Our View: Silence is not a crime

By: North County Times - Editorial | Tuesday, March 23, 2004 10:34 PM PST ∞

Can a police officer arrest a person because the person chooses not to talk to the officer, even to give his name? The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in such a case Monday, in which Nevada resident Larry Hiibel was arrested and fined $250 because he refused to tell an officer his name.

Deputy Sheriff Lee Dove, who arrested Hiibel outside of Winnemucca, Nev., on May 21, 2000, did not claim to have probable cause to arrest him, and Hiibel never resisted arrest. He was never charged with a crime other than refusing to tell the officer his name.

The incident was recorded on the deputy's auto-mounted videocamera, and is available on the Internet at www.papersplease.org/hiibel/video/html.

Nevada state law requires people to identify themselves to police "under circumstances which reasonably indicate that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime."

Hiibel is challenging the constitutionality of that law. His attorneys told the Supreme Court on Monday that it violates the Fourth Amendment's protection against illegal search and the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination.

In the 1968 Supreme Court case, Terry vs. Ohio, the court ruled that police may briefly detain, question and pat down someone whose activities give rise to a "reasonable suspicion" of a probable cause for arrest. The Hiibel case tests whether it is a crime for the suspect to simply keep his mouth shut.

It seems clear to us that it is not be a crime.

If police have a reasonable suspicion that someone is involved in a crime, they should be allowed hold him until they can identify him. But that is not the issue in this case. The "crime" was that Hiibel simply kept his mouth shut.

On the day of the incident, a passing motorist allegedly had reported that a man in a pickup truck had been hitting a woman in a pickup truck. When the deputy approached him, Hiibel was standing by his parked pickup with his adult daughter inside. The deputy never mentioned to Hiibel that he had received an allegation of wrongdoing; he said only that he was "investigating an investigation." Hiibel was never charged with hitting his daughter, nor even questioned about it.

A strange aspect of the case is that, had Deputy Dove arrested Hiibel, Hiibel would have had the right to remain silent.

It stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point to think that the Constitution grants some rights to people only after they have been arrested.

This appears to be a textbook case of a citizen's right to be left alone.

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