Nebraska Stop and Identify: Name, Address and an Explanation

Section 29-829 has stood unamended since Laws 1965, chapter 132, section 1. Its trigger is narrow in two ways that matter on the street. The stop must happen in a public place, and the officer must reasonably suspect the person of committing a crime, having committed one, or being about to commit one. The Nebraska Supreme Court in State v. Bridge, 234 Neb. 781, 452 N.W.2d 542 (1990), annotated on the official statute page, required the officer to point to specific and articulable facts that, with rational inferences from them, reasonably warrant the intrusion. State v. Ebberson, 209 Neb. 41, 305 N.W.2d 904 (1981), framed the test as an objective manifestation of criminal activity judged on the totality of the circumstances.

What may be demanded is unusual. The statute names three things: name, address and an explanation of the person's actions. The explanation element goes further than the identification statutes of most states, and the Nebraska Supreme Court restated it in that form in State v. Brewer, 190 Neb. 667, 212 N.W.2d 90 (1973). The same section also supplies a frisk power: where an officer has stopped a person for questioning under it and reasonably suspects danger to life or limb, the officer may search that person for a dangerous weapon, and may take and keep a weapon or any other item whose possession may be a crime until questioning ends, at which point it is returned if lawfully possessed or the person is arrested. The section closes by extending the term peace officer, for its own purposes, to credentialed conservation officers of the Game and Parks Commission.

The missing piece is enforcement. Section 29-829 contains no penalty and creates no offense of refusing. The two obstruction statutes do not fill the gap. Section 28-906 requires the use or threatened use of violence, force, physical interference or an obstacle, and in State v. Yeutter, 252 Neb. 857, 566 N.W.2d 387 (1997), the court held that the mere verbal refusal to provide information to an officer is not an obstacle to enforcement of the penal laws within that section. Section 28-901 on obstructing government operations expressly excludes any other means of avoiding compliance with law without affirmative interference with governmental functions, and State v. Fahlk, 246 Neb. 834, 524 N.W.2d 39 (1994), held that failure to volunteer information is not a physical act under it, nor are mere words, even words deliberately intended to frustrate law enforcement.

Driving changes the analysis entirely. Section 60-489 requires the operator's license to be carried at all times while operating a motor vehicle on Nebraska highways and to be presented for examination on demand by any officer, employee or agent of the Nebraska State Patrol or a police or peace officer recognized by Nebraska law, or else the licensee must present proof of ownership of the license. The same section places a duty on the officer first: in every case of demanding a license the officer must display proper evidence of lawful authority to act as an officer of the law. It also draws a territorial line. Except as provided in section 29-215, no officer other than the Nebraska State Patrol, the Superintendent of Law Enforcement and Public Safety, the county sheriff, or their authorized deputies or subordinates may demand presentation of an operator's license outside the boundaries of incorporated cities and villages. A farm permit issued under section 60-4,126 need not be carried on the person but must be produced within twenty-four hours after a lawful demand. Separately, section 60-683(4) lets a uniformed peace officer require a driver to stop and exhibit the operator's license and registration certificate and submit to an inspection of the vehicle.

Refusing a section 29-829 demand is not itself an offense, and Nebraska prosecutes what happens around it instead. Lying is the real exposure: section 28-907(1)(a) makes it false reporting to furnish material information known to be false to any peace officer or other official with intent to instigate an investigation of an alleged criminal matter or to impede the investigation of an actual criminal matter, a Class I misdemeanor carrying up to one year imprisonment or a one thousand dollar fine or both under section 28-106.

Physical resistance is charged under section 28-906, obstructing a peace officer, also a Class I misdemeanor, or under section 28-904 for resisting arrest. For drivers, failing to carry the license under section 60-489 is a reportable traffic offense, though the point schedule in section 60-4,182 expressly excludes violations for operating a motor vehicle without a valid operator's license in the operator's possession from the catch-all one-point category in subdivision (17). If a stop or a search that follows one was unlawful, the remedy is a motion to suppress under section 29-822, which must be filed at least ten days before trial or at arraignment, whichever is later, in a felony case, or at least ten days before trial or at the plea in any other case, and unraised claims are deemed waived.