Stop-and-Identify Statutes after Kolender v. Lawson: Exploring the Fourth And Fifth Amendment Issues
![handle is hein.journals/ilr69 and id is 1077 raw text is: Stop-and-Identify Statutes After
Kolender v. Lawson: Exploring the
Fourth and Fifth Amendment Issues
Advocates of more effective law enforcement practices often have
argued that in order to efficiently prevent crime, police officers need the
authority not only to stop and question individuals on less than probable
cause,1 but also to compel disclosure of the name of the person detained.2
Some citizens find this request for identification at the very least annoying
and question the constitutionality of a statute that requires a person to
disclose his or her name and address on request of the police.3 In a recent
case, Kolender v. Lawson,4 the United States Supreme Court invalidated
one such stop-and-identify statute on vagueness grounds,5 reserving
comment on the constitutional validity of such a statute under the fourth
and fifth amendments.6
In Kolender the respondent, Edward Lawson, had been detained
repeatedly, and arrested twice, pursuant to California Penal Code § 647(e).7
The statute provided that an individual committed a misdemeanor by
wander[ing] upon the streets, and failing to identify himself and to
account for his presence when asked to do so by police.8 Lawson often
was detained while walking late at night, sometimes near high crime areas.9
1. See Kolender v. Lawson, 103 S. Ct. 1855, 1860 (1983); Brief of Nat'l Dist.
Attorneys' Ass'n as Amicus Curiae at 9-14, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968); Kuh,
In-Field Interrogation: Stop, Question, Detain, and Frisk, 3 CRIM. L. BULL. 597, 599-602 (1967);
Comment, Stop and Frisk: An Historical Answer to aModem Problen, 58J. CRIM. L. CRIMINOLOGY
& POLICE Sci. 532, 541 (1967).
2. See Brief of Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., Joined by the Int'l
Ass'n of Chiefs of Police, Inc., as Amicus Curiae at 4-9, Kolender v. Lawson, 103 S.
Ct. 1855 (1983); LaFave, Street Encounters and the Constitution: Terry, Sibron, Peters,
and Beyond, 67 MicH. L. REv. 40, 94 (1968).
3. See generally Reich, Police Questioning of Law Abiding Citizens, 75 YALE L.J. 1161,
1161-62 (1966). The author recounts being stopped by police and being asked for iden-
tification. Id. at 1161.
4. 103 S. Ct. 1855 (1983).
5. Id. at.1860.
6. Id. at 1860-61 & n.10.
7. Id. at 1856-57. California Penal Code § 647(e) provides that a person is guilty
of a misdemeanor if he
loiters or wanders upon the streets or from place to place without apparent reason
or business and ... refuses to identify himself and to account for his presence
when requested by any peace officer to do so, if the surrounding circumstances
are such as to indicate to a reasonable man that the public safety demands such
identification.
CAL. PENAL CODE § 647(e) (West Supp. 1984). The provision substantially adopted the
position of the MODEL PENAL CODE § 250.12 (Tent. Draft No. 13, 1960).
8. 103 S. Ct. at 1856 n.1 (citing CAL. PENAL CODE § 647(e)).
9. Id. at 1856 n.2.
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Stop-and-Identify Statutes after Kolender v. Lawson: Exploring the Fourth And Fifth Amendment Issues
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