<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>What would be the purpose of a false name and address other than to avoid paying the fine? In real world encounters w/ police it is best to be polite, respectful of the badge (regardless of what you might otherwise think) and apologetic w/o giving excuses. </span>Even in a motor vehicle this can result in a warning v a ticket and fine. You can be thankful this is not a surchargable violation on motor vehicle insurance (yet) or the $100 would land up ultimately costing multiples of that.</div><div><br></div><div>The law has no bearing when you are standing in front of someone w/ a loaded gun strapped to his hip, it is only relevant later if you wish to challenge the ticket. Even if the cop is dead wrong you ain't gonna be having a beer summit w/ Obama and Biden at the White House.
</div><div><br></div><div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; "><div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; "><font size="2" face="Arial"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Jim Leonard <jim_bcm@xuth.net><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Boston Critical Mass <list@bostoncriticalmass.org><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Tuesday, September 20, 2011 8:56 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [*BCM*] Red-light runners crackdown...<br></font><br>On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 08:29:34PM -0400, Thomas Vitolo wrote:<br>> To reiterate: you must state your name and address. It's not optional. <br>> You can't lie about it. The law can be found here:<br>> <br>> <a
href="http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Chapter85/Section11c" target="_blank">http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Chapter85/Section11c</a><br>> <br>> jim seems to suggest that a police officer can detain a person until his <br>> identity is confirmed in the case of a bicycle stop. I'm not so sure <br>> that's true... but IANAL, and I would think that the police have lots of <br>> discretion on matters like this.<br><br>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.<br><br>--jim<br>_______________________________________________<br>Boston Critical Mass mailing list<br><a ymailto="mailto:list@bostoncriticalmass.org" href="mailto:list@bostoncriticalmass.org">list@bostoncriticalmass.org</a><br><a href="http://bostoncriticalmass.org/list" target="_blank">http://bostoncriticalmass.org/list</a><br>To unsubscribe email <a ymailto="mailto:list-unsubscribe@bostoncriticalmass.org" href="mailto:list-unsubscribe@bostoncriticalmass.org">list-unsubscribe@bostoncriticalmass.org</a><br><br><br></div></div></div></body></html>