Arizona Stop and Identify Law: True Full Name Only

Two things have to happen before the duty in A.R.S. § 13-2412 attaches, and neither is automatic. First, a peace officer must have lawfully detained you "based on reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime." A voluntary encounter on a Phoenix sidewalk is not a detention, and the statute reaches nobody who is free to walk away. Second, the officer must actually advise you that refusing to answer is unlawful. That advisement sits inside the operative clause of subsection A rather than beside it, so an officer who never gives it has not completed the elements of the offense.

What you owe is also narrower than most people assume. The compelled disclosure is your "true full name" and nothing else. The second sentence of subsection A is explicit: a person detained under the section "shall state the person's true full name, but shall not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of a peace officer." Your date of birth, your home address, where you are going, who you are with and what you were doing all sit outside the statute. Arizona also does not make you produce a document. Section 13-2412 compels a spoken name, not a card, and a pedestrian carrying no identification commits no offense by saying so.

Refusal is a class 2 misdemeanor. A.R.S. § 13-707(A)(2) caps the jail term for a class 2 misdemeanor at four months, and A.R.S. § 13-802(B) caps the fine at $750. A.R.S. § 13-802(E) makes that fine a lien in the same manner as a money judgment rendered in a civil action. If you were convicted of the same misdemeanor once already in the two years before the current offense, A.R.S. § 13-707(B) requires sentencing at the next higher class, which moves the exposure to six months and a $2,500 fine.

Behind the wheel the rules change, because Title 28 imposes identification duties of its own. A.R.S. § 28-1594 lets an officer or a traffic enforcement agent "stop and detain a person as is reasonably necessary to investigate an actual or suspected violation of this title." A.R.S. § 28-3169(A) requires a licensee to keep a legible driver license in immediate possession while driving and to display it on demand of a justice of the peace, a police officer, or a field deputy or inspector of the Arizona Department of Transportation. A.R.S. § 28-1595(B) turns refusal into a class 2 misdemeanor, and a driver who holds no license must instead give evidence of identity carrying five specified items: full name, date of birth, residence address, a brief physical description including sex, weight, height and eye and hair color, and a signature.

Two safety valves sit alongside that. A.R.S. § 28-1595(E) says you cannot be convicted under subsection B if you supplied those five items and then produce to the court a legible license, or an authorized duplicate, that was valid at the time. A.R.S. § 28-3169(B) gives a parallel defense for producing the license in court or at the officer's office. Passengers are treated differently again: under A.R.S. § 28-1595(C) a person other than the driver commits a class 2 misdemeanor by refusing identity only "when such officer or agent has reasonable cause to believe the person has committed a violation of this title." Absent that, an Arizona passenger falls back under § 13-2412, which needs a criminal detention and an advisement.

Arizona goes the other way entirely on photo enforcement. A.R.S. § 28-1602(A) provides that a person who receives a mailed notice of violation generated by a photo enforcement system does not have to identify who is in the photo and does not have to respond at all. Subsection B requires the notice itself to state that the recipient is under no obligation to identify the person or respond, and subsection F requires the agency to say the same thing when it serves a photo citation outside the normal process. That is a statutory right of silence about identity, and it is the mirror image of § 13-2412.

A violation of A.R.S. § 13-2412 is a class 2 misdemeanor under subsection B. Sentencing runs through A.R.S. § 13-707(A)(2), which sets a maximum of four months of imprisonment, and A.R.S. § 13-802(B), which sets a maximum fine of $750. Under § 13-802(E) the fine becomes a lien in the same manner as a civil money judgment. A second conviction of the same misdemeanor within the preceding two years is sentenced one class higher under § 13-707(B), raising the ceiling to six months and $2,500. Traffic-side refusals are charged separately: failing to stop for an officer's signal is a class 2 misdemeanor under A.R.S. § 28-1595(A), and failing to exhibit a license or give the five identity items is a class 2 misdemeanor under § 28-1595(B), subject to the license-production defense in § 28-1595(E).