COURT WEIGHS RIGHT TO SEARCH TRASH

Woman Claims Police Violated Her Fourth Amendment Right After Going Through
Her Trash

BALTIMORE (AP) — The State Court of Appeals is considering whether
police have the right to search garbage without a warrant.

A Cambridge woman claims police violated her Fourth Amendment
protection against unreasonable search and seizure when they found
cocaine residue in her household trash and used that evidence to
obtain a search warrant.

In oral arguments Friday, Stephen Z. Meehan, attorney for Donna L.
Sampson, said police seized Sampson's garbage from private property
without the consent of a trash collector. That means that police were
not operating under the umbrella of a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court ruling
that gives police the right to seize trash.

The Supreme Court concluded that anyone who puts trash on a public
curb forfeits a privacy claim to it, and that police seizure of it
from a trash collector does not constitute an unreasonable search.

Sampson's attorneys wrote that the area around her house is a zone of
privacy, meaning that police would need a warrant to enter the area.

Gary E. Bair, chief of criminal appeals for the Maryland attorney
general's office, countered that if trash is set out for the purpose
of being collected, the owner has forfeited ownership, no matter the
precise location of the garbage.

The Court of Appeals judges asked Friday how far police officers
should tread onto private property to retrieve garbage, questioning if
trash in cans by the side of a house would be considered accessible to
the public.

Cambridge police seized Sampson's garbage on six occasions in October
and November 1997.

Sampson was convicted of possession of crack cocaine and sentenced to
eight years in prison. She appealed, and a three-judge panel of the
Court of Special Appeals threw out the conviction, saying search and
seizure of Sampson's trash violated the Fourth Amendment.