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BUT ... you may have to IDENTIFY yourself, even when you’re not required to have ID on you ... and if you LIE about your identity, that can get you in a mess ... :-) ...

Chief’s Counsel
Suspects Who Refuse to Identify Themselves
By Jeff Bray, Senior Legal Advisor, Plano, Texas, Police Department

A police officer does not need probable cause to stop a car or a pedestrian and investigate potential crime. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, a police officer may initiate a temporary stop, a level of intrusion short of an arrest, if the officer can articulate a reasonable suspicion that the suspect has committed a crime or is about to commit a crime.1 This is commonly known as a Terry stop. Further, if the officer can articulate a reasonable basis for suspecting that the subject might be armed, he can pat down the outer clothing of the suspect in a limited search for weapons. This is commonly referred to as a Terry frisk.

The Terry rule has developed quite a bit since 1968, but some aspects remain murky. In particular, if the suspect refuses to give his name or any identifiers, may an officer arrest the suspect? According to the Supreme Court, the police may arrest for failure to identify if state law criminalizes such behavior.

Officers conducting a lawful Terry stop may take steps reasonably necessary to protect their personal safety, check for identification, and maintain the status quo.2 Occasionally a suspect will refuse to identify himself. Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s opinion in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Ct. of Nev., a state law requiring a subject to disclose his name during a Terry stop is consistent with the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable search and seizure:

Obtaining a suspect’s name in the course of a Terry stop serves important government interests. Knowledge of identity may inform an officer that a suspect is wanted for another offense, or has a record of violence or mental disorder. On the other hand, knowing identity may help clear a suspect and allow the police to concentrate their efforts elsewhere.3
Such a statute does not implicate the subject’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, as simple disclosure of one’s name presents no reasonable danger of incrimination. But the Court clearly limited the application of this new rule by also noting that an officer may not arrest a suspect for failing to identify himself if the identification request is not reasonably related to the circumstances justifying the stop. The question is, is the request for identity a commonsense inquiry or an effort to obtain an arrest for failure to identify after a Terry stop yielded insufficient evidence?

Furthermore, a state may not make it a crime to refuse to provide identification on demand in the absence of reasonable suspicion.4 The Court has also held that a requirement that a detainee give “credible and reliable” identification information to the police upon request is too vague to be a criminal offense.5

In short, if the state has a law requiring suspects to identify themselves when asked to do so during a valid stop or detention, the U.S. Constitution will not bar arrest and prosecution for failure to do so. It is not clear what officers may do if their jurisdiction does not have a law against failing to identify oneself.

Failure to Identify and Traffic Stops

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has held that, in the context of traffic stops based on reasonable suspicion alone, a “motorist may be detained for a short period while the officer runs a background check to see if there are any outstanding warrants or criminal history pertaining to the motorist even though the purpose of the stop had nothing to do with such prior criminal history.”6 Several other circuits have come to the same conclusion.7

The Tenth Circuit addressed the issue later in United States v. Villagrana-Flores: “We explained in Holt that ‘the justification for detaining a motorist to obtain a criminal history check is, in part, officer safety’ because ‘by determining whether a detained motorist has a criminal record or outstanding warrants, an officer will be better apprized of whether the detained motorist might engage in violent activity during the stop.’” As long as the detention is for a short period, “the government’s strong interest in officer safety outweighs the motorist’s interests.”8

Failure to Identify and Pedestrians

Officer safety is just as strongly implicated where the individual being detained for a short period of time is on foot rather than in an automobile. An officer detaining a pedestrian has an equally strong interest in knowing whether that individual has a violent past or is currently wanted on outstanding warrants. The citizen’s interest, on the other hand, is no more robust merely because a short detention occurs while traversing on foot.

Moreover, permitting a warrants check during a Terry stop on the street also “promotes the strong government interest in solving crimes and bringing offenders to justice.”9 Indeed, an identity’s utility in “inform[ing] an officer that a suspect is wanted for another offense, or has a record of violence or mental disorder,”10 would be nonexistent without the ability to use the identity to run a criminal background check.

AND ... there’s a lot more in the rest of the article ...