In Lyles, based on a hunch that an
individual may be relevant to a homicide investigation, police conducted a
search of four trash bags found near the curb of the individual’s home. Within the
trash bags they found “three empty packs of rolling papers, a piece of mail
addressed to the home, and three marijuana stems. That is all.” Based on that,
the officers sought and obtained a search warrant to search the home in toto. Firearms were found therein,
and Lyles was charged with felon-in-possession.

And here, to permit
“the indiscriminate rummaging through a household” based on the finding of a single
marijuana stem (or three) from a curbside trash pull cannot withstand
constitutional scrutiny. Allowing “comprehensive searches following minor
infractions would create,” the Lyles court
recognized, “a serious and recurring threat to the privacy of countless
individuals.”
Nor could the
good-faith doctrine salvage the government’s illegally-obtained evidence where,
“objectively speaking, what transpired here is not acceptable.”
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