Fighting for Right Not to Show ID 

Dudley Hiibel, a Nevada rancher who covets his privacy, didn't want to hand over his identification to a police officer in 2000. His refusal landed him in jail and his name on the U.S. Supreme Court's docket.

At issue in the case, which will be heard March 22, is whether individuals stopped during an investigation of a possible crime must identify themselves to the police. Nevada state law says that individuals must do so if a police officer has reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or will be committed.

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never settle.

Hiibel's attorneys argue that in such situations, known as Terry stops, individuals already have the right to not answer questions and that requiring individuals to show identification violates the Fourth and Fifth Amendments' protections against unreasonable searches and self-incrimination.

Hiibel, 59, who lives in rural Nevada near the small town of Winnemucca, began his journey to the Supreme Court after police responded to a report of an altercation between Hiibel and his daughter in Hiibel's pickup parked on the side of the road.

Hiibel was outside the pickup when deputies arrived and asked for his identification before asking about the alleged fight. A tape of the incident shows Hiibel refused 11 requests to produce identification, after which the deputy arrested him for impeding a police officer.

Police then arrested Hiibel's daughter, Mimi, when she protested the arrest of her father. Both her charge of resisting arrest and the domestic violence charges against Hiibel were later dismissed.

He was, however, found guilty of obstructing a police officer and fined $250, but the public defenders on the case appealed the conviction to a district court and the Nevada Supreme Court.

Those courts upheld the conviction, but the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the case in October 2003.

In his first media interview in three years, Hiibel told Wired News he hoped "the Supreme Court will uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and that all Americans, not just me, have the right to privacy."

"I feel quite strongly I have a right to remain silent and I didn't commit a crime," Hiibel said. "(The deputy) demanded my papers. I exerted my rights as a free American and I was cuffed and taken to jail."

Harriet Cummings, one of three Nevada public defenders working on the case, said that while the case might seem like "no big deal," the legal issues at stake are huge.

"This goes to the very nature of what our society is going to be like," Cummings said. "We believe that exercising your right to remain silent should not be something that can cause you to be imprisoned."

"If an officer acting under suspicion that a crime has been committed comes up to a person, starts asking questions and demands identification, and if the person, as Mr. Hiibel did, declines that demand, they can be hauled off to jail," Cummings said. "And we think that is not something that should happen in a free society."

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