Utah Stop and Identify: Name and Date of Birth Only, Class B Misdemeanor to Refuse

Utah splits the rule across two chapters, and reading only one of them gives the wrong answer. The authority sits in the Code of Criminal Procedure at Utah Code Section 77-7-15, headed "Authority of peace officer to stop and question suspect," which was last amended by Chapter 411 of the 2019 General Session and took effect 14 May 2019. It permits a stop of any individual in a public place where the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that individual has committed, is committing, or is attempting to commit a public offense, and it allows the officer to demand name, address, date of birth and an explanation of the individual's actions.

The crime sits in the Criminal Code at Section 76-8-301.5, inside Title 76, Chapter 8, Part 3, Obstructing Governmental Operations, as amended by Chapter 96 of the 2024 General Session and effective 1 May 2024. It reaches only two data points, name and date of birth, and it lists four elements that must all be present. The person must be lawfully subjected to a stop described in Section 77-7-15. A peace officer must demand the name or date of birth. That demand must be reasonably related to the circumstances justifying the stop. And the disclosure must not present a reasonable danger of self-incrimination in the commission of a crime. The self-incrimination limit is written into the offense itself at Subsection (2)(c), so a Utah defendant does not have to import it from case law.

Because the offense is keyed to the demand being reasonably related to the reason for the stop, the practical Utah question in a roadside argument is not whether the officer asked but whether the stop itself rested on reasonable suspicion of a public offense under Section 77-7-15. Utah attaches no identification duty to a consensual encounter, because the offense is defined only for the period during which the individual is lawfully subjected to a Section 77-7-15 stop.

Drivers face a second, separate obligation. Utah Code Section 53-3-217(1) requires a licensee to have the license certificate in immediate possession while driving and to display it on demand of a peace officer, a justice of the peace, or a Driver License Division field deputy or inspector. That violation is an infraction, not a misdemeanor, and Subsection (2) gives a defense: producing in court a license that was valid at the time of the citation or arrest.

Once a person is stopped for questioning, Section 77-7-16 lets the officer frisk for a dangerous weapon if the officer reasonably believes the officer or anyone else is in danger. That section was amended by Chapter 302 of the 2025 General Session. A frisk is a weapons pat-down and is not an identification tool, so it does not enlarge the disclosure duty.

5(3) is a class B misdemeanor. Utah Code Section 76-3-204(2) caps imprisonment for a class B misdemeanor at six months, and Section 76-3-301(1)(d) caps the fine at $1,000 before surcharges. Refusing to hand over a driver license under Section 53-3-217 is a separate infraction, capped at $750 by Section 76-3-301(1)(e), with the in-court production defense in Subsection (2). Two further Utah offenses often ride alongside these. Interference with a peace officer under Section 76-8-305 reaches a person who knows an officer is seeking to effect a lawful arrest or detention and interferes by force, by refusing an act required by lawful order necessary to effect the arrest or detention, or by refusing to stop doing something that impedes it.

5 is a class A misdemeanor and covers fleeing on foot, expressly excluding vehicle flight, which is charged under Section 41-6a-210 instead. Charges are filed in the justice court or district court for the place where the stop occurred.