Indiana police restricted on searching trash

[Newsjock]

http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/231704-1346-092.html

Criminal investigators can't root through Hoosiers' garbage on mere hunches of finding evidence, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled unanimously today.

Writing for the high court, Justice Theodore Boehm set a new, higher legal standard in which police must offer specific, legitimate reasons for trash searches that include a reasonable expectation of turning up evidence.

"The police can no longer, out of curiosity, come out to see what's in your trash," Indianapolis defense attorney Robert Hammerle said after reviewing the ruling. "We now require more of police officers than we do of raccoons."

Hammerle said the Supreme Court essentially recognized that most people put their trash in opaque bags -- and not clear, plastic ones -- because they continue to have some expectation of privacy even after trash has been placed at the curb.

... In the case, State Police went through the trash of Patrick and Susan May Litchfield of Marshall County. Their names had been obtained from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which had come across the Litchfields in records subpoenaed from companies advertising in High Times, a magazine for marijuana growers, according to court records.

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[Richard Steele]

1. Wow, Way ta go INDIANA!!

I hereby nominate 'defense attorney' Robert Hammerle for "QUOTE of the Week":

"We now require more of police officers than we do of raccoons."

I'm gonna go GOOGLE this guy; if he's less than halfway to Scumbag I intend to e-mail him an "attaboy"!

[Endangered Specie]

2. Remember the old adage: One man's trash...

is another man's treasure.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. One man's trash

is another man's conviction.

[Richard Steele]

4. Indeed it is!

But neither 'trash' nor 'treasure' is automatically considered to be "admissable evidence"!

RE: Robert Hammerle...that was my quickest Google-search EVER!

NO attaboys for Bobby H coming from me!

I'm glad for THIS ruling, but R. Hammerle's involvement seems to be an example of the "Blind Squirrel" principle.

I don't want to waste bandwidth with sordid details, but Mr. Hammerle appears to be an attorney who leaves his soul at home so it doesn't get dirty.

Even a broken clock is RIGHT twice a day, knowhutImean?

[Richard Steele]

5. 7:00 am ...'Schiavo' for the morning crowd.

[BiggJawn]

6. But Raccoons aren't trying to put your ass in Jail...

I'm surprised the Polizei didn't claim "Homeland Security" as their blanket "right" to dig through my weekly offerings of gristly bits of beefy roast and ruined crusts of blackened toast....

Maybe Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout was on to something there...