Ask his name, but he won't tell

Rancher Dudley Hiibel refused to show a deputy his ID. On Monday, the case goes to the highest court in the land.

The man in the white cowboy hat was standing beside his pickup truck smoking a Pall Mall when the sheriff's deputy arrived.

The deputy said he was investigating a call about a possible fight. The deputy asked for some identification.

"Why?" the man said. "Am I under arrest?"

"I just need to see some identification."

The deputy asked 11 times to see the ID, but the man refused. "I don't want to talk," the man said, offering his wrists to be handcuffed. "I've done nothing, I've broken no laws. Take me to jail, I don't care."

The man, a cattle rancher named Dudley Hiibel, was arrested because he would not identify himself. He spent the night in the Humboldt County, Nev., jail on May 21, 2000, and was convicted of "delaying a peace officer."

Hiibel's stubbornness is the focus of an unusual case before the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, the court will hear arguments about whether the government can require someone to identify themselves.

Law enforcement agencies and the federal government have urged the court to uphold Hiibel's conviction. They say it's important that police know who they are questioning and that an ID requirement is a minimal intrusion on other rights.

But civil liberties groups and Hiibel's attorneys say people should not be forced to identify themselves. They praise the cowboy for being so stubborn.

"Hiibel is special," said Tim Lynch of the Cato Institute, "because he was willing to go to jail to assert his rights."

The characters sound straight from a dime-store novel: a cowboy named Dudley and a deputy named Dove.

Dudley Hiibel is a real-life cowboy who believes the government ought to mind its own business.

He is the owner of a small ranch near Winnemucca, Nev. He is a subsistence rancher, with just enough cattle to provide food and basic living expenses. He rides a well-fed mustang named Hayboy.

His ranch is so remote it does not have electricity. Hiibel (pronounced HI-bul) relies on a generator and batteries to power a few appliances, but he has no television. He says he doesn't need TV because, "I go to bed early."

Hiibel, 59, is separated from his wife and has nine adult children. On May 21, 2000, he and his youngest daughter, Mimi, were arguing as she drove his GMC pickup down Grass Valley Road. Hiibel was in the passenger seat.

He says they were arguing because "she was seeing a boy that I didn't approve of."

Mimi, then 17, told police she got so angry she hit her father in the shoulder. She pulled to the side of the road. Her father took the keys and got out of the truck to calm down and smoke a cigarette.

Someone saw them and called the Sheriff's Office, which dispatched Deputy Lee Dove to investigate. A videocamera in his squad car recorded the scene. (The video can be seen on a Web site set up by Hiibel's supporters,

"I've got a report that there's been fighting going on between you two tonight," said Dove.

"I don't know nothing about that," Hiibel said.

Dove asked for ID, but Hiibel repeatedly refused.

"Am I under arrest?"

"I just need to see some identification."

"Why?"

"Because," the deputy said, "I'm investigating an investigation."

Hiibel still refused to give his name or show ID. But he did not resist when Dove handcuffed him and put him in back of the squad car.

Hiibel spent the night in jail and was bailed out the next morning by his nephew. Asked last week about conditions in the jail, Hiibel said, "I wouldn't recommend the food."

Like other states, Nevada allows police to detain anyone if there is "reasonable suspicion" they have committed or are about to commit a crime. Nevada law also says the person detained "shall identify himself, but may not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of any peace officer."

Florida and many other states and localities have similar ID laws, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that has filed a brief on Hiibel's behalf.

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued many rulings about the rights of people detained by police, but the court has not addressed whether someone can be required to identify themselves.

Hiibel was convicted and fined $250 plus a $70 administrative fee. His conviction was upheld by the Nevada Supreme Court, which said in a 4-3 decision that "any intrusion on privacy ... is outweighed by the benefits to officers and community safety."

The Nevada court also cited the risk of terrorism, saying that "we are at war against enemies who operate with concealed identities and the dangers we face as a nation are unparalleled."

Dove testified in state court that he was investigating a possible crime and was "talking to an individual that I didn't know." He said he needed to know the man's identity "to conduct an investigation into what was going on."

Dove said that he had reasonable suspicion a crime had occurred because of the phone call to the Sheriff's Office about a possible fight and that Hiibel's behavior suggested he had been drinking alcohol. He said skid marks near the truck suggested it had been pulled off the road "in a fast, aggressive manner."

In its Supreme Court filing, the Attorney General's Office said, "Requiring a lawfully detained person to identify himself is a minimal intrusion. Obtaining a suspect's name is also the essence of good police work."

The Attorney General's Office said the ID requirement does not violate the Fifth Amendment, which says people cannot be forced to testify against themselves.

"Compelling a person (who is) lawfully detained on reasonable suspicion to identify himself does not require the person to speak to his guilt," the attorney general said.

Hiibel sums up his position like this: "There is nothing wrong with you asking me my name ... but I don't have to answer."

His Web site includes a mock license plate that calls Nevada "THE SURVEILLANCE STATE."

On Monday, Hiibel's case before the nation's highest court will be argued by his public defender, Bob Dolan.

Dolan said the sheriff's deputy had no need to see any ID.

"Dudley Hiibel's identify - as expressed through his name - is something that he is able to legitimately keep to himself until he commits a crime," Dolan said in an interview. "He never committed a crime."

In his court filing, Dolan warned that the Nevada law jeopardized the rights of innocent people.

"What this means is that a person under a shadow of suspicion, who has not committed any crime, can be approached by the police, do absolutely nothing and yet be arrested, convicted and incarcerated."

Civil liberties groups such as Cato and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have urged the court to rule in favor of Hiibel.

Tim Lynch, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice, said that if Hiibel loses, the decision could "lay the groundwork" for requirement for national ID cards.

Court watchers say the odds are stacked against Hiibel because of the conservative leanings of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

The justices "have been very generous to law enforcement," said Mary Cheh, a law professor at George Washington University. "But every once in a while, they do hold the line" and rule against the police.

- Bill Adair can be reached at 202 463-0575 or adair@sptimes.com

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