Opinion ID: 776476
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Has Carey alleged a violation of a constitutional right?

Text: 19 Carey claims Agent Spendlove violated his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights by arresting him for refusing to identify himself. Agent Spendlove arrested Carey under the authority of two Nevada statutes which require individuals to furnish information to police officers under certain circumstances. Nevada Revised Statute § 171.123 allows any peace officer [to] detain any person whom the officer encounters under circumstances which reasonably indicate that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime. Nev.Rev.Stat. § 171.123(1). The Nevada Supreme Court has interpreted § 171.123 to authorize detentions based on reasonable suspicion, the same level of suspicion required for a Terry stop. See State v. Sonnenfeld, 114 Nev. 631, 958 P.2d 1215, 1216 (1998); see also State v. Lisenbee, 13 P.3d 947, 950 (Nev.2000) (describing § 171.123 as [t]he Nevada codification of Terry ). Section 171.123 further states that [a]ny person so detained shall identify himself, but may not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of any peace officer. Nev.Rev.Stat. § 171.123(3) (emphasis added). The other statute relied upon by Agent Spendlove makes it a misdemeanor for a person, after due notice, [to] refuse or neglect to make or furnish any statement, report or information lawfully required of him by any public officer... or [to] willfully hinder, delay or obstruct any public officer in the discharge of his official powers or duties. Nev.Rev. Stat. § 197.190. Read together, these two statutes require individuals stopped pursuant to Terry to identify themselves to police, on pain of committing a crime. 20 Since Carey refused to identify himself to Agent Spendlove, it is clear that Agent Spendlove had probable cause to arrest Carey under these statutes. Yet Carey's constitutional claim does not stem from an absence of probable cause to arrest, but from the alleged unconstitutionality of the [statutes] justifying the arrest. Grossman, 33 F.3d at 1203. If the statutes are unconstitutional, then Carey suffered constitutional injury by being arrested under their authority, despite their applicability to his conduct. Id. at 1204. 21 It is undisputed that Agent Spendlove lawfully detained Carey under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), based on Spendlove's reasonable suspicion that Carey was cheating at 21. Nevertheless, Carey contends that §§ 171.123 and 197.190 are unconstitutional as applied to him because the Fourth and Fifth Amendments bar Nevada from compelling him to identify himself to police, even during a lawful investigatory detention. 22 Although the Supreme Court has never squarely addressed this question, the Ninth Circuit has done so twice. In Lawson v. Kolender, 658 F.2d 1362 (9th Cir. 1981), we invalidated a disorderly conduct statute that required individuals to identify themselves to police based on less than probable cause, holding that the statute was void for vagueness and that it violated the Fourth Amendment. In Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 361-62, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983), the Supreme Court affirmed our decision on the ground that the statute was void for vagueness and declined to address our alternate holding that the statute also violated the Fourth Amendment. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court did not reverse our decision in Lawson; therefore, Lawson's holding that the police cannot, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, compel identification during an investigatory stop remains good law in this circuit. 23 In addition, we reaffirmed the holding of Lawson in Martinelli v. City of Beaumont, 820 F.2d 1491 (9th Cir.1987). In Martinelli, the plaintiff was approached by officers who told her they were investigating an accident that may have involved her automobile. Despite the officers' repeated requests that the plaintiff identify herself, she refused, and was ultimately arrested for delaying a lawful police investigation by refusing to identify herself. Id. at 1492. The officers relied on a state statute that criminalized wilful resistance, delay or obstruction of any public officer in the discharge of his duties. Id. at 1492 n. 1. Relying on Lawson, we held that arresting the plaintiff for refusing to identify herself during a Terry stop violated the Fourth Amendment. Martinelli, 820 F.2d at 1494. 24 Thus, under Martinelli and Lawson, Carey has alleged a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. To the extent §§ 171.123 and 197.190 authorized Carey's arrest for refusing to identify himself, they are unconstitutional under the law of this circuit. In Lawson, we explained that such statutes violate the Fourth Amendment because as a result of the demand for identification, the statutes bootstrap the authority to arrest on less than probable cause, and [because] the serious intrusion on personal security outweighs the mere possibility that identification might provide a link leading to arrest. 658 F.2d at 1366-67; see also Martinelli, 820 F.2d at 1494; Timmons v. City of Montgomery, 658 F.Supp. 1086, 1091-93 (M.D.Ala.1987). This is essentially what happened in the present case. Relying on §§ 171.123 and 197.190, Spendlove was able to arrest Carey even though there was no probable cause to believe that Carey had violated the gaming laws, and even though Carey's name was not relevant to determining whether Carey had cheated. An arrest under such circumstances is unreasonable. We therefore hold that Carey's arrest violated the Fourth Amendment. 6 25 Carey also claims that Spendlove's search of his shoes violated the Fourth Amendment. Since Spendlove did not have a warrant, his search of Carey's shoes was unreasonable unless the search fell within one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement. See United States v. Morgan, 799 F.2d 467, 468-69 (9th Cir. 1986). 26 The district court held there was no Fourth Amendment violation because the search was incident to a lawful arrest. A search that precedes a lawful arrest does not violate the Fourth Amendment if the probable cause for the arrest exists at the time of the search. See Morgan, 799 F.2d at 469-70. Although Carey was not yet under arrest when his shoes were searched, the district court held that at the time of the search, Spendlove had probable cause to arrest Carey under §§ 171.123 and 197.190 based on Carey's refusal to identify himself. We have determined, however, that §§ 171.123 and 197.190 were unconstitutionally applied to Carey. It follows that Carey's arrest was not lawful, and the search of his shoes cannot be justified as incident to a lawful arrest. We therefore conclude that, if the facts are as Carey alleges, the search of his shoes was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. 27