CL case is basis for Supreme Court ruling

by Marianne Gasaway

The Iowa Supreme Court issued a ruling last week banning police from searching people’s uncollected trash without a warrant.  The decision came as the result of a Clear Lake case in which a police officer searched trash left for collection by a person suspected of dealing drugs.

On a 4-3 vote, the court ruled that officers commit unreasonable search and seizure under the Iowa Constitution when they look for evidence of crimes in trash left for collection outside homes.  The ruling overturned Iowa courts’ long adherence to a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the search of garbage outside one’s home.

“We do not question the utility of warrantless trash grabs for the purposes of law enforcement, but the utility of warrantless activity is not the issue under our constitution,” wrote Justice Christopher McDonald in the majority opinion.

State of Iowa vs. Nicholas Dean Wright was submitted to the court Sept. 17, 2020 and the decision was filed June 18, 2021.

The suit maintained that because the City of Clear Lake limits who may access and collect solid waste to contracted collectors, Wright was subjected to illegal searches and seizure by Police Officer Brandon Heinz, who on three occasions went into the alley behind Wright’s residence to take his garbage bags and search through them to “obtain information about what Mr. Wright may have been doing inside (his) house.”  More specifically, Heinz was “looking for anything related to drug activity,” court documents state.  Heinz was acting upon information provided by Deputy Tammy Cavett.

The first instance of going through

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Wright’s papers and effects occurred on Sept. 11, 2017.  Heinz  testified he “searched through the contents for narcotics and related contraband.”

After receiving test results from the Division of Criminal Investigation, Heinz again took garbage bags from the alley behind Wright’s home on the nights of Nov. 6 and 20 and returned to the police station to search through them.  Heinz then applied for and was granted a search warrant.  Probably cause for the warrant was predicated on the evidence obtained from the warrantless seizure and search of Wright’s trash bags.  The police executed the warrant at Wright’s residence on Nov. 21 and discovered a baggie containing two grams of marijuana and several capsules of Vyvanse, a prescription drug for which Wright had no prescription.   The State charged Wright with three counts of unlawful possession of drugs.

Wright was convicted of misdemeanors and sentenced to two days in jail.

With the ruling, Iowa joins a small number of other states that have limited trash searches by holding that their state constitutions provide greater protections than the U.S. Constitution against warrantless searches. They include Oregon, New Hampshire, Vermont, Washington, New Mexico and New Jersey.  

Dissenting justices, including Chief Justice Susan Christensen, warned that the decision was out of step with the vast majority of states and outlawed a tactic used to gather evidence of drug manufacturing and dealing. They said people have no expectations of privacy when they put their trash on the curb.

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