Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of
Nev., Humboldt City (full text)
U.S. Supreme Court
Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of Nev., Humboldt
Cty, 542 U.S. 177 (2004)
Date: 06/21/04
Case No: 03-5554
Issue: Identification of Suspect,
Terry Stop
Holding:
The principles of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 L.
Ed. 2d 889, 88 S. Ct. 1868, allow a state to require a suspect to
disclose his or her name during a Terry stop. The stop must be
reasonable in inception and scope; an officer may not arrest a
person merely for failing to identify himself or herself if the
officer's request for identification is not reasonably related to
the reason for the stop.
Summary:
An officer responded to a report of an assault. At the
scene, he found D and a woman. D was outside a truck, and the
woman was inside the truck. He asked D eleven times to identify
himself, and each time D refused. The officer arrested D and D was
subsequently convicted of obstructing an officer in carrying out
his duties, under Nevada's "stop and identify" statute, which
permits an officer to require a suspect to disclose his or her
identity. The statute does not provide for an officer to require
that a suspect produce a driver's license or other document. The
Court held that D's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated
because the officer's request that D identify himself had an
immediate relation to the purpose of the stop, and because the
Nevada statute balances the intrusion on individual interests
against the interests of the government. The Court found no
violation of D's Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself,
because disclosure of his name did not present a reasonable risk of
incrimination; the Fifth Amendment prohibits only compelled
testimony that is incriminating. The Court left open the
possibility that in unusual circumstances a person's disclosure of
his or her name could give police a link in the chain of evidence
needed to convict the person of a separate offense. If that
situation arises in the future, the Court will then address the
potential Fifth Amendment implications based on the facts of that
case, but the Court finds that it need not be addressed here
because D's failure to provide his name was based on his belief
that his name was none of the officer's business, not on a desire
to avoid self-incrimination.