Monday, June 21, 2004

US Supreme Court Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, Humboldt County, et al.

Decision here.

   A deputy sheriff in Nevada responded to a call of an assault, supposedly taking place in a red and silver pickup truck on a particular road.  When he arrived, the deputy found a truck matching the description.  There was a woman sitting in the van and a drunk man standing outside of it.  The deputy requested identification, which the drunk (Hiibel) refused to provide.  They went back and forth for a while, with the deputy asking for ID eleven times, and Hiibel refusing each time and eventually putting his hands behind his back and telling the deputy to arrest him (eleven times!! For real?).

   Nevada has a statute which authorizes the police to "detain any person whom the officer encounters under circumstances which reasonably indicate that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime."  The same statute authorizes the police to demand that the person stopped identify themselves, and makes it a crime for the person to refuse to identify themselves.  (Colorado also has a statute like that, but it's worded strangely... it authorizes us to stop suspicious people and demand identification, but it doesn't criminalize refusal to comply with a demand for ID.  Our statute also authorizes searches for weapons, a la Terry).  The deputy arrested Hiibel, and charged him with obstruction for refusing to identify himself as required by law (this also wouldn't fly in Colorado, since our obstruction statute includes an element of physical interference).

   Hiibel was convicted, and appealed his conviction.  He argued that the statute requiring him to identify himself violated his 4th and 5th Amendment rights.

   Regarding his 4th Amendment rights, the Supreme Court held that the stop was reasonable, and that the statute authorizing the stop and the demand for identification was also reasonable because it properly balanced a legitimate government interest (identifying people who are lawfully detained) against Hiibel's 4th Amendment rights.  Regarding his 5th Amendment rights, the court ruled that although it's possible that there are circumstances where providing one's name would be testimonial speech (and therefore possibly privileged), those circumstances would be unusual and this was not such a case.  So Hiibel's 5th Amendment rights were not violated.  The court left for another day the decision of whether or not someone could be compelled to identify themselves when doing so would somehow incriminate them.

   Hiibel's conviction was affirmed.

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