreement for Sparkle Hobbs.  In a separate trial, a federal jury convicted her on a drug conspiracy count, several counts of possession with intent to distribute, one count of possessing a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, and one count of misprision of a felony.  On appeal, she was unsuccessful in challenging the district court’s admission of evidence against her and the sufficiency of the evidence to support her convictions.