Larry Hiibel Required To Provide Name To Cops

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The case of Larry Hiibel

Supreme Court Rules No Privacy Expectation Regarding Being Asked By Cops To Provide Name

Cops can detain anyone and demand their name

Subjects > Law > Privacy Issues
Larry Hiibel, (aka Dudley Hiibel) a Nevada cowboy, was detained by police in what police call an "investigative stop". Deputies had received report of a man seen striking a female passenger in a truck, and they found Hiibel in the area, with a female child, Mimi, in his truck. Despite 11 requests for his name, Hiibel refused and challenged the officers to arrest him.

Over and over again Hiibel refused, at one point saying, "If you've got something, take me to jail" and "I don't want to talk. I've done nothing. I've broken no laws."

He was arrested and charged with resisting the officers, and was eventually convicted and fined $250.

Nevada law requires anyone stopped by the police, upon the police having any suspicion of a crime having been committed, or about to be committed, to have to provide their name to police. Providing an indentity card would also satisfy the identification requirement.

The Supreme Court ruled that this is not an unreasonable search and seizure (4th ammendment), because our names are freely given in public, the same as the sound of our voice, or handwriting samples. We frequently identify ourselves as part of shopping with credit cards, for example. It is not subject to fifth ammendment protections against self-incrimination because an identity does not in and of itself tell what activities a person has been engaged in. Also, the government has substantial interests in compelling people to identify themselves to the police so that the policemen can be protected by knowing if a person is dangerous. Since the governments demands for the information serve a purpose other than criminal prosecution, it is OK for the government to require this information. In generally, the fifth ammendment does not protect people from being forced to provide mandatory reports or information to the government for purposes other than prosecution.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said that Hiibel "acted well within his rights when he opted to stand mute." Also disagreeing with the decision were Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

20 other states have laws similar to the Nevada law:

• Alabama
• Arkansas
• California
• Delaware
• Florida
• Georgia
• Illinois
• Kansas
• Louisiana
• Massachusetts
• Montana
• Nebraska
• New Hampshire
• New Mexico
• New York
• North Dakota
• Rhode Island
• Utah
• Vermont
• Wisconsin.

Read a summary, and full text, of the Supreme Court decision in this case:

• Larry Hiibel Supreme Court 03-5554 Is providing name to police invasion of privacy

Quotations about this issue:

• Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said America is different 36 years after the Terry decision. "In a modern era, when the police get your identification, they are getting an extraordinary look at your private life."
  • "We know identification continues to be one of the key demands of government agencies involved in homeland security, [This decision] - depending on how broad it is - could open the door to new demands for identification.", according to Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.
• Tim Lynch, an attorney with the libertarian-oriented thinktank Cato Institute, said the court "ruled that the government can turn a person's silence into a criminal offense. Ordinary Americans will be hopelessly confused about when they can assert their right to 'remain silent' without being jailed like Mr. Hiibel," he said.
  • "It's a green light to explore the bounds of how much personal information can be demanded on pain of arrest," says Timothy Lynch of the Cato Institute in Washington. "It also gives a green light to perhaps the Congress to move with a national law."

Other links:

• [Papers Please] - Video about the case
  • http://papersplease.org/hiibel/facts.html - Explanation of what Hiibel was doing that night.
    • Other news stories do not mention that his daughter was arrested for no reason at all, and the non-case against her was thrown out.
    • If we allow demagogues to change the very nature of the way we live so long as they shout '9/11' or 'terrorism' as they strip us of our rights, then we all lose and the bad guys win. As Benjamin Franklin clearly pointed out over two centuries ago, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
• [Electronic Privacy Information Center Summary of the Case]

• Commentary
  • http://slate.msn.com/id/2096927/ By Barbara Allen Babcock, a professor at Stanford Law School. She is writing a book about Clara Foltz, the pioneer woman lawyer who invented the public defender.
    • Many states ... will pass statutes like Nevada's (many already have) making it a crime to refuse to identify yourself to the police on less than probable cause. Then, ... see a dark man looking around furtively, who turns and walks away rapidly. With Terry and Wardlow and Hiibel ..., the police may run him down and—without suspecting him in particular of anything specific—demand his identity and arrest him if he refuses to give it. Is this America?
    • This will happen to thousands of dark young men, and I would venture not one suicide bomber will be among them. Or at least not one will be revealed without other investigation. Meanwhile, in the name of security, we will have abandoned our much-vaunted liberty to walk freely on the streets surrounded by a zone of privacy and even anonymity—not numbered and in place; not responsible to explain ourselves on demand by the government.

• News coverage:
  • [Your I.D. or Your Freedom] - News article
    • Under current precedent, being ordered to give your name to a police officer, if you are stopped under reasonable suspicion of being involved in a crime, is generally considered a reasonable and minimal intrusion on your privacy and dignity.
    • Demands that you identify yourself are creeping into situations well beyond roadside encounters with police.
  • http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0622/p01s01-usju.html - Supreme Court says: If police ask, you must give your name
    • US citizens do not enjoy a constitutional right to refuse to reveal their identity when requested by police. In what may become a major boost to US law enforcement and antiterrorism efforts, the US Supreme Court Monday upheld a Nevada law that makes it a criminal offense for anyone suspected of wrongdoing to refuse to identify himself to police.
    • The ruling marks the first time the nation's highest court has endorsed a provision compelling citizens to reveal information in a citizen-police encounter that may become a police investigation.
    • "One's identity is, by definition, unique; yet it is, in another sense, a universal characteristic," writes Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority. "Answering a request to disclose a name is likely to be so insignificant in the scheme of things as to be incriminating only in unusual circumstances."

• Personal website notes:
  • [Hiibel v. Nevada - Anonymity and Compelled ID]
    • The cops demanded ID under a law that had already been ruled unconstitutional (by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) in the way it had been applied to an earlier suspect.
    • Mr. Hiibel refused, and was arrested for "obstructing or delaying a police officer in the performance of their duty"

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