Posted on 01/24/2009 10:16:42 PM PST by Domandred
Buying a new house and today while we were over at the new place painting my wife backed our minivan into the next door neighbor's volvo. Great way to meet the new neighbors right?...ouch.
Anyways I was in the passenger seat watching right (wife pulled out left so I never saw the car).
When the police showed up the officer asked me for my driver's license.
I said "Sorry officer, I was a passenger, not driving, you don't need to see my driver's license." Yea she didn't like that.
The officer said "the DMV requires us to enter the driver's licenses of everyone in the vehicle that is involved in a traffic accident. I'll need to see it."
Being that the neighbors (including the guy across the street that wasn't involved at all) were all standing around now watching I decided to not press the issue as our neighbor approval rating is already sub-congress. I handed over my drivers license (reluctantly) and said "you really don't need to see my driver's license, but here it is anyways".
She tried to speak up some more and I said "it's fine you have it already it's done". Yea she didn't talk to me again.
I used to carry an ID on me (not driver's license) for times that I wasn't driving or planing on driving...like when I was planning on drinking, but don't have it anymore.
Now I know without a doubt that since I was not driving I had no legal obligation to produce a driver's license. The question is did I have to legally produce any ID or would name and such have been sufficient?
I seem to remember a supreme court case about this a few years ago.
"I asked the officer if he could give me the City or State code, but he couldn't give it off the top of his head."
OK check out this video from the Hiibel case. He LOST in the supreme court.
http://www.abditum.com/hiibel/no_id_arrest_LARGE.wmv
Their side of the facts from the case here http://www.papersplease.org/hiibel/facts.html
“Your link was 2004, supreme court decision was after that date.”
I don’t believe you are correct or at least I couldn’t find another case on point. If you have a better citation you might want to post it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_identify_statutes
Ah yes it is. By handing over my drivers license I gave them permission to search my drivers record even though I was not driving. I was not cited for anything, nor a suspect in anything, but the officer ran my record anyways.
In the case of an accident report, the police have an obligation to insure that the information contained therein is accurate,
Idaho code (looked it up today) allows that officers get the information from the driver of the vehicle, and the owner of the vehicle hit, not passengers. Passengers are not mentioned at all in the code. Information is name and address is required, and if (very specific about if available) available driver's license, etc. Of the driver, not the passengers who are not mentioned.
and that includes verifying the claimed identities of those who have given statements.
Did not give a statement of any form (other then she didn't need my driver's license as I wasn't driving), so was not needed.
To settle it once and for all, the Supreme Court has ruled that the police have the right to expect ID. See Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada.
You misinterpretted the case and why it was upheld.
Name and address (of the driver, again passengers not mentioned) is sufficient by Idaho Code as well as the Nevada law that Hiibel tried to strike down. It wasn't stricken down because it allowed for name only. The Cali law was stricken down (Kolender v. Lawson cited in Hiibel) because it required ID. Hiibel refused to disclose his name so was in violation of the Nevada law, so SCOTUS found for the Nevada court.
Reading the SCOTUS opinion on Hiibel you'd find this gem that puts is pretty simply:
"Provided that the suspect either states his name or communicates it to the officer by other means--a choice, we assume, that the suspect may make--the statute is satisfied and no violation occurs."
Name sufficient. Actual ID is not required.
"Provided the suspect", in which case we are back to the part that I was a passenger, and not considered a suspect in any crime.
Unless the cop thought he was lying she would need no proof of identification. Think.
Well, you don’t need a drivers’ license unless you’re driving. I have no idea as to the laws concerning showing an ID on demand. I mean, people ‘round here jog and work out in the yard without their wallet on their person. I would like to think that they won’t be sent off to jail for doing so.
That may be the law but as I posted earlier in the thread, SCOTUS ruled in Brown v. Texas such a law is unconstitutional.
“The officer was probably filling out a form and getting id’s from all who were involved.”
Yes. It was not an unreasonable request since there WAS a reported accident, and the LEO would have just taken down the info for the police accident report as she was required to do. The alternative would have been to verbally ask the questions for name and address.
A Dr.License is an official form of ID. i need to show it to the bank teller when I cash a check if i dont have my bank ID with me. And I dont drive thru the bank.
First, I'm not calling you a bootlicker. However, had the cop did insisted it would have violated the passenger's rights. It's a small thing but an important one I think.
We can all see from experience what happens when society starts down the proverbial slippery slope.
I prefer to err on the side of freedom.
i’m a cop. why did you call the cops in the first place? why not just handle it yourselves like adults if it was a simple paint scrape?
I don’t think he was being a jerk. There was no security reason or public interest reason for the police officer to verify his ID. It was a car accident he wasn’t even involved with.
I have a BIG problem with the government forcing me to carry ID if I’m not driving. Nothing is more scary than my government putting me on a list. It’s bad enough that if I want to own a gun, I have to get “permission” and be put on a list. I’m not a felon nor am I crazy. When the anti gun Nazi’s come for you, it will be from a list.
This isn’t communist Russia. I should not have to carry my “papers”. I should be able to travel where ever I want in public without a “pass”.
Your cite of Hiibel is incorrect. The money quote from the court’s decision is “under circumstances which reasonably indicate that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime”. I think we can reasonably assume the passenger in a fender-bender accident is not a criminal suspect.
In my state an accident involving >$500 dollars damage requires the police. Pretty much any accident is more than $500.
what if you have an accident? how will people know who you are? how will they notify your relatives? i’m serious. carrying ID really isnt that big of a deal, imho. but, of course, i’m a jack-booted thug.
i would have told me neighbor to get an estimate and i'd take care of the bill. especially of this "accident" happened on private property.
You can see how hysterical this thread has become with people taking a tongue in cheek reply to a guy who didn't use common sense, and turning it into the checkpoint at a Gulag.
There is no slippery slope here. The guy was a passenger in a vehicle accident. The officer took his ID because of the report. Had the man not been in the car and the cop demanded ID then someone, anyone, here might have had a point.
But they don't.
Had the cop pulled over the car for speeding and failing any other factor demanded ID from the passenger, they might have had a point.
They don't. This isn't that case.
Instead you have a minor property accident and the cop trying to fill out a state form the way the state wants if filled out.
Like requirements for registration, insurance, drivers licenses, and sometimes vehicle inspections these are laws that have been passed to govern our actions on public roadways. We are a nation of laws. Those that don't respect that are no different from the scum on the left. After seeing some of the anti-cop hatred here I can't tell the difference between the DU and those that claim to be conservatives.
Remembering the pictures of the loser in California on the hood of the cop car smashing in the windshield, I couldn't help but wonder what his Freeper name was.
Bottom line, the guy got in a fender bender with his wife driving. He didn't want to provide any info to the cop and ended up with his wife not speaking to him. He had a bad day and shouldn't have been a jerk to either one. Apologize, shake it off, and get the cars fixed. That is the behavior of a mature person.
If we disagree on the analysis, thank you for the way you did it. You had class which was a lot more than the others had.
“those who hate the cops who protect us here.”
________________________________________________
No one here hates cops. No one said that.
Do you realize that not all cops are good and just and honest?
Some are too stupid to understand the laws they are hired to uphold. Some think “they are the law”. Some don’t care.
The problem is I can’t tell what cops are doing their job correctly and what cops are not.
Putting on a uniform and carrying a gun doesn’t tell us anything except someone hired them and he knows how to dress himself.
I have many family members who are law enforcement and many who are military.
Most of our men and women in uniform are honest and good.
Some are not.
This is an issue, which might be small to you, but to many of us it projects a bigger picture.
When we voluntarily release our right to privacy as Americans, in any way, shape, or form, we are opening the door for anyone with power to steal the rest of our rights.
Slippery slope.
If the MMPI is what I think it is, I've taken it as well. It seemed to be a rather lengthy series of repetitive questions about whether I loved my mother, was afraid of the dark, and whether I wanted to do strange things with family members. I can't really recall all the 500 or so questions (8+ years ago), but they were all T-F and had absolutely nothing to do with my line of work.
At any rate, I must have passed it since I did get the job and nobody looks at me funny.
I wonder how Obambi would fare with the MMPI...
“There is no slippery slope here”
______________________________________________
You need to wake up. Go ahead and call me hysterical.
Tyranny, Communism, slavery, take your pick, does not come to a group of people all at once. Normal people would recognize it and fight it off.
No, it comes slowly and quietly, and most don’t notice it until it is too late.
Go ask the Jews who lived through the Holocaust in Europe how it happened.
The words, “Never Again!” come to mind.
We have to understand and absorb the lessons from this time in history. If we don’t we are doomed to relive it.
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