The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled against a Black pastor who sued after police arrested him in his neighborhood. Although the underlying criminal charge against the pastor was dismissed, the ruling has raised concerns from civil liberties advocates, who worry that the decision expands the state’s power over citizens.
Pastor arrested for refusing to show ID while watering his neighbor’s yard
In a split decision, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of police and the city of Childersburg against Michael Jennings, who was arrested in a neighbor’s yard in 2022. While Jennings watered the flowers of a neighbor who was out of town, another neighbor called 911, reporting a suspicious “younger Black male” in the neighborhood. Police Officer Christopher Smith confronted Jennings, who told them he was “watering flowers” and verbally identified himself, saying, “I’m Pastor Jennings. I live across the street.… I’m looking out for the house while they gone.” After identifying himself, Jennings declined to provide identification to the officer, who then arrested Jennings on the charge of “obstructing governmental operations.” The neighbor who called 911 later recognized Jennings and admitted she had made a mistake, and the charges against him were dropped.
State Supreme Court rejects pastor’s lawsuit
Jennings sued Smith and the city for the arrest, arguing that the officer didn’t have the right to demand Jennings produce ID at the moment. The city countered that Alabama’s stop-and-question law gave Smith the right to require Jennings to show his ID. Writing for the majority, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Will Sellers wrote that the state’s stop-and-question law, “does not exclude from its purview a request for physical identification when a suspect provides an incomplete or unsatisfactory response to an officer’s demand to provide his or her name and address and an explanation of his or her action.”
Legal fight over state power versus citizens’ rights
The ruling comes after years of litigation surrounding the case. A district judge dismissed the case, but the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals revived it, ruling that Smith didn’t have probable cause for arresting Jennings for not showing ID. Organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Cato Institute all filed briefs on behalf of Jennings. Matthew Cavedon, who leads the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, disagreed with the ruling.
“Alabama law does not say that Alabamians have to carry physical identification on them,” Cavedon told the Alabama Reflector. “The Alabama Supreme Court decided to say that Alabama law simply reflects the outer limits of what the federal constitution allows officers to do, but there is no basis for that in the actual law at issue.”
The Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling is a major defeat for Jennings, who maintains that he was unlawfully arrested while doing a favor for a neighbor. For advocates of civil liberties, the decision is also a defeat for citizens’ rights more generally, creating a potential burden of carrying identification while going about normal activities. The ruling, these advocates warn, empowers law enforcement at the expense of citizens.