State v. Morris

*114Johnson, J.

Today, we hold that the Vermont Constitution protects persons from warrantless police searches into the contents of secured opaque trash bags left at curbside for garbage collection and disposal. In our view, because persons have an objectively reasonable privacy interest in the contents of such containers, police must obtain a warrant before searching through them. In this case, absent the evidence obtained from the unlawful search of defendant’s trash, the warrant permitting the search of his house was not supported by probable cause; accordingly, we reverse defendant’s…