Alabama pastor may sue police who arrested him for refusing to show ID

A federal judge is allowing a lawsuit against Alabama police who arrested a pastor as he watered his neighbor's flowers.

Officials were apparently confused about Alabama's “Stop and Identify” law. The law, which has already led to similar lawsuits, allows police to require people to provide their name, address and an explanation of their actions if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are committing a crime. Officials often use the law as an excuse to demand that someone provide a physical ID card, even though a physical ID card contains significantly more information than people are required to provide under the law.

On May 22, 2022, Michael Jennings, pastor of a church in Childersburg, Alabama, was watering his out-of-town neighbor's flowers when another neighbor called 911 to report a suspicious person. Two police officers, Christopher Smith and Justin Gable, soon arrived and began questioning Jennings.

Body camera footage of the incident shows Jennings told officers his name was “Pastor Jennings” but refused to hand over his identification, saying, “I'm not going to give you any identification, I didn't do anything wrong…” I used to be a police officer .

“Come on, man, don’t do this to me. There's a suspicious person in the yard, and if you don't want to identify yourself–” one of the officers said before Jennings intervened, “I don't have to identify myself.”

Officers arrested Jennings and he was booked into the Childersburg City Jail on a charge of obstructing government operations. The charges were dropped just days later, and he subsequently sued, saying the officers had wrongfully arrested him and violated his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search or seizure.

Last December, a judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the officers had qualified immunity that shielded them from civil liability. (Qualified immunity is the doctrine that protects officers from federal civil rights claims unless their alleged actions violate “clearly established” law, with “clearly established” being defined extremely narrowly.) But Jennings appealed, and last year Friday, a three-judge panel was appointed to hear the 11th case. The appeals court overturned the decision.

The court's decision concluded that police did not even have a “reasonable” reason to arrest Jennings. The court not only rejected the officers' claim that Jennings intimidated and physically interfered with them while investigating the 911 call, but also pointed out that the officers' claim that Jennings violated Alabama's ID law was patent nonsense.

Even though officers had the right to require identification from Jennings, Jennings still met the state's identification requirements. He told officers who he was, that he lived across the street and why he was in his neighbor's yard.

“While it is always advisable to cooperate with law enforcement officials,” the statement said, “Jennings was not legally required to provide his identification. Therefore, officers lacked probable cause to arrest Jennings for obstructing government operations because Jennings had not committed an independent unlawful act by refusing identification.”

The court's decision allows Jennings to continue to sue the officers who wrongfully arrested him. But that intervention didn't have to be necessary for Jennings to file his lawsuit in the first place. Strict qualified immunity protections made police officers – and other government actors – virtually unaccountable for civil rights violations. The fact that Jennings's clear case was dismissed in the first place reveals the serious flaws in this system.