Comments on: What can you do when the police dig through your garbage without your permission?

By: Larry J Carter

Larry J Carter — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:28:56 +0000

My nephew once needed a bondsman. During the interview, as he instructed us on his services and the repurcussions of “jumping bail” he confessed that he always carried two guns while searching for his client; one with the serial number ground off. He left it to us to figure out why. I got the impression from the layout of his office that he was a former policeman. Perhaps his statements were just a way to limit complications.

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:15:34 +0000

Police don’t plant evidence, do they? They’d never plant a gun on an unarmed person they shot, for instance. Would they?

By: grumpypilgrim

grumpypilgrim — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:00:05 +0000

The legal problem with rifling someone’s garbage is that once the garbage becomes “public,” anyone could easily add things to that garbage. A dishonest cop, for example, knowing that the police plan to jack someone’s trash, could very easily add things (e.g., drug evidence) to that person’s trash. Thus, we must be wary of accepting the validity of what might literally be ‘trashy’ evidence.