[*BCM*] Red-light runners crackdown...

[Jim Leonard]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 08:29:34PM -0400, Thomas Vitolo wrote:
> To reiterate: you must state your name and address.  It's not optional. 
>   You can't lie about it.  The law can be found here:
> 
> http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Chapter85/Section11c
> 
> jim seems to suggest that a police officer can detain a person until his 
> identity is confirmed in the case of a bicycle stop.  I'm not so sure 
> that's true... but IANAL, and I would think that the police have lots of 
> discretion on matters like this.

How about if I rephrase it as: If the officer believes that you've refused "to state (your) true name and address" you "may be arrested without a warrant for such refusal".  Quotes are from the above MGL section.  So the only question left is how much lattitude the officer has to question whether you've given a valid name and address.  If I had to guess that answer would be quite a bit.

--jim