Two Drug Felonies Binned After Warrantless Trash Rip Ruled Unconstitutional

“Bin it” is a phrase used when asking someone to put something in the trash.

GRL Law recently asked the district court to bin two drug felonies arising from a warrantless trash rip. 

If you are regular reader of this blog, then you know we convinced the Iowa Supreme Court earlier to find this police tactic unconstitutional in State v. Wright

We leveraged our work in Wright to challenge felony charges in another county.  The facts were nearly identical.  Police illegally trespassed onto our client’s garbage containers set out for collection to scavenge trash.  A search of this trash led to a search warrant to search our client’s home resulting in two drug felony charges.

However, if you remove the information obtained by the illegal searches, then there is no probable cause to support the warrant.  No PC . . . no search.

The State properly binned the charges before the suppression hearing.  That’s a NFG!

If you are facing drug charges following a trash rip, then call the drug defense attorneys at GRL Law for a consultation.