We All Lose if Cops Have All the Power

A lot of people want to know why I went all the way to the Supreme Court rather than give my name to a policeman. "What's so important about that?" they ask. "What's the big principle at stake?" And last week, when the Supreme Court ruled against me, maybe some thought I was foolish to have done it. But I still think I did the right thing and that there were some issues that had to be decided.

The story began on May 21, 2000, when I was on a rural road near my ranch in Winnemucca, Nev. My daughter and I had gotten into an argument. She was driving, and I was the passenger. We stopped by the side of the road, parked legally, and we continued our argument. I figured we would finish it out and then cool off for a moment.

That's when I heard sirens, and all of a sudden a police car drove up. A deputy walked up to me and demanded my "papers." I asked him what the problem was. "Why do you guys have me surrounded?" I asked, because by now there were two or three more police cars. He refused to explain why he was there or why he wanted my papers. Eleven times he demanded my identification. I refused to give it to him each time, and he finally handcuffed me and took me to jail. The cops threw my daughter on the ground, cuffed her hands behind her and demanded her name as well, but by that time I was on my way to the county jail. I got there at midafternoon and stayed overnight.

I hadn't been argumentative; I wasn't picking a fight. Basically, when Deputy Dove demanded my papers -- and he didn't ask for them, he demanded them -- I didn't say, "Hey cop, I'm not going to give you nothing." I just asked why he wanted them. "What have I done?" I asked. If he'd explained what he was doing there, perhaps it could have been settled on the spot. But his position was that he wanted the papers first.

Here's why this was so important to me: I don't believe that the authorities in the United States of America are supposed to walk up to you and ask for your papers. I thought that wasn't lawful. Apparently I was wrong, but I thought that that was part of what we were guaranteed under the Constitution. We're supposed to be free men, able to walk freely in our own country -- not hampered, not stopped at checkpoints. That's part of what makes this country different from other places. That's what I was taught.