<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><DIV>On Jun 1, 2005, at 3:37 PM, Linda Forlifer wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I've seen articles in the newspaper about the "authorities" (police,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">FBI, etc.) using things they found in trash in court cases.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>It was</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">determined by the courts that, once trash is put out for collection, it</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">no longer belongs to the individual.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>No one's privacy rights are</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">violated when trash is searched, as I understand it.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>Situations like this have been tested in a few state supreme courts.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>One case involved a man who was arrested after the trashman picked up the man's trash and noticed cocaine residue on or in the bags. The trashman called the police, who use that as a reason to get a warrant. The police searched the man's house and found a pound of cocaine.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>This act was contested all the way up to the North Carolina Supreme Court. The court ruled that police were okay to use the man's trash (and no warrant was needed to search it) because it had already been picked up by the man's trash hauler on a norm trash pickup day. The trash wasn't his property anymore and so no rights (trespass, unlawful search by police) were violated.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Now, had the police searched the man's trash BEFORE it was picked up by the trash man, then that would be a different story. The man's garbage would have still been the man's property, and the police would need a warrant or the man's permission to search it.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>/dale</DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"></FONT></BODY></HTML>