Facts of the Case



Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court for the State of Nevada

The Facts

A Nevada police officer, acting in response to a call from a concerned citizen who reported that a man had been hitting a woman in a vehicle parked on the side of the road, came upon Larry Hiibel. Hiibel was standing outside of a red pick-up truck pulled off to the side of the road, and his teenage daughter was sitting inside the truck. The officer approached Hiibel and stated that he was following up a report of a disturbance. Speaking with slurred speech and somewhat incoherent, Hiibel appeared intoxicated. The officer asked Hiibel for his name, and Hiibel refused to answer. After 10 additional requests by the officer that Hiibel identify himself, the officer placed him under arrest specifically because of his refusal.

Hiibel was charged only with resisting a police officer and obstructing an investigation by refusing to give his name. The Nevada state district court convicted Hiibel and fined him $250. He then appealed the question of the law’s constitutionality to the state supreme court. The state supreme court upheld the constitutionality of the Nevada law, but its opinion addressed only his Fourth Amendment claims. Hiibel then appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Issue

If a state law imposes criminal penalties for those who refuse to identify themselves when lawfully detained on “reasonable suspicion” (less than “probable cause”) does it violate. . .

- … the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures?

- … the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination?

Note: Police can demand identification of people who are driving, visiting federal property or taking forms of transportation; therefore, a major issue in this case is whether someone merely walking around must disclose who he/she is. Because of this, some observers view this case as a test for the prospect of “national ID cards” that all people would need to carry and produce upon request.

Constitutional Rights to Remain Silent and to Privacy Without Probable Cause for Suspicion

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . but upon probable cause . . . .” The Fourth Amendment has been understood to protect a right to a certain degree of privacy from police searches unless the police have reason to believe that a crime has been, or is about to be, committed, and that the person is involved. The Fifth Amendment provides: “No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .” The Fifth Amendment generally protects people from being forced to provide evidence to the people who are prosecuting them for a crime.

The Nevada Law in Question

The Nevada law provides that, “Any peace officer may 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 officer may detain the person…only to ascertain his identity and the suspicious circumstances surrounding his presence…. Any person so detained shall identify himself, but may not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of any peace officer.” Failure to identify yourself is a punishable by “imprisonment…for not more than 6 months, or by a fine of not more than $1,000, or by both.”

Arguments for Hiibel

• The Nevada law’s requirement that a person detained on reasonable suspicion must identify himself to the police violates the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, because the law applies to a selected group of people suspected of criminal activities and poses a real risk of self incrimination.

• The Nevada law’s requirement that individuals who are the subject of a Terry stop (a brief detention by a police officer with reasonable suspicion during which the officer is allowed to frisk for weapons) identify themselves violates the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, because probable cause should be required before a person can be arrested for failure to produce information.

• Using the law to force people to identify themselves undermines the probable cause standard by sanctioning an arrest simply for failure to identify oneself.

• The law intrudes on important constitutional rights that greatly outweigh the state’s limited interest in information under circumstances where the officer does not have probable cause to suspect the individual is (or was) engaged in criminal behavior.

Arguments for the Sixth Judicial District Court for the State of Nevada[1]

• Requiring a person who is legally detained by a police officer on reasonable suspicion to identify himself does not violate the Fourth Amendment because it is not an “unreasonable search or seizure” (and was not thought of as such when the Fourth Amendment was adopted).

• In cases where someone is stopped on the basis of reasonable suspicion, it is reasonable to require this “minimal intrusion” that allows an officer to engage in good police work aimed at preventing and investigating crime while better ensuring the officer’s safety.

• Requiring a person who is lawfully detained by a police officer on reasonable suspicion to identify himself does not violate the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination because stating your name is not testimony or incriminating and does not concern the facts of a crime.

Decision

Majority

Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion upholding the Nevada statute was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, and Justices O’Connor, Scalia and Thomas. The majority held that the law did not suffer from “vagueness,” because the statute does not leave to the officer’s discretion what constitutes an answer, and that it was consistent with the Terry decision to allow an officer to ask the name of the person she stopped. The opinion pointed out that the suspect’s name would let the officer know if the temporarily detained person was wanted for another offense, has a record of violence or a mental disorder, or even to clear a suspect and allow the police to move along. In departing from dicta in earlier cases which suggested that suspects need not answer questions in a Terry stop, the Court portrayed this as a narrow exception limited to the name of the stopped individual. In determining that such an exception was warranted, the Court engaged in a balancing of the “intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests [and] its promotion of legitimate government interests.” The opinion then characterized the officer’s request as “a common-sense inquiry, not an effort to obtain an arrest for failure to identify after a Terry stop yielded insufficient evidence.” The individual’s Fourth Amendment privacy interests are slight, and Fifth Amendment concerns are “likely to be so insignificant in the scheme of things as to be incriminating only in unusual circumstances.” Nonetheless, the Court declined to decide whether Fifth Amendment concerns could invalidate this statute, because Hiibel never presented evidence that his name would be incriminating.

Dissents

Justice Stevens wrote a lone dissent arguing that the Fifth Amendment protection against compelled self incrimination should invalidate the Nevada law. He relied upon the repeated statements of the Court that “citizens are not required to respond to police officers’ questions during a Terry stop” and disputed the majority’s contention that giving one’s name is not “incriminating.” His opinion argued forcefully that the Court was wrong to reason that “we should not assume that the disclosure of petitioner’s name would be used to incriminate him or that it would furnish a link in a chain of evidence needed to prosecute him.” On the contrary, “why else would an officer ask for it?” Likewise, Justice Stevens dismissed claims that the rationale for disclosure could be grounded in the officer’s safety, which he said was “sufficiently [protected] by the officer’s ability to perform a limited patdown search for weapons.”

Justice Breyer also wrote a dissent maintaining that the Court’s traditional prohibition against forced answers to police questions should govern, which Justices Souter and Ginsberg joined. The opinion characterized the permissibility of a Terry stop itself as a special exception to the Fourth Amendment, and not one that should be expanded. It then raised the issue of “the State’s interest in putting a man in jail because he doesn’t want to answer.” Finding no good explanation, the opinion could not justify departing from settled holdings that people do not have to answer an officer’s questions. Furthermore, the opinion questioned the legitimacy of the majority’s claim that the question of Fifth Amendment remained unresolved, given that the defense of self-incrimination would itself be incriminating.

-----------------------

[1] (The State of Nevada is the real party, but for procedural reasons, the District Court is named first.)

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download