Yes, Monday is Supreme Court Day. The Supreme Court releases its lastest opinions every Monday and I'm there, ready and waiting.

The most notable case this week is good old Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Court of Nevada. You'll recall from past entries that Hiibel was arrested and refused to identify himself, claiming that he was exercising his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Hiibel challenged the constitutionality of the Nevada Revised Code § 171.123(3):

The officer may detain the person pursuant to this section only to ascertain his identity and the suspicious circumstances surrounding his presence abroad. Any person so detained shall identify himself, but may not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of any peace officer.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court affirmed Hiibel's conviction, noting that the Nevada statute is not "unconstitutionally vague." They also referenced a case that was referred to during the oral arguments, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). The Terry case established that "an officer's reasonable suspicion that a person may be involved in criminal activity permits the officer to stop the person for a brief time and take additional steps to investigate further." The officer's questioning of Hiibel -- who was suspecting of being involved with criminal activity -- was thus constitutional as a "Terry stop."

Justices Breyer, Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg dissented. Stevens objected to the constitutionality of a law which requires a person to identify himself:

In my judgment, the broad constitutional right to remain silent, which derives from the Fifth Amendment's guarantee that "[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," U. S. Const., Amdt. 5,4 is not as circumscribed as the Court suggests, and does not admit even of the narrow exception defined by the Nevada statute.

But the Fifth Amendment only applies to cases in which answering an officer's questions would incriminate the person of a crime. I cannot fathom a situation in which merely stating a name -- an objective fact readily available to the public -- automatically implicates a person of a crime. We are not talking about a police-state situation in which Hiibel, minding his own business, was asked to identify himself. The situation is Hiibel being implicated in "suspicious" activity (a bystander notified police that he was arguing with his daughter) and apparently drunk. His car is slightly off of the road. A police officer immediately sees this as suspicious. Is the daughter in danger? Is it even his daughter? Could it be a woman that he's beating? In order to begin an investigation at all and effectively do his duty in protecting the woman and the rest of us, the police officer needs to know who they guy is, and what he's doing here. Note that the language of the Nevada statute emphasizes that an officer can detain a person "only to ascertain his identity and the suspicious circumstances surrounding his presence abroad" (emphasis mine). The suspect may refuse to answer any other question, but he must identify himself.