Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Russia and America:
In State v. Aloi, Connecticut Appellate Court, Dec. 14, 2004,
Officer Jay Salvatore approached and advised the defendant that [a
witness] had complained that the defendant was trespassing and
possibly had damaged [a] fire truck. Salvatore requested that the
defendant produce identification. The defendant did not immediately
hand over his identification. The defendant also stated that he did
not need to produce identification, that he was on public property
and that "this isn't Russia. I'm not showing you any . . . ."
The defendant was convicted, based on these actions, of interfering
with a police officer, but the Appellate Court reversed. Refusing to
identify oneself and saying "this isn't Russia. I'm not showing you
any [identification]" was perfectly legal. (The defendant's
convictions for actually damaging the fire truck were upheld -- as
best I can tell, the defendant was indeed guilty of that.)
Or, in the words of [1]Judge Kozinski, quoting a Russian,
There are places where, until recently, "everything which [was] not
permitted [was] forbidden. . . . [W]hatever [was] permitted [was]
mandatory. . . . Citizens were shackled in their actions by the
universal passion for banning things." Yeltsin Addresses RSFSR
Congress of People's Deputies, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts,
Apr. 1, 1991, available in LEXIS, Nexis Library, OMNI file.
Fortunately, the United States is not such a place, and we plan to
keep it that way.
References
1. http://volokh.com/2003_07_27_volokh_archive.html#105977990285561932
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