Search and seizure protection must continue in post-Sept. 11 America

You’re standing next to your pickup truck, smoking a cigarette, when a siren-blaring police… You’re standing next to your pickup truck, smoking a cigarette, when a siren-blaring police car pulls up and a uniformed officer gets out, demanding to see your identification. What would you do?

Most people would probably be a little bewildered, a little anxious at the unexplained appearance of a cop, and maybe they’d even start to feel a little guilty. They’d comply right away, without thinking.

Dudley Hiibel, a 59-year-old cowboy, was in just such a position in May of 2000, outside of Winnemucca, Nevada. But instead of sheepishly handing over his ID, he asked the officer, “Why?” As in, why do you need to see my identification?

The officer, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Deputy Lee Dove, said he was “investigating an investigation.” As Hiibel continued to refuse, Dove’s justification shrank to “because.”

Earlier, Hiibel had been arguing with his 17-year-old daughter, who’d been driving the pickup. They’d been shouting, and at one point, Mimi Hiibel punched her father in the shoulder. An anonymous witness called the Sheriff’s Department to report a domestic violence incident. Out came Dove, who found Hiibel and his daughter pulled over, talking by the side of the road.

There’s no way Dudley Hiibel could have known about the domestic violence report. Dove made no attempt to explain or to examine Mimi — who the caller claimed had been “slugged” by her father.

Instead, he continued to demand Hiibel’s identification. After asking eleven times and being refused each time, the deputy deemed Hiibel uncooperative. Dove handcuffed Dudley Hiibel and placed him in the back of the patrol car.

Keep in mind that Hiibel had done nothing illegal. Had Dove actually investigated, he would have realized the “domestic violence incident” never happened. Instead, Dudley Hiibel was arrested, simply because he had refused to provide identification.

From the back of the patrol car, Hiibel watched an assisting Nevada state trooper pull his daughter from the pickup truck, throw her face down in the dirt, and cuff her. With the alleged victim handcuffed on the ground, Dove finally questioned her.

Down at the hoosegow, Dudley Hiibel was charged with domestic battery, battery, acts which constitute domestic violence, and obstructing/delaying a peace officer. Mimi Hiibel was charged with resisting arrest.

Since the “slugging” had never occurred, the battery charges were thrown out. Mimi’s resisting arrest charge was also dismissed, as there was no reason to arrest her in the first place.

The charge of delaying a police officer, however, still stands against Dudley Hiibel. According to the courts, his refusal to show identification gave police probable cause to handcuff and arrest him. Dudley Hiibel has appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which will hear his case March 22.

In post-Sept. 11, 2001 America, we’ve grown accustomed to a new atmosphere of suspicion. We can never be sure of our neighbors, but the belief seems to be that with enough information — cross-referenced intelligence databases on every citizen — or enough regulation — immigration and border checks; national ID cards — we can smoke out sinister intent in anyone.

Dudley Hiibel was arrested in 2000, before anyone was considering national identification cards. His arrest, which violated the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure, came about simply because he exercised that most basic right: the right to be left alone. He said no when someone in authority demanded information. For that, he was handcuffed and led to jail.

It’s been said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. That maxim applies not just to governments and police officers, but also to average citizens, who have to remain vigilant for the smallest encroachment on freedom. Dudley Hiibel knew the Bill of Rights and knew when it was being violated. His case is useful to remember at a time when no one can be trusted, a time of the USA PATRIOT Act and secret trials, when our collective vigilance — that which protects freedom — threatens to tip over into paranoia — that which destroys it.

Read more about the Hiibel case at www.papersplease.org. Jesse Hicks can be reached at jhicks@pittnews.com.