D.C. Has No Stop-and-Identify Law, but Drivers Must Produce a Permit

The absence here is structural rather than assumed. The District's arrest statute, D.C. Code § 23-581, sets out when a law enforcement officer may arrest without a warrant and lists the offences that support such an arrest; it confers no power to detain a person for the purpose of demanding a name, and it creates no offence of refusing to give one. The general public-order offences in Chapter 13 of Title 22 are drafted the same way. Section 22-1307, crowding, obstructing or incommoding, requires the person to continue or resume the obstruction after being instructed by a law enforcement officer to stop, and it carries a misdemeanor penalty of up to 90 days and a fine set by § 22-3571.01. It contains no identification element at all. Neither does the disorderly conduct statute at § 22-1321. Searches of the phrases a District drafter would have used, including "true name", "name and address" and refusal to identify, return nothing across Title 22 chapters 4 and 13, Title 23 chapter 5 and Title 50 chapter 14.

The driving duty is real and specific. Under § 50-1401.01(c) the permit must be in the driver's immediate possession at all times while operating a motor vehicle in the District, and it must be exhibited to any police officer upon demand. The penalty is unusually small by modern standards, a fine of not less than $10 and not more than $50 on conviction, because the figure has not been updated since the provision was written. Driving without any permit at all is a different and heavier matter under § 50-1401.01(d): a fine set by § 22-3571.01 or imprisonment for up to 90 days, except that a District permit expired for not more than 90 days is treated under § 50-1401.01(d-1) as a civil infraction with a fine of not more than $100 under §§ 50-2301.04(b) and 50-2301.05.

Insurance is the other document a District stop produces. Section 5-114.02(a) requires an officer to demand proof of insurance from the operator of any motor vehicle that has been lawfully stopped or has been in a traffic accident the officer responded to, unless safety, law enforcement or emergency medical circumstances make that impracticable. Failure to present it creates a rebuttable presumption under § 5-114.02(b)(1) that the vehicle is uninsured, and the officer must then issue notices of infraction under both § 31-2413(a)(3) and § 31-2413(a)(7). The District expressly accepts an electronic image on a phone, and § 5-114.02(b-1)(2)(A) states that handing over the phone to show it is not consent for the officer to access any other content on the device. Subsection (c) bars an officer from stopping a vehicle solely to demand proof of insurance.

Refusing to identify yourself is not costless once an arrest has already happened. Under D.C. Code § 23-584(b)(2)(B)(vii), a releasing official may not authorise release on citation where the arrested person cannot reliably be identified or inaccurately reports information concerning his or her name or other identifying information. In practice that is the difference between walking out with a citation and being held for presentment. Actively lying is worse still: D.C. Code § 5-117.05 makes a false or fictitious report to the Metropolitan Police punishable by a fine of up to $300 or 30 days.

The District does impose an identification duty running the other way. D.C. Code § 5-337.01 requires every member of the Metropolitan Police Department, while in uniform, to wear or display the MPD nameplate and badge or the equivalent MPD identification, and forbids altering or covering that identifying information or otherwise preventing or hindering a member of the public from reading it. In a First Amendment assembly the requirement is tighter again: § 5-331.09 governs identification of MPD personnel policing such assemblies.

Failing to have the permit in immediate possession or to show it on demand is punished under § 50-1401.01(c) by a fine of not less than $10 and not more than $50 on conviction. Operating without a permit at all draws the § 22-3571.01 fine or up to 90 days under § 50-1401.01(d), while a District permit expired 90 days or less is a civil infraction capped at $100 under § 50-1401.01(d-1). Failing to produce proof of insurance results in notices of infraction under § 31-2413(a)(3) and (a)(7) and a rebuttable presumption that the vehicle is uninsured. There is no District offence of refusing to give police your name, but under § 23-584(b)(2)(B)(vii) an arrested person who cannot reliably be identified, or who misreports identifying information, loses eligibility for release on citation, and a false report to MPD is separately punishable under § 5-117.05 by up to $300 or 30 days.