Vermont Compels Your Name Only Behind the Wheel, or Over Cannabis

The Vermont duty is written around the vehicle, not the person. Section 1012(a) attaches to "a person while operating or in charge of a motor vehicle," which reaches the driver and someone in charge of a parked or disabled vehicle, and it attaches only "upon request by an enforcement officer who reasonably suspects that the person has committed or is committing a violation of this title." Title 23 is the motor vehicle title, so the officer's suspicion has to point at a motor vehicle offence and not at anything else. What must be handed over is unusual: not only the person's own name and address, but the name and address of the owner of the motor vehicle, which matters when the car is borrowed or leased.

Subsection (b) is the documents duty and it is separate. The operator shall produce the operator's license and the registration certificate, and if the operator has no valid Vermont license or does not have it on their person, the operator shall produce other suitable forms of identification. The same subsection carries the duty to stop: a person operating a motor vehicle shall promptly and carefully stop when signalled to stop by an enforcement officer wearing insignia that identifies the officer. Vermont prices the two duties very differently. A violation of (a), refusing to give the name and address, is a fine of not more than $1,250.00. A violation of (b), the documents and the stop, is a civil penalty of not more than $250.00.

The document side is softened by cure provisions the identification side does not have. Under 23 V.S.A. § 611, a licensee cited for not carrying the licence is not convicted if a copy of a licence that was valid, or had expired within 14 days before the stop, reaches the issuing enforcement agency within seven business days. Section 307(d) does the same for the registration certificate and 23 V.S.A. § 800(c) for proof of financial responsibility. Sections 307(a) and 800(c) also allow those documents to be shown on a phone, and both add that using a device for that purpose "does not in itself constitute consent for an enforcement officer to access other contents of the device."

Separately, an officer's power to stop a vehicle at all is broader in Vermont than many drivers expect. 23 V.S.A. § 1601 lets the Commissioner of Public Safety, deputies, and all enforcement officers at all times, with or without process, stop any motor vehicle to examine identification numbers and marks, raise the hood if necessary, and demand and inspect the driver's licence, registration certificate, and permits, and examine any vehicle to see whether its equipment complies with the law. 23 V.S.A. § 1013 adds that officers may make reasonable orders in enforcement of the title and that no person may knowingly fail or refuse to comply with a lawful order or direction of an enforcement officer.

The cannabis provision is the only other compelled-identification rule in Vermont law and it is procedurally distinctive. 18 V.S.A. § 4230a(c)(1) authorises a law enforcement officer to detain a person where the officer has reasonable grounds to believe the person has violated the adult possession limits in subsection (a), which are one ounce or less of cannabis or five grams or less of hashish and two mature plants or fewer or four immature plants or fewer, and the person refuses to identify himself or herself satisfactorily. Subsection (c)(2) caps that detention: it lasts only until the person identifies themselves satisfactorily or is properly identified, and if the officer cannot obtain the information the person shall forthwith be brought before a judge in the Criminal Division of the Superior Court for that purpose. Refusing to identify to the judge triggers civil contempt proceedings under 12 V.S.A. § 122 immediately and without service of an order.

Giving a false name is a different and more serious matter than staying silent. 13 V.S.A. § 1754(a) makes it a crime to knowingly give false information to any law enforcement officer with purpose to implicate another or to deflect an investigation from oneself or another, punishable by up to one year in prison or a $1,000.00 fine, or both.

Every roadside stop in Vermont is also a data event. 20 V.S.A. § 2366(e)(1) requires every State, county, and municipal law enforcement agency to collect the driver's age, gender, and race, the grounds for the stop, the grounds and type of any search, the evidence located, the date, time, and location, and the outcome including whether physical force was employed or threatened. Subdivision (e)(2) makes that roadside stop data and its analysis public, and (e)(4) requires it to be posted in an analysable form and reported annually by 1 December to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and the Executive Director of Racial Equity.

00. 00. chapter 29, with § 2302(b) making a traffic violation a civil action rather than a crime. § 2502(3)(A) assesses four points for a § 1012 violation, labelled failure to obey an enforcement officer, and another four under (3)(B) for a § 1013 violation. § 2505 the Commissioner must begin suspension proceedings once a driver reaches 10 points in a two-year period, and § 2506 sets the suspension at 10 days for 10 points, 30 days for 15, 90 days for 20, and a further 30 days for each additional 5 points. Two § 1012 tickets and one other four-point violation inside two years therefore reach the threshold. § 122. 00.