Hiibel V. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada - Majority Opinion

Majority Opinion

Stop-and-identify laws have their roots in early English vagrancy laws under which suspected vagrants were subject to arrest unless they gave a “good account” of themselves; this practice, in turn, derived from the common-law power of any person to arrest suspicious persons and detain them until they gave “a good account” of themselves. Modern stop-and-identify laws combine aspects of the old vagrancy laws with a guide for police officers conducting investigatory stops, such as those authorized under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).

However, the Court has identified a constitutional difficulty with many modern vagrancy laws. In Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972), the Court held that a traditional vagrancy law was void for vagueness because its “broad scope and imprecise terms denied proper notice to potential offenders and permitted police officers to exercise unfettered discretion in the enforcement of the law.” In Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979), the Court struck down Texas’s stop-and-identify law as violating the Fourth Amendment because it allowed police officers to stop individuals without “specific, objective facts establishing reasonable suspicion to believe the suspect was involved in criminal activity.” And in Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352 (1983), the Court struck down a California stop-and-identify law that required a suspect to provide “credible and reliable identification” upon request. The words “credible and reliable” were vague because they "provided no standard for determining what a suspect must do to comply with, resulting in virtually unrestrained power to arrest and charge persons with a violation."

“The present case begins where our prior cases left off. Here there is no question that the initial stop was based on reasonable suspicion, satisfying the Fourth Amendment requirements noted in Brown. Further, the petitioner has not alleged that the statute is unconstitutionally vague, as in Kolender. Here the Nevada statute is narrower and precise.” The Nevada Supreme Court had held that the Nevada statute required only that the suspect divulge his name; presumably, he could do so without handing over any documents whatsoever. As long as the suspect tells the officer his name, he has satisfied the dictates of the Nevada stop-and-identify law.

The narrow requirements of Nevada’s stop-and-identify law meant that it did not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment. “In the ordinary course a police officer is free to ask a person for identification without implicating the Fourth Amendment.” Since Terry, it has been clear that a police officer who reasonably suspects that a person is involved in criminal activity may detain a person long enough to dispel that suspicion. Questions related to a person’s identity are a “routine and accepted part of many Terry stops.” Knowing a person’s identity may, of course, help to clear a suspect and divert the attention of the police to another suspect. On the other hand, knowing the suspect’s name may just as quickly confirm to the officer that the person is wanted for another, unrelated crime. In cases such as this, where the police are investigating a domestic dispute, officers “need to know whom they are dealing with in order to assess the situation, the threat to their own safety, and possible danger to the potential victim.” “The request for identity has an immediate relation to the purpose, rationale, and practical demands of a Terry stop. The threat of criminal sanction helps ensure that the request for identity does not become a legal nullity.” Balancing the intrusion into the individual’s privacy against the extent to which the stop-and-identify law promotes legitimate government interests, the Court concluded that the Fourth Amendment did not prohibit Nevada from making it a crime for a person detained under conditions of Terry to refuse to disclose his name to a police officer upon request.

Furthermore, the officer’s request that Hiibel identify himself did not implicate Hiibel’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. There was no “articulated real and appreciable fear that name would be used to incriminate him, or that it ‘would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute’ him.” Because Hiibel’s name was not an incriminating piece of evidence, he could not invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege in refusing to disclose it.