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CA8: ?May I see your driver's license or your ID?? is a request not a command

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant was riding an interstate bus which stopped at the MSP airport, and officers boarded the bus to talk to passengers. Defendant talked with the officers and refused to consent to a search of his bag. The officer asked: “May I see your driver's license or your ID?” This was a request in a friendly tone and not a command, and a reasonable person would have felt free to not provide it. United States v. Richards, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 15650 (8th Cir. July 29, 2010): This was not a case of multiple officers coercing a bus passenger into submission by assailing him with multiple requests for the same thing until he complied. Nor was it a case in which police crafted an environment so coercive that Richards' will was overborne and he had no choice but to produce his identification...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on August 01, 2010 (boomark / email).