Maine's Identify Duty: Probable Cause, a 2-Hour Verification Hold, and a Class E Crime

Maine's answer is built around the summons, not around the stop. Under 17-A MRS §15-A(1) a law enforcement officer who has probable cause to believe a crime has been or is being committed may issue or have delivered a written summons on the Uniform Summons and Complaint directing the person to appear in the appropriate trial court, and the person must give a written promise to appear. Refusing to sign the summons after being ordered to do so is itself a Class E crime, and the officer must file a copy with the court as soon as practicable.

The identification duty in subsection 2 hangs off that power and is narrower than it first looks. Three conditions must all be present. The officer must have probable cause, not reasonable suspicion, to believe the person committed or is committing a crime. The crime must not be one listed in 17-A MRS §15(1)(A), which is the warrantless arrest list covering murder, any Class A, Class B or Class C crime, assault while hunting, chapter 45 drug offences, domestic violence offences, and several others; for those the officer arrests rather than summonses and §15-A(2) does not apply. And the officer must be authorised to deliver a summons under subsection 1. Only then does an intentional failure or refusal to provide reasonably credible evidence of a correct name, address or date of birth become a Class E crime, and even then only if the person persists after having been informed by the officer of the provisions of the subsection. That warning requirement is a real element of the offence in Maine, not a courtesy.

What happens next is where Maine differs from most states. If the person furnishes evidence of name, address and date of birth that does not appear reasonably credible, the officer must attempt to verify it as quickly as is reasonably possible, and during that period may require the person to remain in the officer's presence for a period not to exceed 2 hours. During the same period, if the officer reasonably believes safety requires it, the officer may search for a dangerous weapon by an external patting of the person's outer clothing, and may examine an object that feels like a weapon, but may take permanent possession of the object only if it is subject to forfeiture. The statute then says in terms that the requirement to remain in the officer's presence does not constitute an arrest. Arrest becomes available only after the warning, and only if the person intentionally refuses to furnish any evidence at all or the officer develops probable cause that the person intentionally failed to provide reasonably credible evidence.

Maine also builds in a correction. Subsection 3 provides that if at any time after an arrest under subsection 2 it appears the evidence of correct name, address and date of birth was accurate, the person must be released from custody and the record of that custody must show that as the reason for release; and if the person is acquitted at trial on that ground, the record of acquittal must show it. Failing to appear on a summons is a separate Class E crime under subsection 4, with an affirmative defence that the failure resulted from just cause.

The same architecture is repeated twice more. Section 17 of Title 17-A governs civil violations, and its subsection 2 carries word-for-word the same identification duty, the same warning requirement, the same 2-hour verification hold and pat-down power, and the same mandatory release rule. That matters because traffic infractions are civil violations in Maine and are charged on the Violation Summons and Complaint prescribed by 29-A MRS §2601. Section 17(1) also limits when an officer may order a person to sign: only for offences defined in Title 12, Title 23 section 1980, Title 28-A section 2052, or Title 29-A. And 29-A MRS §105(4) states the rule again for motor vehicle law, making it a Class E crime where a law enforcement officer has probable cause to believe the person violated or is violating Title 29-A and the person intentionally fails or refuses upon request to give a correct name, address or date of birth.

Drivers have a further, separate duty and one useful protection. Under 29-A MRS §1408(1) a licensee must have the licence in immediate possession while operating, and possession may be in electronic form, meaning a digital representation of the licence on a portable electronic device. Section 1408(2) requires the licensee to produce the licence or an electronic version on demand of a law enforcement officer, and then adds a limit Maine wrote deliberately: the use of a portable electronic device to provide licence information does not constitute consent for a law enforcement officer to access other contents of the portable electronic device. Section 1408(3) lets a person charged with this offence have the complaint dismissed on satisfactory evidence that they in fact held a valid licence at the time.

The stop itself is governed by 29-A MRS §105(1), which permits a law enforcement officer who has reasonable and articulable suspicion that a violation of law has taken or is taking place, and who is in uniform, to stop a motor vehicle in order to arrest the operator for a criminal violation, issue the appropriate written process, or question the operator or occupants. Section 105(2) then defines the inspection scope: the officer may demand and inspect the driver's licence, certificate of registration, permits and the vehicle identification numbers, and a state police officer trained under the federal motor carrier safety rules may also demand the record of duty status and medical examiner's certificate.

Refusing to identify in the circumstances §15-A(2) describes is a Class E crime, the lowest class of crime in the Maine Criminal Code, and the same is true under 17-A MRS §17(2) for civil violations and 29-A MRS §105(4) for motor vehicle offences. The offence is not complete on the first refusal: the officer must first inform the person of the provisions of the subsection, and the person must persist. Before arrest, the officer's tools are the verification attempt, the requirement to remain present for up to 2 hours, and an external patting of outer clothing for weapons where safety reasonably requires it.

Arrest follows only on an intentional refusal to furnish any evidence, or on probable cause that the person intentionally failed to provide reasonably credible evidence. If the information later proves accurate the person must be released, the custody record must state that reason, and an acquittal on that ground must be recorded as such. Refusing to sign a summons after being ordered to do so is a separate Class E crime under both §15-A(1) and §17(1), and failing to appear as the summons directs is another under §15-A(4) and §17(4), subject to a just cause defence.

A driver who cannot produce a licence on demand under 29-A MRS §1408 commits a traffic infraction, but §1408(3) requires the court or the District Court Violations Bureau to dismiss the complaint on satisfactory evidence that the person held a valid licence at the time.