Kolender v. Lawson :: 461 U.S. 352 (1983)
"carrying reasonable assurance that the identification is authentic and providing means for later getting in touch with the person who has identified himself."
So if you say your name is the same as the name that the license plate comes up with - when the cops run it - and also do a registration search for warrants...and if the car does not come up as stolen then technically your name should be the same as the registration....
Only in my case I am a "joint tenant owner" and so the registration is not in my name...
From May 7th, 2025, US nationals as well as residents are required by law to have a REAL ID-compliant license or ID card when entering federal facilities, boarding commercial aircraft as well as entering nuclear power plants.
Minnesota still has not required REAL ID but I guess they will soon!!
Laws known as "stop and identify" exist in 24 states across the US. This means that people are required to identify themselves and in the event that a police officer has reasonable suspicion that they are involved or about to engage in criminal activity. ..These laws allow police officers to arrest criminal suspects who refuse to identify themselves. Although no state has a provision that requires all individuals to carry ID at all times,
OK but giving your name IS identifying yourself - what they mean obviously is a photo ID.
if they fail to identify themselves, to serve subpoenas to appear before a grand jury unless they provide IDSo that means a photo ID is required.
https://www.ilrc.org/sites/default/files/resources/stop_identify_statutes_in_us-lg-20180201v3.pdf
So this goes through all the Stop and ID statutes of each state that has them - very handy!! Most of them mean giving your name as reasonable ID....so if your name is the same as your car license registration name then that should be ok. Of course Travis Heinze of youtube fame has proven that it often NOT OK to require the 4th Amendment to be respected - with ID photo requirement as an unlawful seizure. Travis asks for an equal-exchange of ID with the cop - and I think only four cops have provided their photo ID to Travis first as an exchange offer!! That is out of over 100 stops by the cops on Travis for traveling in his car.
Studied History (Graduated 2012)Upvoted by , Former Air Force Security Forces Augmentee, third-generation Law Enforcement and , lives in The United States of America (1970-present)Author has 132 answers and 175.4K answer views6yI must say, some of the answers here - especially those from cops who are paid to know and enforce the law - have me worried about the state of our civil liberties.
The correct answer is that unless you're driving or otherwise doing something that requires documents (or if you're arrested), you don't have to show cops your ID.
Can You Refuse to Identify Yourself to Police?
In states like California, even if a cop can articulate a reasonable suspicion that you're up to no good, you still don't have to give him your ID or identify yourself at all.
Likewise, even in Stop and Identify states, you don't need to give cops your ID; you just need to give them identifying information.
I hate to break it to certain officious officers here, but we don't live in a "show me your papers" society.
There are several YouTube videos showing people passing through checkpoints (mostly in Texas along I-10) and refusing to answer, “Are you an American citizen?” Most were eventually let go after long, delaying arguments, but one had his window smashed and was pulled out of his car and handcuffed.
The 100-mile inland border check-stations are a whole different animal than an investigative detention based on reasonable suspicion.
I've never been arrested for anything. I can see the warrant issue creating probable cause.
However, (in my 50's) I was recently threatened with being arrested for “obstruction and resisting arrest,” because the officer said that “refusal to provide a valid driver's license is illegal (I was walking) as my name, DOB and address aren't a verifiable form of ID. I asked him to hold on while I confirmed that with the county attorney. He left when their office answered that was incorrect.
I was taking a walk. The deputy felt it was “suspicious for a 50 something man to be walking while it's snowing.” (1 inch of snow shuts the town down.)
So, basically taking a walk in weather he wouldn't walk in is sufficient probable cause. I'm guessing that anything the officer wouldn't do is sufficient.
However, I grew up in the north and they don't start plowing until they get 6 or so inches or it stops coming down.
However, if I'm just minding my own business and a cop orders me to give him my ID, I'll respectfully decline.
Context is key.
Because hundreds of thousands of people died under the promise that we will never live in a state where the government can demand your papers absent of a crime.
I have, and your point is?
Terry v Ohio allows cops to stop and frisk/pat down individuals if there's a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. I don't see any national law compelling citizens to identify themselves to cops on demand. By the way, in Justice Douglas's powerful and prescient dissent, he claimed Terry would lead us down the road to tyranny (as evidenced by the abuses of New York's stop and frisk practices), but I digress.
Re: Hiibel
We do not read these statements as controlling. The passages recognize that the Fourth Amendment does not impose obligations on the citizen but instead provides rights against the government. As a result, the Fourth Amendment itself cannot require a suspect to answer questions. This case concerns a different issue, however. Here, the source of the legal obligation arises from Nevada state law, not the Fourth Amendment. Further, the statutory obligation does not go beyond answering an officer’s request to disclose a name. See NRS §171.123(3) (“Any person so detained shall identify himself, but may not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of any peace officer”). As a result, we cannot view the dicta in Berkemer or Justice White’s concurrence in Terry as answering the question whether a State can compel a suspect to disclose his name during a Terry stop.
(Emphasis mine)
So in other words, there's no nationwide requirement to identify yourself to police; and even in Stop and ID states, you don't need your physical ID on you unless you're driving or otherwise doing something that requires an ID.
Since I acknowledged that people need to give police identifying information in Stop and ID states, I fail to see how this invalidates my answer.
The Supreme Court (2020) held that “when an officer lacks information negating an inference that the owner is driving the vehicle, an investigative traffic stop made after running a vehicle’s license plate and learning that the registered owner’s driver’s license has been revoked is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”[1] ...Deputy Mehrer assumed that Charles Glover, Jr. was the driver of the truck and did not attempt to identify the driver prior to the motor vehicle stop. Based solely on the information related to the registered owner having a revoked license, and without observing any other traffic violation, Deputy Mehrer initiated a traffic stop. The Kansas Court of Appeals reversed the District Court holding that “it was reasonable for [Deputy] Mehrer to infer that the driver was the owner of the vehicle” because “there were specific and articulable facts from which the officer’s common-sense inferences gave rise to a reasonable suspicion.”[2] The Kansas Supreme Court reversed the holding that Deputy Mehrer did not have reasonable suspicion, rather that he had “only a hunch” of criminal activity.[3] The United States Supreme Court reversed the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision." So clearly it's NOT a game - this issue has gone to the Supreme Court recently! They ruled it is reasonable identification for the cop to assume the driver of the vehicle is the same as the person's registered name of the vehicle. Why? Because they already "ran the plate" and there was no stolen vehicle warrant - rather just a revoked driver's license. So it was the context of the "plate run" that gave "reasonable identification" of the driver before any stop was made. https://dlglearningcenter.com/scotus-on-the-fourth-amendment-reasonable-to-infer-that-the-registered-owner-is-the-driver-of-a-vehicle/ The fact that the registered owner is not always the driver does not negate the reasonableness of the inference that the registered owner is the driver of the vehicle. Furthermore, Deputy Mehrer “possessed no exculpatory information – let alone sufficient information to rebut the reasonable inference that Glover was driving his own truck…”[7] Travis Heinze already had an arrest citation thrown out for that very reason - "obstruction" based on not handing over papers. The photo I.D. is required if someone is being arrested for another crime. If the cop was able to reasonably identify the person then a photo I.D. is not legally required and so that can not be the basis for the actual arrest itself - that's why the 4th Amendment exists - to prevent a "show me the papers" gestapo.
