On Mon, 2004-01-12 at 01:07, Tim May wrote:
On Jan 11, 2004, at 2:12 PM, bgt wrote:
On Sun, 2004-01-11 at 13:57, Tim May wrote:
I don't know if he did, but of course there is no requirement in the U.S. that citizen-units either carry or present ID. Unless they are driving a car or operating a few selected classes of heavy machinery.
Many states do have laws allowing the police to detain a person for a period of time (varies by state) to ascertain the identity of that person, if they have reasonable suspicion that they are involved in a a crime.
Duh. Yes, "arrests" are allowed, and have been in all states and in all
Perhaps I wasn't very clear. That is (in many states, probably not all), a cop may stop (detain) someone on "reasonable suspicion", but it would still be illegal to arrest the person (since this would require "probably cause"). In these states, at this point the person is required by law to identify himself, and in some states even to provide proof of identification. If the person cannot or will not do this, it is legal in those states (though as we know, blatantly unconstitutional) to further detain or even arrest the person until their identity can be determined. Nevada's version of this has been ruled unconstitutional by the Ninth Circuit and the case is still pending in the US Supreme Court.
need carry no such pieces of documentation. There is no "national ID," nor even "state ID."
Period.
You must mean /mandatory/ "state ID". Every state I've lived in have State ID's that are (voluntarily) issued to residents that can't get or don't want a driver's license. All of these states grant their ID the same status as a driver's license for identification purposes (anywhere that accepts driver's license as valid ID must also accept the state ID).
Read up on the Lawson case in San Diego.
(Thanks Steve for the links). The Lawson case appears to be another example of the Supreme Court abdicating their responsibilities. There were no fourth amendment objections to CA's law in their decision. The Court said the law was unconstitutional because it was not specific enough, leaving too much discretion to the cop about what satisfies the identification requirement, when of course they should have ruled that the identification requirement itself is unconstitutional. There were no real objections to the principle behind the law, which is a damn shame. The closest I could find was in the dissent: "Of course, if the statute on its face violates the Fourth or Fifth Amendment--and I express no views about that question--the Court would be justified in striking it down. But the majority apparently cannot bring itself to take this course." --bgt