Taylor v. Teletype Corp‪.‬

On July 26 and August 2 of 1979, police officers in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, met with an employee of a private trash hauling company and examined garbage collected from the home of the appellant Marcus Biondich. The inspections revealed a plastic baggie containing a small amount of marijuana, a piece of folded paper containing traces of opiate powder and papers with notations of $57,100, $45,000, $5,000, $1,500 and $400. In addition, the trash included cancelled checks payable to the wife of a man who had pled guilty to a charge of possession of approximately 250 pounds of marijuana and who had been observed at a residence where evidence of large narcotics transactions had been obtained. This information, together with details of Biondichs two prior convictions for drug violations, was submitted in an affidavit to the United States Magistrate on August 2, 1979. The magistrate issued a search warrant for the Biondich home. A search conducted later that day yielded .26 grams of powder containing forty percent cocaine, fifteen barbiturate capsules, pills which Biondich told police were "phony Quaaludes," a small amount of marijuana, a scale with gram weights, a magazine article on how to cut cocaine, several substances frequently used to cut cocaine, and various other items commonly used to consume, cut, package or store cocaine.