WASHINGTON - A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that people who refuse to give their names to police can be arrested, even if they've done nothing wrong.
The court previously had said police may briefly detain people they suspect of wrongdoing, without any proof. But until now, the justices had never held that during those encounters a person must reveal their identity.
The court's 5-4 decision based on a Nevada case upholds laws in at least 21 states giving police the right to ask people their name and jail those who don't cooperate. Law enforcement officials say identification requests are a routine part of detective work.
Privacy advocates say the decision gives police too much power. Once officers have a name, they can use computer databases to learn all kinds of personal information about the person.
The loser in Monday's decision was Nevada cattle rancher Larry "Dudley" Hiibel, who was arrested and convicted of a misdemeanor after he told a deputy that he didn't have to give out his name or show an ID.
The encounter happened after someone called police to report arguing between Hiibel and his daughter in a truck parked along a road. An officer asked him 11 times for his identification or his name.
Hiibel repeatedly refused, at one point saying, "If you've got something, take me to jail" and "I don't want to talk. I've done nothing. I've broken no laws."
In fighting the arrest, Hiibel became an unlikely constitutional privacy rights crusader. He wore a cowboy hat, boots and a bolo tie to the court this year when justices heard arguments in his appeal.
"A Nevada cowboy courageously fought for his right to be left alone, but lost," said his attorney, Harriet Cummings.
The court ruled that forcing someone to give police their name does not violate their Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches. The court also said name requests do not violate the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, except in rare cases.
"One's identity is, by definition, unique; yet it is, in another sense, a universal characteristic. Answering a request to disclose a name is likely to be so insignificant in the scheme of things as to be incriminating only in unusual circumstances," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority.
The ruling stopped short of allowing police to demand identification, like driver's licenses, but Justice John Paul Stevens said requiring people to divulge their name still goes too far.
"A name can provide the key to a broad array of information about the person, particularly in the hands of a police officer with access to a range of law enforcement databases," he wrote in a dissent. Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer also disagreed with the ruling.
Crime-fighting and justice groups had argued that a ruling the other way would have protected terrorists and encouraged people to refuse to cooperate with police.
"The constant danger of renewed terrorist activity places enormous pressure on law enforcement to identify suspected terrorists before they strike," said Charles Hobson, an attorney with the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.