HIGH COURT OKS QUIZZING CARS' PASSENGERS

Officers Can Demand Their Names, Dates Of Birth When Stopping Autos

Madison - Racine police officers did not violate the constitutional rights
of a car's passenger when they asked for his name and birth date during a
1996 traffic stop, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

Justice Jon Wilcox wrote in the court's 5-2 decision that police were
within their rights to ask Terry Griffith those basic questions after they
stopped a car whose driver admitted to not having a valid driver's license.

"Passengers are free to refuse to provide identifying information, but if
they are willing to provide it, obtaining such information serves the
public interest," Wilcox wrote.

The court was not convinced that the simple questions asked of Griffith
were so intrusive as to violate his Fourth Amendment protections from
unreasonable search and seizure. The decision upheld two earlier rulings.

Police asked Griffith his name and date of birth, and when he provided
false information, they handcuffed him. When they searched him, police
found a tissue in his jacket pocket containing marijuana. The handcuffed
passenger then bolted and fled the scene.

Less than a month later, police arrested Griffith, who prosecutors said had
escaped from the Kenosha Correctional Center. He was then charged with
obstructing an officer, possession of a controlled substance, escape after
arrest and the theft of handcuffs.

In June 1997, a jury convicted Griffith of all the charges except theft. He
was sentenced to one year on the obstruction charge, five years for escape,
and one year on the marijuana charge, to run consecutively with the
sentence he was serving at the Kenosha Correctional Center.

Griffith argued that the questioning went beyond the scope of the traffic
stop, since the driver had already admitted to police that he lacked a
valid driver's license. And, Griffith claimed, no reasonable person would
have felt free to ignore the officers' questions.

But Wilcox said, "We are not persuaded that the simple questions 'What is
your name?' and 'What is your date of birth?' were so intrusive that they
transformed the otherwise reasonable search into an unreasonable one."

Dissenting were Justice Ann Walsh Bradley and Chief Justice Shirley
Abrahamson, who said there was a "significant degree of intimidation"
exerted by police to make Griffith think he had no choice but to answer.

The two said the circumstances of the arrest - in which police blocked off
the car in a driveway and summoned three other squad cars - made Griffith
feel "he was not free to disregard the police questions and go about his
business."

Griffith's lawyer, Paul LaZotte, was disappointed in the decision.

"In a traffic stop where the driver immediately admitted to the offense,
and there is no reason to suspect the passenger of anything, should the
passenger be subject to questioning?" La Zotte said.