Is it required by California law for adults to have identification with them at all times?
I was debating this with someone at work today... also could you tell me a website or other place to look and find the exact statute if it is true. I'm asking because i was stopped by the police yesterday for no real reason and this is what he told me.
Answers:
There is no law in California requiring anybody to carry identification. (Of course, you have to have a drivers license in your possession of you are driving.) It is impossible to provide you with a citation to a statute saying this, just like I cannot provide you with a citation saying you don't have to carry a rutabaga.
The case referenced above is Kolender v. Lawson (1983) 461 U.S. 352, which struck down a California law which required anybody "wandering" to produce identification. The US Supreme Court has recently affirmed that a law is constitutional which requires a person to identify himself if lawfully detained. (Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of Nev., Humboldt Cty. (2004) 542 U.S. 177.) California has no equivalent law, the Nevada law is applicable only when the police have reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, and the Nevada law only required the detained person to give his name, not to produce any identification document.
I do note, however, that in many circumstances if a person is arrested, the arresting officer can release the person on a citation to later appear in court. However, that option may not be available if the arrested person has absolutely no identification.
If you live in any country where I.D. documents are obtainable and you want to have proof of who you are and not a vagrant why wouldn't you want to carry such I.D.? In Canada you must carry identification or you are subject to jail time for vagrancy.
The only reference I could find was in an article on national ID cards; it quotes the CA law, but does not cite it:
"According to contemporary accounts, Edward Lawson was an African-American businessman with dreadlocks who liked to take long walks at night, sometimes in La Jolla and other wealthy neighborhoods. Because Lawson apparently did not like to carry identification on his nocturnal strolls, he was arrested or detained approximately 15 times on the basis of a California law that authorized the arrest of "a person who
loiters or wanders upon the streets or from place to place without apparent reason or business and who 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." As interpreted by the California Supreme Court, the law allowed police officers to arrest a person stopped on the basis of "reasonable suspicion" of clear involvement in criminal activity if the suspect failed to produce "credible and reliable" identification."
Because the article refers to "contemporary" accounts, Lawson's case could be many years in the past - no idea if this is still a current law.
No. But in some states you can be charged with Failure to I.D. if a cop is already charging you with some other offense and you THEN refuse to verbally identify yourself. There are also some cities like New York where it can be a misdemeanor not to present a valid ID card to an officer, but again, he has to have probable cause to demand that ID in the first place and he has to first be charging you with some other offense. A cop cannot just come up to you on the street and randomly demand to see your papers if you're not doing anything - we're not living in Nazi Germany, after all.
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