Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Once again, the conservative bloc of the Supreme Court of the United States has taken a bite out of the presumed right of American citizens to be left alone in the name of taking a bite out of crime.
A slim majority of the court ruled that a police officer who has reason to stop a suspicious person has the legal authority to demand that the individual identify himself.
That may seem like an innocuous enough ruling. Most of us, if challenged by a police officer for whatever reason, choose to cooperate -- either out of a sense of civic duty or out of fear. But Nevada cowhand Larry Hiibel felt neither when he was approached by a Humboldt County deputy. The deputy was responding to a citizen's report of a man striking a woman in a red and silver GMC truck on Grass Valley Road. When the deputy arrived, he found Hiibel standing outside the parked truck, Hiibel's adult daughter was inside the truck.
The deputy asked Hiibel 11 times to identify himself, and after he refused each time, he was arrested on a charge that makes it a crime to "willfully resist, delay or obstruct a public officer" in discharging his duties.
Common sense theory
By a vote of 5-4, the court ruled that asking a person's name is a "common-sense inquiry" that is basic to good police work. It also said that it's ruling would only apply to cases where there was a probability that a crime had been committed. In other words, theoretically, a police officer couldn't demand that someone doing no more than walking down the street identify himself.
But the court's ruling still begs the question, after a person gives his name, must he also give his age, his address, his Social Security number?
Would it be common sense, sound police work for a police officer to simply accept the answer "John Smith" to the question, "What is your name?" What if the person answered "George Bush" or "Davy Crockett?"
This decision paves the way to police officers demanding as a right more and more information from citizens who, heretofore, had a right to remain silent.
In recent years, the court has upheld the random stopping of motorists in the name of DUI checkpoints. It has chipped away at Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search or seizure and Fifth Amendment protections against self incrimination.
And in the case of Hiibel, the court has now ruled that a man who was guilty of no crime other than not answering a police officer's questions is subject to arrest and a fine of $250. Hiibel was never prosecuted on the alleged assault that caused the deputy to first question him.