Hiibel Tells Us Why

Brushing aside mouthpieces like me and Timothy Lynch, Larry Dudley Hiibel tells us why he went all the way to the Supreme Court over not wanting to tell a cop who he is, in the pages of the Christian Science Monitor.

Comments

[zorel]

money quote:

"..the whole idea of "your papers, please" goes completely against the grain of the American people"

OTOH, there was a police report of a man beating a woman and the police were responding ...

The police should have explained their purpose to Hiibel, especially since he was not the driver, before asking/demanding his info.

[Seamus]

The Supreme Court's decision was that, since the cops had received a call about an assault, they had "reasonable suspicion" that a crime had taken place or was about to take place and were thus, under Terry v. Ohio, were justified in briefly detaining Hiibert. Having made a legitimate Terry stop, they were then justified in demanding that he identify himself. It would therefore appear that, had the Terry stop not been justified, Hiibert would have been entirely within his rights to invite the police to go pound sand. The problem with this, though, is that none of us will know, when the cops approach us, whether they may have received a tip that in hindsight turns out to be erroneous but provides "reasonable suspicion" sufficient to justify a Terry stop. Rather than take that risk, we will therefore be compelled to provide our papers on demand. (Actually, the Court didn't say we could be compelled to provide ID, but that is the inevitable next step. Otherwise, when you or I are detained for jaywalking and asked our names, there'd be little to stop us from simply saying "Leon Trotsky" and getting away with it.)

[TWC]

I find this a whole lot more disturbing than schoolkids mouthing "under God" every morning at 8:00 am.

[joe]

This was about a cop acting like a jerk, and some legal foundation tried to bootstrap it into a stop and search case?

THAT'S why this idiotic case ended up in front of the court?

Stupid cop. How do you think Cletis is going to react when you take that stance?

[Skeptikos]

Stupid cop? If a cop in a police state acts like a cop in a police state, and then the judges who run that police state say, good going mister police. How does that make the cop stupid. It just means he (the cop) understands what Mr Hiibel did not. This is not a free country, and the sooner he and the rest of you realize that, the smarter you will all be. THIS IS A POLICE STATE.