When will a police officer be permitted to arrest a person for failing to provide a written identification?

The court also rejected the argument that the officer has a duty to make specific inquiries calculated to elicit satisfactory evidence of identification. "[T]he difficulty of anticipating what inquiries should be made prevents any workable judicial resolution of what is essentially a problem for the officer in the field. Once the officer has made some inquiry which puts the citee on notice that he or she has a duty to produce 'evidence of his [or her] identity,' ( 40302), we believe the officer has done all that is required by the statute." (People v. Monroe, supra, 12 Cal.App.4th at p. 1189.) Because the defendant in Monroe failed to produce presumptively satisfactory evidence of identification, the court found no abuse of discretion in the officer's decision to take him into custody, and upheld the legality of the subsequent search.

Appellant recognizes that under the majority opinion in Monroe, the decision to take him into custody was within the officer's discretion once he failed to produce presumptively satisfactory evidence of identity. He urges us to reject that holding and follow the position of the dissenting justice. According to the dissent, satisfactory evidence under section 40302, subdivision (a) may be in oral or written form, and a citee must be given the opportunity to produce either or both. (People v. Monroe, supra, 12 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1200-1201.) Before an officer can take a person into custody for failure to present "'[o]ther satisfactory evidence'" of identification, the dissenting justice would hold that the officer has a duty to question the citee in a manner which will elicit either written evidence of identity or oral evidence subject to verification. (Id. at p. 1200.) Because the defendant in Monroe was taken into custody solely on the basis of his statement that he had no written identification, and he was given no opportunity to offer nondocumentary proof of identity, the dissent concluded the arrest was unlawful. (Id. at p. 1201.)

While both the majority and dissenting opinions in Monroe recognize that oral evidence may be satisfactory, the dissent would go farther, requiring that the officer make specific inquiry calculated to elicit verifiable oral identification. We agree with the majority that the statute does not require such a particularized request; a general request for identification is sufficient. If a citee is unable to provide presumptively satisfactory evidence, the officer then has discretion to determine whether other evidence of identity which is provided is sufficient. (People v. Monroe, supra, 12 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1177-1178.) Here, no documentary evidence of identification was offered. The officer acted within the scope of discretion given in the statute in refusing to accept an oral statement alone.

As with all discretionary decisions, there is the potential for abuse. An officer may not exercise this discretion in an improper, discriminatory manner. Where a citee believes the officer's decision as to the sufficiency of identification is based on invalid criteria such as race, religion or other classification unrelated to the purpose of the statute, the propriety of the decision to take the citee into custody may be challenged on that basis. (People v. Monroe, supra, 12 Cal.App.4th at p. 1192.)