## Facts

- A confidential informant reported that Conrad and Sharon Hempele distributed drugs from their home and claimed to have seen a large quantity of marijuana in a bedroom.
- About six months later, a state trooper twice removed white plastic trash bags from a garbage can placed outside the Hempeles’ residence near the front stairs.
- The trooper transported the bags to a police facility and, without a warrant, opened and inspected the contents.
- The inspections revealed traces of marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine.
- Police relied on the informant’s tip and the trash-search results to obtain a warrant to search the home, where officers found drugs and paraphernalia.
- The trial court suppressed evidence derived from the trash searches and invalidated the resulting warrant; the Appellate Division affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether Article I, paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution permits police to seize garbage left for curbside collection without a warrant.
2. Whether police may search (open and inspect) the contents of curbside garbage bags without a warrant based on probable cause.
3. Whether evidence and warrants derived from an unconstitutional garbage search must be suppressed.

## Decision

- The New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed suppression in Hempele.
- The court held that warrantless seizure of curbside garbage is permissible when the seizure itself does not intrude into a protected area.
- The court held that warrantless searches of the contents of garbage bags left for collection violate Article I, paragraph 7 absent an applicable exception (e.g., exigent circumstances).
- Because the trash contents were searched without a warrant, the garbage-search evidence and derivative evidence (including the home-search warrant) were suppressed.

## Legal Principles

- Article I, paragraph 7 protects a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of household garbage bags placed at the curb for collection.
- Police may seize curbside garbage without a warrant, but opening and examining its contents is a search requiring a warrant supported by probable cause unless an exception applies.
- The possibility that others could access garbage does not eliminate a resident’s reasonable privacy expectation against government inspection.
- Evidence obtained from an unconstitutional warrantless trash search, and evidence derived from that search, is subject to suppression.

## Conclusion

The court held that, under the New Jersey Constitution, residents retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of curbside garbage, so police must obtain a warrant based on probable cause to search those contents; warrantless searches are unconstitutional and their fruits must be excluded.


State v. Hempele, 576 A.2d 793 (N.J. 1990)