Idaho Has No Stop-and-Identify Statute, But a False Name Is a Crime

Start with what is absent. Idaho Code § 19-603 lists every situation in which a peace officer may arrest without a warrant: a public offense committed or attempted in his presence, a felony already committed, reasonable cause on a committed felony, a charge made on reasonable cause, night-time reasonable cause on a felony, an immediate response to a reported assault, battery, domestic violence, first or second degree stalking, protection order violation, no contact order violation or threat of violence on school grounds under § 18-3302I, and an aircraft crime on immediate response. It is a closed list of arrest grounds. Idaho attached no companion section granting a shorter investigative detention on reasonable suspicion, and no section anywhere in the code compels a person to state a name, address or date of birth to an officer.

The one place Idaho legislated about compelled identification during an investigation cuts the other way. Section 19-625 lets a peace officer investigating a felony apply to a district judge or magistrate for an order temporarily detaining a named or described person to obtain identifying physical characteristics, defined in § 19-625(4) as fingerprints, palm prints, footprints, measurements, handwriting, handprinting, sound of voice, blood, urine, saliva or hair samples, comparative personal appearance or photographs. The application must show probable cause that a felony occurred, reasonable grounds connecting the individual, that the evidence may contribute to identification, and that it cannot otherwise be obtained. Even then § 19-625(2)(G) caps the detention at three hours, (2)(H) guarantees counsel at public expense under § 19-6009, (2)(I) states that the individual is under no legal obligation to submit to any interrogation or to make any statement unless sound of voice identification is required, and (2)(J) expires the order after ten days. If Idaho required a judge's order and a probable cause showing merely to take a fingerprint, it plainly did not create a roadside duty to recite a name.

The live exposure is dishonesty rather than silence. Section 18-5413(2) makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly give, or cause to be given, false information regarding your own or another person's identity to any law enforcement officer investigating the commission of an offense. Two conditions matter: the information has to be knowingly false, and the officer has to be investigating an offense. Section 18-5413(1) covers the different case of a knowingly false report about the commission of an offense. Section 18-705 adds a broader catch-all, punishing anyone who wilfully resists, delays or obstructs a public officer in the discharge or attempted discharge of any duty, or who knowingly gives a false report to a peace officer, when no other punishment is prescribed.

Driving changes the answer completely. Under § 49-316 every licensee must have the driver's license in immediate possession at all times when operating a motor vehicle and must, upon demand, surrender it into the hands of a peace officer for inspection. Idaho softens that with a cure: the same section says no person charged under it shall be convicted if a license issued to that person and valid at the time of arrest is produced in court. The duty is tied to operating a vehicle, so it does not reach a passenger or a pedestrian.

Idaho also polices the other side of the encounter. Section 18-703 makes it a misdemeanor for a public officer, or anyone pretending to be one, to arrest a person or detain him against his will under pretense or color of legal authority without regular process or other lawful authority. Section 19-608 requires the person making an arrest to inform the person to be arrested of the intention to arrest, the cause of the arrest and the authority to make it, and § 19-609 requires an officer acting under a warrant to show it on request.

A false identity under § 18-5413(2) is a misdemeanor, and Idaho Code § 18-113(1) punishes a misdemeanor with up to six months in a county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both, unless a different punishment is prescribed. Section 18-113(2) lets a court add a fine of up to $1,000 on top of a punishment set by a specific statute. Resisting, delaying or obstructing under § 18-705 carries its own figures written into the section, a fine not exceeding $1,000 and imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, and applies only when no other punishment is prescribed.

Failing to produce a driver's license under § 49-316 is a misdemeanor rather than an infraction, and Idaho says so by name. Section 49-236(1) makes it a misdemeanor to violate any provision of title 49 except the provisions of chapter 3 other than sections 49-301, 49-316, 49-331 and 49-332, chapter 4, and chapters 6 through 9. Section 49-316 is one of the four sections written back out of that exception, so the general infraction treatment § 49-236(2) gives the rest of chapter 3 does not reach it, and § 18-113 supplies up to six months in a county jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

The statutory cure in § 49-316 still applies: producing a license valid at the time of arrest in court defeats the charge. Where an officer detains someone without lawful authority, § 18-703 makes that a misdemeanor by the officer, and Idaho Code § 5-220 sets a one year limitation on an action for wrongful seizure by an officer.