SHEFFIELD — The village is in the process of changing an unconstitutional ordinance that previously allowed police to arrest individuals who refused to identify themselves during encounters with police.
Village Council heard a first reading Monday night of an ordinance to repeal a section of the codified ordinance that says no one can willfully refuse to identify themselves to law enforcement officers.
Sheffield Law Director Thomas Smith said prosecutor Chris Cook brought the unconstitutionality of the village’s ordinance to the attention of the Law Department after attending a legal conference where he learned it conflicts with state law and a Supreme Court ruling.
“It deals with what you can ask drivers and passengers in vehicles about their names and Social Security numbers, etc.,” Smith said. “We were asking too much.”
Under the revised ordinance a person could be guilty of a fourth-degree misdemeanor when refusing to provide identifying information, but only if he or she has committed a crime, is about to commit a crime or has witnessed a felony-level offense involving violence or one that causes a substantial risk of physical harm to another person or property.
“Now one of those sections has to trigger our right to ask,” Smith said. “We can’t just blindly ask. You just can’t stop people randomly and ask for information.”
Mayor John Hunter said there haven’t been complaints of police stopping people at random to ask for personal information. Sheffield is only being proactive in updating its ordinance, he said.
“Our prosecutor went to a conference,” Hunter said. “They told him of a ruling on this, he reviewed our laws, talked to us about it and said we needed to change our law. That’s what we’re doing.”
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