A mystery man arrested on minor charges more than three weeks ago remains behind bars in Utah while law enforcement officials try to determine his true identity, which he refuses to reveal…
The unidentified man, who has graying hair, a light beard and is believed to be in his 60′s, was arrested on July 1 for trespassing in a parking garage. He was booked into jail on three misdemeanor charges and has thwarted any chance of release, with or without bail, by refusing to identify himself…
Law enforcement officials say the man is “fairly well spoken and educated,” but very guarded about his identity.
As a result of several short conversations with him, officers believe he may not be from Utah…
Officials say in three weeks of jail the mystery man has shown a pleasant demeanor and has communicated that he is being treated well…“He said the food has been great,” Lt. Dennis Harris said.
“I realize that sometimes people want to go to jail because they are homeless, have nothing, they are destitute. I’ve seen that over the years. I just don’t get the impression that’s the reason. He just doesn’t want to be discovered by somebody.”
Now in his fourth week of incarceration, the man added another twist to the story recently by hinting he had business of some kind outside prison that he would need to attend to.
“He said there was a point at some time that he would need to get out of jail,” Harris said. “That’s the closest I can find of what he wants to do. And that makes no sense to me whatsoever.”
Not anyone I know. How about you?
Give me a roll of duct tape, 64oz Supergulp and 45minutes.
He’s from the future, or maybe an alien from another planet.
He got caught during his research and now he’s trying to get off the hook keeping a low profile.
I know, I am watching too many movies.
#16 17 18 20 28. I’m with y’all. GWB or a close relative. They claim to have killed Osama in 2011, maybe he’s afraid they’ll go after the family business connections.
Yeah, I know him. Hey, he just doesn’t want his name on record for being arrested. He thinks that the law doesn’t require him to give his name and doesn’t realize that the fingerprint match may bring it back to him anyway. Since he doesn’t have a criminal record, he doesn’t want to start one now. Just let him go home.
So in Utah not carrying ID and revealing privileged information is an automatic life sentence?
If he has a criminal record or has served in the military or a bunch of other jobs and they can’t ID him in a few days tops then the people running the DHS need to fired for gross incompetence.
On the other hand there are still a lot of people in their sixties that have never been finger printed though you have to give a thumb print for a lot of things these days and DHS should have gotten those records.
Reminds me of this movie.
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0103888/
Pretty good if you haven’t seen it.
D.B. Cooper? Finally!
All these comments about the DHS having prints on file are scary.
I guess we should forever lock up amputees with no fingerprints to give?
Here’s a suggestion: Let’s go back to the days before the computer has made the mass tracking of humans possible. 1970 or so.
An even better suggestion: let’s go back to the days before the invention of photography. There’s no reason why an ID needs a photograph.
How did civilization manage to exist for thousands of years without photographs, fingerprints and retinal scans?
High rates of anonymous crime.
# 5 chuck said, “Refusing to identify yourself carries a life sentence in Utah?”
Could be. Refusing to identify yourself to a police officer is a crime in every state, I believe. Refusing to identify yourself to the judge is contempt of court. Every day they ask who he is and he refuses to cooperate is one more “crime” and more jail time.
I hope when he finally does ID himself, they hit him with a fine sufficient to cover the costs of his jail time. What a waste of money!
GregAllen beat me to it!!! it’s DB Cooper!!! mystery solved!!!
This is a case of Fifth Amendment. He is not compelled to identify himself, nor can he be charged with that as a crime. A judge does not have the authority to continually hold someone “until he talks”. The most that can happen is he is found guilty of the three misdemeanors and serves the time, usually maximum one year on each.
But keep trying.
43 ConFusion: I believe you are wrong. I’m fairly certain it is an offense to fail to ID yourself when asked to do so by the police or a judge. But I’m not a law professor, just an old country doc. Maybe if we ask really nicely one of the attorneys that drop into this forum may set us both straight.
Sorry to post twice but I wrote before researching – AGAIN! The following is from a Wikipedia article. Your results may vary.
“ ‘Stop and identify’ statutes are laws in the United States that allow police to detain persons reasonably suspected of involvement in a crime and require persons so detained to identify themselves to the police… The identification requirement was considered by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177 (2004), which held that the identification requirement did not violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_identify_statutes
This man actually looks like a man I saw at a Salvation Army in Wichita Falls,Texas 7 years ago who ‘borrowed’ a young couple’s car and never returned…he called himself “Dr. Love” back then, and if THIS man sounds “intelligent”, then it is likely NOT the same man I met.
Those wacky, Utahstians!
Why has he been in jail for three weeks without being charged ? Where is his attorney ???
Police and Prosecutors need to crap or get off the pot !!!
In Soviet Russia – state identifies you
Refusing to identify yourself to a law enforcement officer is a crime, and a judge can compel you to testify as to your identity. Refusing will earn you a contempt citation and more jail time, although at some point the ACLU will get involved and get a writ of habeus corpus from a friendly liberal federal judge.
If the Department of Homeland Security gets involved and invokes the Patriot Act however, things could get quite messy. We could always send him to Gitmo, since President Obama has reneged on his vow to shut it down.
Animby==well done sir. I admire anyone willing to actually look something up, inform themselves, and learn from it. Just as I do when looking up medical facts from the wiki: hold everything with a reserve that we may not know the whole story. Was that case later modified? Are there other laws on the books that haven’t been tested/compared with this law?
I kinda though there was no liberty interest in keeping your ID private because like a dna sample, there is no inherent testimony “against” ones self. Its a neutral fact.
I think the original question remains: can you be locked up “forever” on failure to ID yourself? I can make that argument either way but I do favor the limited time position: once all time is served for all crimes committed, then there is no basis on which to ask the guy who he is.
Cat’s Cradle.
People around Central Pennsylvania (where I live) happen to think it’s the missing D.A. Ray Gricar. He has been missing since 2005 and carries similar appearances…
#51 Bobbo – The point is, each time they ask him to identify himself and he refuses, he is committing a new crime! I’m not saying that’s right, just that since Utah makes it an offense not to identify yourself to police, he continues to offend. I don’t know, of course, but I’d guess he would never have been locked up for trespassing in a parking garage if he had said his name. But he didn’t. So now that city is in a standoff. They don’t want to waste all that money every day keeping him in jail.
Question: Crime (the word) is a noun but in various incarnations can be an adjective, adverb, etc. It would work wonderfully as a verb: to crime. “Bonny and Clyde crimed their way through the midwest.”
PS: Nice reference to Cat’s Cradle.
Animby–that may be your point, but my point is that cops don’t have a right to ask your name unless they reasonably suspect a crime has taken place. Once the crimes are prosecuted and time is served then there are no more crimes to base the intrusion of name asking on. I do assume the crime of not giving your name would run concurrently. But who knows?
I did fail to reference one of my memes: the desire to be anonymous should never be confused/conflated with the right of privacy. Too different things (sic!).
Thank you. and as Kurt noted: No damn cat, no damn cradle. My fav.
Holy Crap! He’s the spittin’ image of my brother-in-law, which would fit with the well-spoken and educated part, as he is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and was at one time a squadron commander. Can’t imagine it being him, though, cause he’d never get that far out of my sister’s sight, try as he might.
I get conflicting information as to whether it’s a crime to withhold ID from the police:
http://criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal/Failure-identify-police-officer.htm
http://rvbeypublications.com/id109.html
Which is right? I know the Patriot Act nullified the Constitution in several areas and too many people are too ignorant to appreciate that the Constitution is the only thing protecting them from the government.
Dawg–I don’t see any conflict between your two links.
Specifically, what conflict do you see?
#56 DogBert – I can see your confusion. The one article clearly announces “There is no such thing as failure to identify.” But if you read the whole thing, he explains when it is illegal to refuse to identify, basically when a crime has been committed and you are believed to be involved in or to have witnessed.
It is true there is no requirement to produce ID (“Papers, please!”) but you have to give your name and address, if requested. I don’t believe you can be compelled to verify the information but gawd help you if you intentionally provide false ID !!!
Your other link had an item of interest to me. Oregon has one of the harshest Identify laws. And I thought they were one of the few states that didn’t have such a law. If you ask me, up to $10K and ten years in prison is a bit harsh! Also interesting is the Pennsylvania penalty: forty five to ten thousand dollars. Lot o’ leeway there.
Well if he has a recent photo drivers license, he’s most likely in a national database anyway. So it shouldn’t of taken them too long to find out who he is.
#45, Animby,
If you read your link, you would notice that the Supreme Court has neither ruled on ID laws in respect of the Fifth Amendment nor have they specifically said it should be a crime to not identify oneself.
A Terry Stop is a well known maneuver by police, BUT it has strict guidelines. Generally, police need a compelling and obvious reason to stop a person suspected of a crime. HOWEVER, That is not applicable here as our John Doe was already arrested on three trespassing misdemeanors.
He may not be charged with a new crime every time he fails to reveal his identity. His refusal is one, on-going, incident. Courts have used a long standing tradition of referring to unidentified persons as “John doe” or “Jane Doe”.
BTW, Utah sucks big time when it comes to civil liberties.
http://policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1150&issue_id=42007
In other words, police need a compelling reason to stop a civilian and demand identification.