Court Opinion

ID: 9427655
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:21:31.286806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:08.856383
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring.
I join the Court's opinion, but add a few words about the concern so evident in Mr. Justice Brennan's dissenting opinion that today’s decision will allow States and municipalities to circumvent the probable-cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment. There is some danger, I acknowledge, that the police will use a stop-and-identify ordinance to arrest persons for improper identification; that they will then conduct a search pursuant to the arrest; that if they discover contraband or other evidence of crime, the arrestee will be charged with some other offense; and that if they do not discover contraband or other evidence of crime, the arrestee will be released. In this manner, if the arrest for violation of the stop- *41and-identify ordinance is not open to challenge, the ordinance itself could perpetually evade constitutional review.
There is no evidence in this case, however, that the Detroit ordinance is being used in such a pretextual manner. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 8. If a defendant in a proper case showed that the police habitually arrest, but do not prosecute, under a stop-and-identify ordinance, then I think this would suffice to rebut any claim that the police were acting in reasonable, good-faith reliance on the constitutionality of the ordinance. The arrestee could then challenge the validity of the ordinance, and, if the court concluded it was unconstitutional, could have the evidence obtained in the search incident to the arrest suppressed.