Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada
Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, Humboldt County, et al. (2004) was a United States Supreme Court decision that ruled that the United States Constitution does not prohibit police officers from demanding that a suspect give his name when he has been stopped due to a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
Hiibel was an expansion on the "Terry stop" established in Terry v. Ohio, which gave police the ability to stop and frisk someone for weapons when the officer had a reasonable suspicion that the suspect was committing or was about to commit a crime.
Nevada's ?stop and identify? statute, which made it a crime to refuse to identify one's self during a Terry stop, was upheld in Hiibel as not violative of the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures or the Fifth Amendment's against self-incrimination.
The five-Justice majority, in an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, wrote that requiring identification allowed officers to quickly determine whether that suspect was wanted for another offense or has a previous violent record. The Court stated that it could also quickly clear a suspect so that the police can redirect their attention elsewhere.
Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, arguing that identification was testimonial and therefore could not be compelled under the Fifth Amendment. Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, believed that the majority's opinion exceeded the Court's previous line of cases under Terry v. Ohio and violated the Fourth Amendment.
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