MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The American Civil Liberties Union, the Cato Institute, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and The Woods Foundation filed an amicus brief in the Alabama Supreme Court on Thursday, arguing that the state’s stop-and-question law does not authorize police to demand physical identification during encounters on the street.
The case, Jennings v. Smith, involves Pastor Michael Jennings, a Black man arrested in 2022 after officers confronted him while he was watering flowers in his neighbors’ yard. Jennings identified himself as “Pastor Jennings,” explained that he lived across the street, and said he was helping his neighbors while they were away. Police insisted he provide physical identification and arrested him when he refused, according to the ACLU.
“The plain text of Alabama’s stop-and-question law makes clear that it does not permit police officers to compel someone to produce a physical ID, and for good reason,” said Matthew Segal, co-director of the ACLU State Supreme Court Initiative. He noted that the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled that Alabama’s law does not authorize document demands, adding that this case gives the Alabama Supreme Court a chance to confirm that ruling.
Jennings’ charges of obstructing governmental operations were dismissed. He later sued the arresting officers and the city in federal district court, where the Eleventh Circuit determined police lacked probable cause to arrest him under Alabama Code section 15-5-30. The federal court certified a question to the Alabama Supreme Court on whether officers may demand physical identification when a person gives what police call an “incomplete or unsatisfactory oral response.” The Alabama Supreme Court agreed in June to hear the case.
Matthew Cavedon, incoming director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, said Alabama law does not require people to carry ID cards. “Nothing in Alabama law makes people carry ID cards, and indeed, fewer than half of Alabamians even have a driver’s license,” he said. “The Alabama Supreme Court should confirm that people in the Yellowhammer State do not risk arrest simply by not carrying around fully stocked wallets.”
Lauren Faraino, executive director of The Woods Foundation, highlighted the broader constitutional stakes. “A free people cannot exist at the mercy of arbitrary demands from the state,” she said. “The right to go about one’s life without unjustified intrusion by police or other government actors is a cornerstone of liberty. To interpret section 15-5-30 as authorizing arrests for refusing to produce physical identification would invert that principle — inviting abuse, eroding public trust, and granting government a power our Constitution was designed to withhold.”
According to the ACLU, the amicus brief argues that section 15-5-30 only permits police to request three facts orally: a person’s name, address, and explanation of their actions. The law makes no mention of documents. The brief states, “Although the certified question in this case posits that the police can perhaps demand physical ID after someone gives ‘an incomplete or unsatisfactory oral response,’ the statute neither contains those words nor any instructions for interpreting them. Nor does it say what kind of ID will satisfy that demand. Nor does it say what should happen if the pedestrian claims that they do not own an ID, or that they left it at home.”
The organizations warned that expanding the statute to allow police to demand physical IDs would open the door to racial profiling and civil rights violations. Jennings, who is Black, has already experienced such consequences firsthand. The ACLU said cases like this show how routine police stops can escalate into unlawful arrests that disproportionately affect communities of color.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s decision could have wide-ranging consequences for residents across the state. Civil rights advocates say it will either reaffirm constitutional protections against arbitrary police demands or set a dangerous precedent that expands police power without legislative authority.
