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grib
Registered: 03/01/03
Posts: 550
Loc: Here and there
Last seen: 9 years, 9 months
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Supremes - give your name to cops or else...
#2813927 - 06/21/04 12:16 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
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Top Court Rules People Must Give Police Their Names Mon Jun 21, 2004 11:49 AM ET
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that people are required to identify themselves when asked to do so by police, and rejected arguments that it violates their constitutional rights to privacy and to remain silent.
By a 5-4 vote, the high court upheld a Nevada law that officers may detain individuals to find out their identity, based on reasonable suspicions of wrongdoing. People must identify themselves, but cannot be required to answer any other questions.
The ruling was a victory for the U.S. Justice Department and state officials who said forced identification represented a "minimal" intrusion on privacy rights, helped solve crimes and contributed to police and public safety.
The case involved Larry Hiibel, who was convicted of resisting an officer after refusing 11 times to give his name when Sheriff's Deputy Lee Dove questioned him on May 21, 2000, as he stood outside his parked truck in Humboldt County.
Based on a report from a witness, Hiibel was suspected of hitting his daughter, who was inside the truck. Hiibel also was suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol, based on his eyes, mannerisms, speech and the smell of alcohol.
Hiibel told Dove he would cooperate, but refused to give his name because he said he did not believe he had done anything wrong. He was arrested, found guilty of the misdemeanor offense of resisting an officer and fined $250.
Hiibel appealed his conviction and argued his constitutional rights protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures and against self-incrimination had been violated.
But the Nevada Supreme Court upheld his conviction, ruled the law passed constitutional muster and said forced identification was a minimal intrusion outweighed by the government's interest in police safety.
LIBERAL JUSTICES DISSENT
The Supreme Court in a ruling by Justice Anthony Kennedy upheld that decision and said the officer's conduct did not violate Hiibel's constitutional rights.
Kennedy said state stop-and-identify laws often combine elements of traditional vagrancy laws with provisions intended to regulate police behavior during the course of investigatory stops.
Kennedy said the Nevada law was narrow and precise, requiring only that a suspect disclose his or her name. It does not require the suspect to produce a driver's license or any other document.
The court's liberal members, Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, dissented.
Stevens said that a person's identity could be incriminating. "A name can provide the key to a broad array of information about the person, particularly in the hands of a police officer with access to a range of law enforcement databases," he said.
Stevens said such information "can be tremendously useful in a criminal prosecution."
Civil liberties groups supported Hiibel and expressed concern about increased government intrusion on personal privacy. They warned a ruling for the government could lead to such measures as national identification cards.
? Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
-------------------- <~>Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake <~>
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grib
Registered: 03/01/03
Posts: 550
Loc: Here and there
Last seen: 9 years, 9 months
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Re: Supremes - give your name to cops or else... [Re: grib]
#2814977 - 06/21/04 06:23 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
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hummmm, no comments? really?
-------------------- <~>Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake <~>
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matts
matts
Registered: 01/28/02
Posts: 3,649
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Re: Supremes - give your name to cops or else... [Re: grib]
#2814989 - 06/21/04 06:26 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
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grib
Registered: 03/01/03
Posts: 550
Loc: Here and there
Last seen: 9 years, 9 months
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Re: Supremes - give your name to cops or else... [Re: matts]
#2815229 - 06/21/04 08:08 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
matt said: That makes sense. I would give my name to a cop but nothing else. I don't see what giving my name to a cop would hurt...
ok, good....and the next ruling... police come to your home, you're having a family BBQ in your back yard. Well, they want the names of you and all of your guests...yes, the un-knowing guests in your back yard. so? another senerio: I'm cruising with a bud; he met me at my home, a store, etc. I'm simply a passenger. I've no clue of his activities prior to hooking up with me. We're chatting and cruising... whops, cops stop us (for wharever reason: assume we're cruising the speed-limit, obeying traffic laws... maybe they don't like my friends low-rider? Anyway, we're stopped. I, as a US citizen, prefer to be secure in myself and belongings. If 'I' have committed no apparent offence so why should I be questioned? I decline to present my papers... do not pass go, do not collect... get it?
-------------------- <~>Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake <~>
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uki
fool of wisdom
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 213
Loc: the milky way
Last seen: 19 years, 4 months
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Re: Supremes - give your name to cops or else... [Re: grib]
#2819150 - 06/22/04 09:58 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
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its bullshit i tell ya, utter bullshit. what's next? i know... you are taking a late night stroll, admiring the stars, breathing the crisp air... cops stops ya and says there is no reason why you should be out this late, go home or go to jail.
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uki
fool of wisdom
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 213
Loc: the milky way
Last seen: 19 years, 4 months
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Re: Supremes - give your name to cops or else... [Re: grib]
#2819159 - 06/22/04 09:59 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
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(sarcasm) gotta love democracy.
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z@z.com
Libertarian
Registered: 10/13/02
Posts: 2,876
Loc: ATL
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Re: Supremes - give your name to cops or else... [Re: grib]
#2819690 - 06/23/04 12:35 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
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I see a night or two in jail in my future.
-------------------- "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson
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motaman
old hand
Registered: 12/18/02
Posts: 6,047
Last seen: 6 days, 21 hours
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Re: Supremes - give your name to cops or else... [Re: grib]
#2825796 - 06/24/04 09:46 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Kennedy said the Nevada law was narrow and precise, requiring only that a suspect disclose his or her name. It does not require the suspect to produce a driver's license or any other document.
Well..
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