Utah Failure to Disclose Identity (§ 76-8-301.5): You Can Demand Four Things, Only Two Are Chargeable

Utah has a real stop-and-identify law. It also has a second statute that lets you demand more than the first one makes criminal to refuse — and that gap is where the bad arrest lives.

Utah Failure to Disclose Identity (§ 76-8-301.5)

You may demand a name, address, date of birth and an explanation of the person’s actions. Only refusal as to name or date of birth is an offense. Utah Code § 77-7-15 sets the demand authority; § 76-8-301.5 sets the crime, and it is written narrower than the demand. Refusing to give an address, or refusing to explain what you were doing, is not failure to disclose identity in Utah.

Utah failure to disclose identity — § 77-7-15 lets you demand four things. Only two of them are chargeable. — Utah failure to disclose identity — the statute, the limits, and what to charge. The full breakdown lives inside StreetSense, offline.

What the two statutes actually say

§ 77-7-15 — the demand. A peace officer “may stop any individual in a public place when the officer has a reasonable suspicion to believe the individual has committed or is in the act of committing or is attempting to commit a public offense and may demand the individual’s name, address, date of birth, and an explanation of the individual’s actions.” Note the two gates built into that sentence: a public place and reasonable suspicion.
§ 76-8-301.5 — the offense. A person commits failure to disclose identity if, while lawfully subjected to a stop described in § 77-7-15, a peace officer demands that they disclose their name or date of birth, the demand is reasonably related to the circumstances justifying the stop, disclosure presents no reasonable danger of self-incrimination, and the person refuses.
Read them side by side and the asymmetry is obvious: four things demandable, two things chargeable.

The gap that kills the charge

Address is not in the offense. You can lawfully demand it under 77-7-15. You cannot charge failure to disclose identity when that is the only thing refused.
Neither is an explanation of actions. Declining to say what you were doing is not this offense, and it is also the answer most likely to be protected by the Fifth Amendment.
The demand must be reasonably related to why you stopped him. That is an element, not a courtesy. Say on bodycam how the request connects to the suspected offense.
The self-incrimination limit is inside the statute itself — it is an element you have to satisfy, not a defense raised later. If disclosure presents a reasonable danger of self-incrimination, the offense does not attach.

Grades — and the one officers get wrong

Failure to disclose identity (§ 76-8-301.5) is a class B misdemeanor.
Providing false personal information to a peace officer (§ 76-8-507) is split. Giving invented information is a class C misdemeanor. Assuming the identity of a real person is a class A misdemeanor. Charging “class C” reflexively undercharges the officer who gets handed his cousin’s name and date of birth.
Unlike the refusal offense, § 76-8-507 does reach a false address as well as name and birth date. Refusing an address is not chargeable; lying about it can be.

The federal floor underneath it

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) — the stop itself needs specific, articulable facts supporting reasonable suspicion. If the stop fails, everything downstream fails with it.
Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court, 542 U.S. 177 (2004) — a state may criminalize refusal to give a name during a lawful Terry stop under a statute like this one. Hiibel is the ceiling on what Utah’s statute can do, not a licence to demand more than the statute lists.

Passengers are a separate question, and Utah has not answered it

State v. Martinez, 2017 UT 43, 424 P.3d 83, holds that an officer may ask a passenger for identification and run a warrant check as an officer-safety measure without independent suspicion, provided it does not unreasonably prolong the stop — in that case a matter of seconds.
The court expressly declined to decide whether an officer may demand passenger identification. That is the stop-and-identify question, and it is still open in Utah.
So: asking a passenger is settled. Demanding is not — and § 76-8-301.5 keys to a § 77-7-15 stop, which requires reasonable suspicion that that individual has committed or is committing a public offense. Being in the car is not that.
One limit on how far Martinez travels: it was decided on Fourth Amendment grounds, and no Utah constitutional argument was raised — so the state-constitutional question under article I, section 14 remains open too.

How it plays out on the street

You stop a man in a parking lot on reasonable suspicion of a vehicle burglary. He gives you his name and date of birth, and refuses to say where he lives or what he is doing there. You have no failure-to-disclose-identity charge. He complied with the two things the offense actually covers. Keep the investigation going on its own merits, document the refusal as a fact, and do not convert silence about an address into an arrest. Flip the facts — he gives you a name that belongs to his brother — and you are in § 76-8-507 territory, at the class A grade rather than the class C one.

Frequently asked questions

Does Utah have a stop and identify law?

Yes. Utah Code § 76-8-301.5 makes it a class B misdemeanor to refuse to disclose your name or date of birth during a lawful stop under § 77-7-15, when the demand is reasonably related to the circumstances of the stop and disclosure does not present a reasonable danger of self-incrimination.

Can you be arrested in Utah for refusing to give your address?

Not under the failure-to-disclose-identity statute. Section 77-7-15 permits an officer to demand an address, but § 76-8-301.5 criminalizes refusal only as to name or date of birth. Giving a false address is a separate matter under § 76-8-507.

What is the penalty for giving a false name to police in Utah?

Providing false personal information to a peace officer under § 76-8-507 is a class C misdemeanor for invented information, and a class A misdemeanor if the person assumes the identity of a real person.

Carry the rule, not the guesswork. StreetSense breaks down Utah law like this — the statute, the limit, and the charge that actually sticks — verified against the code and available fully offline on shift. Start the free trial.

StreetSense is an educational reference for law enforcement, not legal advice. State law changes, and your department policy may be stricter than the statute. Always follow your state’s current rule and your agency’s policy.

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