New York Times

David Johnston

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.

The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.’s inspector general but have never been released.

When the C.I.A. first referred its inspector general’s findings to prosecutors, they decided that none of the cases merited prosecution. But Mr. Holder’s associates say that when he took office and saw the allegations, which included the deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he began to reconsider.

With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the C.I.A. It is politically awkward, too, for Mr. Holder because President Obama has said that he would rather move forward than get bogged down in the issue at the expense of his own agenda.

The advice from the Office of Professional Responsibility strengthens Mr. Holder’s hand.

The recommendation to review the closed cases, in effect renewing the inquiries, centers mainly on allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department report is to be made public after classified information is deleted from it.

The cases represent about half of those that were initially investigated and referred to the Justice Department by the C.I.A.’s inspector general, but were later closed. It is not known which cases might be reopened.

Mr. Holder was said to have reacted with disgust earlier this year when he first read accounts of abusive treatment of detainees in a classified version of the inspector general’s report and other materials.

In examples that have just come to light, the C.I.A. report describes how C.I.A. officers carried out mock executions and threatened at least one prisoner with a gun and a power drill. It is a violation of the federal torture statute to threaten a prisoner with imminent death.

Mr. Holder, who questioned the thoroughness of previous inquiries by the Justice Department, is expected to announce within days his decision on whether to appoint a prosecutor to conduct a new investigation; in legal circles, it is believed to be highly likely that he will go forward with a fresh criminal inquiry.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said Sunday that the Justice Department recommendation to reopen the cases had not been sent to the intelligence agency. He added: “Decisions on whether or not to pursue action in court were made after careful consideration by career prosecutors at the Justice Department. The C.I.A. itself brought these matters — facts and allegations alike — to the department’s attention.”

The report by the Justice Department’s ethics office has been under preparation for more than five years, and its critique of legal work on interrogations provoked bitter complaints from Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey as he was leaving office as the Bush administration’s final attorney general.

The Justice Department’s report, the most important since Mr. Holder took office, was submitted by Mary Patrice Brown, a veteran Washington federal prosecutor picked by Mr. Holder to lead the Office of Professional Responsibility earlier this year after its longtime chief, H. Marshall Jarrett, moved to another job in the Justice Department.

There has never been any public explanation of why the Justice Department decided not to bring charges in nearly two dozen abuse cases known to be referred to a team of federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., and in some instances not even the details of the cases have been made public.

Former government lawyers said that while some detainees died and others suffered serious abuses, prosecutors decided they would be unlikely to prevail because of problems with mishandled evidence and, in some cases, the inability to locate witnesses or even those said to be the victims.

A few of the cases are well known, like that of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in 2003 in C.I.A. custody at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after he was first captured by a team of Navy Seals. Prosecutors said he probably received his fatal injuries during his capture, but lawyers for the Seals denied it.

Over the years, some Democratic lawmakers sought more details about the cases and why the Justice Department took no action. They received summaries of the number of cases under scrutiny but few facts about the episodes or the department’s decisions not to prosecute.

The cases do not center on allegations of abuse by C.I.A. officers who conducted the forceful interrogations of high-level Qaeda suspects at secret sites, although it is not out of the question that a new investigation would also examine their conduct.

That could mean a look at the case in which C.I.A. officers threatened one prisoner with a handgun and a power drill if he did not cooperate. The detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was suspected as the master plotter behind the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole.

All civilian employees of the government, including those at the C.I.A., were required to comply with guidelines for interrogations detailed in a series of legal opinions written by the Justice Department. Those opinions, since abandoned by the Obama administration, were the central focus of the Justice Department’s internal inquiry.

 It has been known that the Justice Department ethics report had criticized the authors of the legal opinions and, in some cases, would recommend referrals to local bar associations for discipline.

But the internal inquiry also examined how the opinions were carried out and how referrals of possible violations were made — a process that led ethics investigators to find misconduct serious enough to warrant renewed criminal investigation.

New York Times

Steven Erlanger

PARIS — A United Nations human rights official, investigating practices at Guantánamo Bay, has concluded that evidence obtained from the interrogations there is tainted and that foreign law enforcement and intelligence officials who took part in those interrogations violated their legal obligation to reject the use of torture and arbitrary detention.

The official, Martin Scheinin, is the special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, an unpaid position created in 2005 by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

“When evidence is obtained through cruel and inhumane treatment, we will be faced with situations where the courts decide they don’t have proper evidence,” Mr. Scheinin said in a telephone interview. “There may be suspicions of terrorism, but evidence is tainted, so courts have only one option, to drop the case. They should have thought about that from the beginning, but didn’t.”

Mr. Scheinin, who visited the detention center at Guantánamo in December 2007, published a report on Friday criticizing foreign governments that took part in the Guantánamo interrogations or condoned them while using the intelligence obtained. The document, first reported in The Washington Post on Friday, is nonbinding. It will be discussed with member states at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 10.

The United States military has allowed intelligence and law enforcement officials from more than a dozen countries to interrogate Guantánamo inmates, Mr. Scheinin said. Those countries — including France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain and Jordan — and many other agencies have provided questions for American interrogators to ask. Some detainees “were interrogated under torture in other countries before reaching Guantánamo,” said Mr. Scheinin, citing Western agents who questioned detainees in Pakistan.

While President Obama signed an executive order in January to close the Guantánamo Bay detention camp within a year, the Pentagon has regularly said that prisoners are treated in accordance with international law and are not tortured. But the detainees in general were kept without being charged or tried.

“Guantánamo is not primarily for investigation, but for the gathering of intelligence,” Mr. Scheinin said.

The harshest part of the report accuses Western states of aiding or being complicit in torture. “The active participation by a state through the sending of interrogators or questions, or even the mere presence of intelligence personnel at an interview with a person who is being held in places where he is tortured or subject to other inhuman treatment, can be reasonably understood as implicitly condoning torture,” Mr. Scheinin says in his report. “States must introduce safeguards preventing intelligence agencies from making use of such intelligence.”

He cited the prospect of Guantánamo’s closing as “the pendulum swinging back,” but said national governments should investigate their involvement to make better rules and strengthen oversight of intelligence agencies.

Hürriyet (Newspaper)

Yusuf Kanlı

While still serving in office, when he was presented with a complaint that some security personnel engaged in the fight against the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, terrorism were subjecting people to summary execution, the most senior politician of the country, former President Süleyman Demirel was reported to have said, “The state cannot murder its citizens.” The parliamentary Human Rights Commission of the time reportedly did not take such reports seriously either, saying the claims were products of some foul imagination.

With a pragmatic and rather ignorant approach it could be argued that if there is a secessionist terrorist campaign continuing since 1984 and the security forces have been trying to battle that threat to national security, territorial and national integrity of the country, because of the continued impact of the continued difficult conditions and atmosphere of confrontation on the psychology of the security forces there might be some elements both in police anti-terror task force and in the military to get involved in some summary executions, which is outlawed in the country.

That will be, of course, a rather simplistic approach incompatible at all with either the notion of supremacy of law, sacredness of life or the principle that the most fundamental one of individual rights is the right of living.

Yet, revelations by “informants,” the accuracy of which cannot be verified so far, continue stressing that some civilians, as well some village guards suspected of abetting, supporting, providing information to the separatist gang or engaged in some illicit trade, such as drug trafficking, were “executed” by security personnel. There are claims that bodies of some of the victims of such summary executions were thrown in wells, or are buried secretly at locations far away from view.

A bad record

It is a fact also that as part of policy at the time, villagers were uprooted from their homes, forced to migrate and hundreds of villages were burnt. It is a fact that not only at the Diyarbakır Prison where inmates were forced to eat human excrement, villagers were forced to eat excrement in village squares in full view of other villagers. It is a fact that many people were “convinced” under torture to testify and claim responsibility for many crimes that they did not hear about until the start of their interrogation. It is a fact that this country has lost over 40,000 people in PKK related violence, most of them civilians. It is a fact that over the past almost three decades of PKK related violence, over 17,000 people were declared missing and presumed dead. It is a fact that there are cemeteries in many areas in southeastern Anatolian provinces for victims of terrorism or terrorists whose bodies were not claimed by the families or simply whose identities could not be established. The state cannot murder, but it is a fact that once there was a prime minister, a blonde lady, who was saying “to kill for the state and being killed for the state are equally sacred for us.” That is, there were people who were killing people assuming that they were killing for the state or for the defense of the state.

Crime is crime

Irrespective by who, in what outfit, where, how and in what psychological condition such crimes were committed, there can be no excuse. A crime is a crime, no one should try to ignore or present such crimes as certain acts that might be overseen because of “conditions” or some other pretext. All such claims have to be taken very seriously, investigated and whoever was responsible for them should be brought to justice. This is a duty for the state, the government, security forces and of course the Turkish judiciary.

Such investigations should not be mixed up with politically tainted probes such as Ergenekon, prejudices should be avoided and the utmost care should be attached to verification of the claims backed by hard evidence, as it would not be a surprise for anyone to eventually figure out that at least some of the claims might be baseless and aimed at nothing more than to harm the image of the state and the security forces.

It was shocking for me to read this week the latest “Wells of Death” book by eminent journalist Saygı Öztürk on the Şemdinli events. Öztürk skillfully documented how the gang staged some heinous acts and then successfully placed the blame on the security forces. Such investigations have to be continued with that awareness and should go deep and draw out what indeed might have happened. That is, such investigations should not be allowed to become propaganda tools of the separatist gang or their domestic and foreign political agents.

No. 03-5554. Argued March 22, 2004–Decided June 21, 2004

Counsel of Record

For Petitioners Hiibel:

James P. Logan

Nevada Public Defender’s Office

Carson City, NV

For Respondents Sixth Judicial

District Court, et al.:

Conrad Hafen

Senior Deputy Attorney General

Las Vegas, NV

Petitioner Hiibel was arrested and convicted in a Nevada court for refusing to identify himself to a police officer during an investigative stop involving a reported assault. Nevada’s “stop and identify” statute requires a person detained by an officer under suspicious circumstances to identify himself. The state intermediate appellate court affirmed, rejecting Hiibel’s argument that the state law’s application to his case violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed.

Held: Petitioner’s conviction does not violate his Fourth Amendment rights or the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on self-incrimination. Pp. 3-13.

 (a) State stop and identify statutes often combine elements of traditional vagrancy laws with provisions intended to regulate police behavior in the course of investigatory stops. They vary from State to State, but all permit an officer to ask or require a suspect to disclose his identity. In Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U. S. 156, 167-171, this Court invalidated a traditional vagrancy law for vagueness because of its broad scope and imprecise terms. The Court recognized similar constitutional limitations in Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 52, where it invalidated a conviction for violating a Texas stop and identify statute on Fourth Amendment grounds, and in Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U. S. 352, where it invalidated on vagueness grounds California’s modified stop and identify statute that required a suspect to give an officer “credible and reliable ” identification when asked to identify himself, id., at 360. This case begins where those cases left off. Here, the initial stop was based on reasonable suspicion, satisfying the Fourth Amendment requirements noted in Brown. Further, Hiibel has not alleged that the Nevada statute is unconstitutionally vague, as in Kolender. This statute is narrower and more precise. In contrast to the “credible and reliable” identification requirement in Kolender, the Nevada Supreme Court has interpreted the instant statute to require only that a suspect disclose his name. It apparently does not require him to produce a driver’s license or any other document. If he chooses either to state his name or communicate it to the officer by other means, the statute is satisfied and no violation occurs. Pp. 3-6.

(b) The officer’s conduct did not violate Hiibel’s Fourth Amendment rights. Ordinarily, an investigating officer is free to ask a person for identification without implicating the Amendment. INS v. Delgado, 466 U. S. 210, 216. Beginning with Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, the Court has recognized that an officer’s reasonable suspicion that a person may be involved in criminal activity permits the officer to stop the person for a brief time and take additional steps to investigate further. Although it is well established that an officer may ask a suspect to identify himself during a Terry stop, see, e.g., United States v. Hensley, 469 U. S. 221, 229, it has been an open question whether the suspect can be arrested and prosecuted for refusal to answer, see Brown, supra, at 53, n. 3. The Court is now of the view that Terry principles permit a State to require a suspect to disclose his name in the course of a Terry stop. Terry, supra, at 34. The Nevada statute is consistent with Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures because it properly balances the intrusion on the individual’s interests against the promotion of legitimate government interests. See Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 654. An identity request has an immediate relation to the Terry stop’s purpose, rationale, and practical demands, and the threat of criminal sanction helps ensure that the request does not become a legal nullity. On the other hand, the statute does not alter the nature of the stop itself, changing neither its duration nor its location. Hiibel argues unpersuasively that the statute circumvents the probable-cause requirement by allowing an officer to arrest a person for being suspicious, thereby creating an impermissible risk of arbitrary police conduct. These familiar concerns underlay Kolender, Brown, and Papachristou. They are met by the requirement that a Terry stop be justified at its inception and be “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified” the initial stop. Terry, 392 U. S., at 20. Under those principles, an officer may not arrest a suspect for failure to identify himself if the identification request is not reasonably related to the circumstances justifying the stop. Cf. Hayes v. Florida, 470 U. S. 811, 817. The request in this case was a commonsense inquiry, not an effort to obtain an arrest for failure to identify after a Terry stop yielded insufficient evidence. The stop, the request, and the State’s requirement of a response did not contravene the Fourth Amendment. Pp. 6-10.

 (c) Hiibel’s contention that his conviction violates the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on self-incrimination fails because disclosure of his name and identity presented no reasonable danger of incrimination. The Fifth Amendment prohibits only compelled testimony that is incriminating, see Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591, 598, and protects only against disclosures that the witness reasonably believes could be used in a criminal prosecution or could lead to other evidence that might be so used, Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441, 445. Hiibel’s refusal to disclose was not based on any articulated real and appreciable fear that his name would be used to incriminate him, or that it would furnish evidence needed to prosecute him. Hoffman v. United States, 341 U. S. 479, 486. It appears he refused to identify himself only because he thought his name was none of the officer’s business. While the Court recognizes his strong belief that he should not have to disclose his identity, the Fifth Amendment does not override the Nevada Legislature’s judgment to the contrary absent a reasonable belief that the disclosure would tend to incriminate him. Answering a request to disclose a name is likely to be so insignificant as to be incriminating only in unusual circumstances. See, e.g., Baltimore City Dept. of Social Servs. v. Bouknight, 493 U. S. 549, 555. If a case arises where there is a substantial allegation that furnishing identity at the time of a stop would have given the police a link in the chain of evidence needed to convict the individual of a separate offense, the court can then consider whether the Fifth Amendment privilege applies, whether it has been violated, and what remedy must follow. Those questions need not be resolved here. 10-13.

118 Nev. 868, 59 P. 2d 1201, affirmed.

Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O’Connor, Scalia, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter and Ginsburg, JJ., joined.

LARRY D. HIIBEL, PETITIONER v. SIXTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT OF NEVADA, HUMBOLDT COUNTY, et al.

on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of nevada

[June 21, 2004]

Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioner was arrested and convicted for refusing to identify himself during a stop allowed by Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968). He challenges his conviction under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

 I

 The sheriff’s department in Humboldt County, Nevada, received an afternoon telephone call reporting an assault. The caller reported seeing a man assault a woman in a red and silver GMC truck on Grass Valley Road. Deputy Sheriff Lee Dove was dispatched to investigate. When the officer arrived at the scene, he found the truck parked on the side of the road. A man was standing by the truck, and a young woman was sitting inside it. The officer observed skid marks in the gravel behind the vehicle, leading him to believe it had come to a sudden stop.

The officer approached the man and explained that he was investigating a report of a fight. The man appeared to be intoxicated. The officer asked him if he had “any identification on [him],” which we understand as a request to produce a driver’s license or some other form of written identification. The man refused and asked why the officer wanted to see identification. The officer responded that he was conducting an investigation and needed to see some identification. The unidentified man became agitated and insisted he had done nothing wrong. The officer explained that he wanted to find out who the man was and what he was doing there. After continued refusals to comply with the officer’s request for identification, the man began to taunt the officer by placing his hands behind his back and telling the officer to arrest him and take him to jail. This routine kept up for several minutes: the officer asked for identification 11 times and was refused each time. After warning the man that he would be arrested if he continued to refuse to comply, the officer placed him under arrest.

We now know that the man arrested on Grass Valley Road is Larry Dudley Hiibel. Hiibel was charged with “willfully resist[ing], delay[ing], or obstruct[ing] a public officer in discharging or attempting to discharge any legal duty of his office” in violation of Nev. Rev. Stat. (NRS) §199.280 (2003). The government reasoned that Hiibel had obstructed the officer in carrying out his duties under §171.123, a Nevada statute that defines the legal rights and duties of a police officer in the context of an investigative stop. Section 171.123 provides in relevant part:

 ”1. Any peace officer may detain any person whom the officer encounters under circumstances which reasonably indicate that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime.

 . . . . .

 ”3. The officer may detain the person pursuant to this section only to ascertain his identity and the suspicious circumstances surrounding his presence abroad. Any person so detained shall identify himself, but may not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of any peace officer.”

Hiibel was tried in the Justice Court of Union Township. The court agreed that Hiibel’s refusal to identify himself as required by §171.123 “obstructed and delayed Dove as a public officer in attempting to discharge his duty” in violation of §199.280. App. 5. Hiibel was convicted and fined $250. The Sixth Judicial District Court affirmed, rejecting Hiibel’s argument that the application of §171.123 to his case violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. On review the Supreme Court of Nevada rejected the Fourth Amendment challenge in a divided opinion. 118 Nev. 868, 59 P. 3d 1201 (2002). Hiibel petitioned for rehearing, seeking explicit resolution of his Fifth Amendment challenge. The petition was denied without opinion. We granted certiorari. 540 U. S. 965 (2003).

II

NRS §171.123(3) is an enactment sometimes referred to as a “stop and identify” statute. See Ala. Code §15-5-30 (West 2003); Ark. Code Ann. §5-71-213(a)(1) (2004); Colo. Rev. Stat. §16-3-103(1) (2003); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 11, §§1902(a), 1321(6) (2003); Fla. Stat. §856.021(2) (2003); Ga. Code Ann. §16-11-36(b) (2003); Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 725, §5/107-14 (2004); Kan. Stat. Ann. §22-2402(1) (2003); La. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 215.1(A) (West 2004); Mo. Rev. Stat. §84.710(2) (2003); Mont. Code Ann. §46-5-401(2)(a) (2003); Neb. Rev. Stat. §29-829 (2003); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§594:2 and 644:6 (Lexis 2003); N. M. Stat. Ann. §30-22-3 (2004); N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law §140.50(1) (West 2004); N. D. Cent. Code §29-29-21 (2003); R. I. Gen. Laws §12-7-1 (2003); Utah Code Ann. §77-7-15 (2003); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 24, §1983 (Supp. 2003); Wis. Stat. §968.24 (2003). See also Note, Stop and Identify Statutes: A New Form of an Inadequate Solution to an Old Problem, 12 Rutgers L. J. 585 (1981); Note, Stop-and-Identify Statutes After Kolender v. Lawson: Exploring the Fourth and Fifth Amendment Issues, 69 Iowa L. Rev. 1057 (1984).

Stop and identify statutes often combine elements of traditional vagrancy laws with provisions intended to regulate police behavior in the course of investigatory stops. The statutes vary from State to State, but all permit an officer to ask or require a suspect to disclose his identity. A few States model their statutes on the Uniform Arrest Act, a model code that permits an officer to stop a person reasonably suspected of committing a crime and “demand of him his name, address, business abroad and whither he is going.” Warner, The Uniform Arrest Act, 28 Va. L. Rev. 315, 344 (1942). Other statutes are based on the text proposed by the American Law Institute as part of the Institute’s Model Penal Code. See ALI, Model Penal Code, §250.6, Comment 4, pp. 392-393 (1980). The provision, originally designated §250.12, provides that a person who is loitering “under circumstances which justify suspicion that he may be engaged or about to engage in crime commits a violation if he refuses the request of a peace officer that he identify himself and give a reasonably credible account of the lawfulness of his conduct and purposes.” §250.12 (Tentative Draft No. 13) (1961). In some States, a suspect’s refusal to identify himself is a misdemeanor offense or civil violation; in others, it is a factor to be considered in whether the suspect has violated loitering laws. In other States, a suspect may decline to identify himself without penalty.

Stop and identify statutes have their roots in early English vagrancy laws that required suspected vagrants to face arrest unless they gave “a good Account of themselves,” 15 Geo. 2, ch. 5, §2 (1744), a power that itself reflected common-law rights of private persons to “arrest any suspicious night-walker, and detain him till he give a good account of himself … .” 2 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, ch. 13, §6, p. 130. (6th ed. 1787). In recent decades, the Court has found constitutional infirmity in traditional vagrancy laws. In Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U. S. 156 (1972), the Court held that a traditional vagrancy law was void for vagueness. Its broad scope and imprecise terms denied proper notice to potential offenders and permitted police officers to exercise unfettered discretion in the enforcement of the law. See id., at 167-171.

The Court has recognized similar constitutional limitations on the scope and operation of stop and identify statutes. In Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 52 (1979), the Court invalidated a conviction for violating a Texas stop and identify statute on Fourth Amendment grounds. The Court ruled that the initial stop was not based on specific, objective facts establishing reasonable suspicion to believe the suspect was involved in criminal activity. See id., at 51-52. Absent that factual basis for detaining the defendant, the Court held, the risk of “arbitrary and abusive police practices” was too great and the stop was impermissible. Id., at 52. Four Terms later, the Court invalidated a modified stop and identify statute on vagueness grounds. See Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U. S. 352 (1983). The California law in Kolender required a suspect to give an officer ” ‘credible and reliable’ ” identification when asked to identify himself. Id., at 360. The Court held that the statute was void because it provided no standard for determining what a suspect must do to comply with it, resulting in ” ‘virtually unrestrained power to arrest and charge persons with a violation.’ ” Id., at 360 (quoting Lewis v. New Orleans, 415 U. S. 130, 135 (1974) (Powell, J., concurring in result)).

The present case begins where our prior cases left off. Here there is no question that the initial stop was based on reasonable suspicion, satisfying the Fourth Amendment requirements noted in Brown. Further, the petitioner has not alleged that the statute is unconstitutionally vague, as in Kolender. Here the Nevada statute is narrower and more precise. The statute in Kolender had been interpreted to require a suspect to give the officer “credible and reliable” identification. In contrast, the Nevada Supreme Court has interpreted NRS §171.123(3) to require only that a suspect disclose his name. See 118 Nev., at ___, 59 P. 3d, at 1206 (opinion of Young, C. J.) (“The suspect is not required to provide private details about his background, but merely to state his name to an officer when reasonable suspicion exists”). As we understand it, the statute does not require a suspect to give the officer a driver’s license or any other document. Provided that the suspect either states his name or communicates it to the officer by other means–a choice, we assume, that the suspect may make–the statute is satisfied and no violation occurs. See id., at ___, 59 P. 3d, at 1206-1207.

III

Hiibel argues that his conviction cannot stand because the officer’s conduct violated his Fourth Amendment rights. We disagree.

Asking questions is an essential part of police investigations. In the ordinary course a police officer is free to ask a person for identification without implicating the Fourth Amendment. “[I]nterrogation relating to one’s identity or a request for identification by the police does not, by itself, constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure.” INS v. Delgado, 466 U. S. 210, 216 (1984). Beginning with Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), the Court has recognized that a law enforcement officer’s reasonable suspicion that a person may be involved in criminal activity permits the officer to stop the person for a brief time and take additional steps to investigate further. Delgado, supra, at 216; United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 881 (1975). To ensure that the resulting seizure is constitutionally reasonable, a Terry stop must be limited. The officer’s action must be ” ‘justified at its inception, and … reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.’ ” United States v. Sharpe, 470 U. S. 675, 682 (1985) (quoting Terry, supra, at 20). For example, the seizure cannot continue for an excessive period of time, see United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 709 (1983), or resemble a traditional arrest, see Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200, 212 (1979).

Our decisions make clear that questions concerning a suspect’s identity are a routine and accepted part of many Terry stops. See United States v. Hensley, 469 U. S. 221, 229 (1985) (“[T]he ability to briefly stop [a suspect], ask questions, or check identification in the absence of probable cause promotes the strong government interest in solving crimes and bringing offenders to justice”); Hayes v. Florida, 470 U. S. 811, 816 (1985) (“[I]f there are articulable facts supporting a reasonable suspicion that a person has committed a criminal offense, that person may be stopped in order to identify him, to question him briefly, or to detain him briefly while attempting to obtain additional information”); Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143, 146 (1972) (“A brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information, may be most reasonable in light of the facts known to the officer at the time”).

Obtaining a suspect’s name in the course of a Terry stop serves important government interests. Knowledge of identity may inform an officer that a suspect is wanted for another offense, or has a record of violence or mental disorder. On the other hand, knowing identity may help clear a suspect and allow the police to concentrate their efforts elsewhere. Identity may prove particularly important in cases such as this, where the police are investigating what appears to be a domestic assault. Officers called to investigate domestic disputes need to know whom they are dealing with in order to assess the situation, the threat to their own safety, and possible danger to the potential victim.

Although it is well established that an officer may ask a suspect to identify himself in the course of a Terry stop, it has been an open question whether the suspect can be arrested and prosecuted for refusal to answer. See Brown, 443 U. S., at 53, n. 3. Petitioner draws our attention to statements in prior opinions that, according to him, answer the question in his favor. In Terry, Justice White stated in a concurring opinion that a person detained in an investigative stop can be questioned but is “not obliged to answer, answers may not be compelled, and refusal to answer furnishes no basis for an arrest.” 392 U. S., at 34. The Court cited this opinion in dicta in Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 439 (1984), a decision holding that a routine traffic stop is not a custodial stop requiring the protections of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). In the course of explaining why Terry stops have not been subject to Miranda, the Court suggested reasons why Terry stops have a “nonthreatening character,” among them the fact that a suspect detained during a Terry stop “is not obliged to respond” to questions. See Berkemer, supra, at 439, 440. According to petitioner, these statements establish a right to refuse to answer questions during a Terry stop.

We do not read these statements as controlling. The passages recognize that the Fourth Amendment does not impose obligations on the citizen but instead provides rights against the government. As a result, the Fourth Amendment itself cannot require a suspect to answer questions. This case concerns a different issue, however. Here, the source of the legal obligation arises from Nevada state law, not the Fourth Amendment. Further, the statutory obligation does not go beyond answering an officer’s request to disclose a name. See NRS §171.123(3) (“Any person so detained shall identify himself, but may not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of any peace officer”). As a result, we cannot view the dicta in Berkemer or Justice White’s concurrence in Terry as answering the question whether a State can compel a suspect to disclose his name during a Terry stop.

The principles of Terry permit a State to require a suspect to disclose his name in the course of a Terry stop. The reasonableness of a seizure under the Fourth Amendment is determined “by balancing its intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate government interests.” Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 654 (1979). The Nevada statute satisfies that standard. The request for identity has an immediate relation to the purpose, rationale, and practical demands of a Terry stop. The threat of criminal sanction helps ensure that the request for identity does not become a legal nullity. On the other hand, the Nevada statute does not alter the nature of the stop itself: it does not change its duration, Place, supra, at 709, or its location, Dunaway, supra, at 212. A state law requiring a suspect to disclose his name in the course of a valid Terry stop is consistent with Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Petitioner argues that the Nevada statute circumvents the probable cause requirement, in effect allowing an officer to arrest a person for being suspicious. According to petitioner, this creates a risk of arbitrary police conduct that the Fourth Amendment does not permit. Brief for Petitioner 28-33. These are familiar concerns; they were central to the opinion in Papachristou, and also to the decisions limiting the operation of stop and identify statutes in Kolender and Brown. Petitioner’s concerns are met by the requirement that a Terry stop must be justified at its inception and “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified” the initial stop. 392 U. S., at 20. Under these principles, an officer may not arrest a suspect for failure to identify himself if the request for identification is not reasonably related to the circumstances justifying the stop. The Court noted a similar limitation in Hayes, where it suggested that Terry may permit an officer to determine a suspect’s identity by compelling the suspect to submit to fingerprinting only if there is “a reasonable basis for believing that fingerprinting will establish or negate the suspect’s connection with that crime.” 470 U. S., at 817. It is clear in this case that the request for identification was “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified” the stop. Terry, supra, at 20. The officer’s request was a commonsense inquiry, not an effort to obtain an arrest for failure to identify after a Terry stop yielded insufficient evidence. The stop, the request, and the State’s requirement of a response did not contravene the guarantees of the Fourth Amendment.

 IV

Petitioner further contends that his conviction violates the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on compelled self-incrimination. The Fifth Amendment states that “[n]o person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” To qualify for the Fifth Amendment privilege, a communication must be testimonial, incriminating, and compelled. See United States v. Hubbell, 530 U. S. 27, 34-38 (2000).

Respondents urge us to hold that the statements NRS §171.123(3) requires are nontestimonial, and so outside the Clause’s scope. We decline to resolve the case on that basis. “[T]o be testimonial, an accused’s communication must itself, explicitly or implicitly, relate a factual assertion or disclose information.” Doe v. United States, 487 U. S. 201, 210 (1988). See also Hubbell, 530 U. S., at 35. Stating one’s name may qualify as an assertion of fact relating to identity. Production of identity documents might meet the definition as well. As we noted in Hubbell, acts of production may yield testimony establishing “the existence, authenticity, and custody of items [the police seek].” Id., at 41. Even if these required actions are testimonial, however, petitioner’s challenge must fail because in this case disclosure of his name presented no reasonable danger of incrimination.

The Fifth Amendment prohibits only compelled testimony that is incriminating. See Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591, 598 (1896) (noting that where “the answer of the witness will not directly show his infamy, but only tend to disgrace him, he is bound to answer”). A claim of Fifth Amendment privilege must establish

” ‘reasonable ground to apprehend danger to the witness from his being compelled to answer … . [T]he danger to be apprehended must be real and appreciable, with reference to the ordinary operation of law in the ordinary course of things,–not a danger of an imaginary and unsubstantial character, having reference to some extraordinary and barely possible contingency, so improbable that no reasonable man would suffer it to influence his conduct.’ ” Id., at 599-600 (quoting Queen v. Boyes, 1 Best & S. 311, 321 (1861) (Cockburn, C. J.)).

As we stated in Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441, 445 (1972), the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination “protects against any disclosures that the witness reasonably believes could be used in a criminal prosecution or could lead to other evidence that might be so used.” Suspects who have been granted immunity from prosecution may, therefore, be compelled to answer; with the threat of prosecution removed, there can be no reasonable belief that the evidence will be used against them. See id., at 453.

In this case petitioner’s refusal to disclose his name was not based on any articulated real and appreciable fear that his name would be used to incriminate him, or that it “would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute” him. Hoffman v. United States, 341 U. S. 479, 486 (1951). As best we can tell, petitioner refused to identify himself only because he thought his name was none of the officer’s business. Even today, petitioner does not explain how the disclosure of his name could have been used against him in a criminal case. While we recognize petitioner’s strong belief that he should not have to disclose his identity, the Fifth Amendment does not override the Nevada Legislature’s judgment to the contrary absent a reasonable belief that the disclosure would tend to incriminate him.

The narrow scope of the disclosure requirement is also important. One’s identity is, by definition, unique; yet it is, in another sense, a universal characteristic. Answering a request to disclose a name is likely to be so insignificant in the scheme of things as to be incriminating only in unusual circumstances. See Baltimore City Dept. of Social Servs. v. Bouknight, 493 U. S. 549, 555 (1990) (suggesting that “fact[s] the State could readily establish” may render “any testimony regarding existence or authenticity [of them] insufficiently incriminating”); Cf. California v. Byers, 402 U. S. 424, 432 (1971) (opinion of Burger, C. J.). In every criminal case, it is known and must be known who has been arrested and who is being tried. Cf. Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 U. S. 582, 601-602 (1990) (opinion of Brennan, J.). Even witnesses who plan to invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege answer when their names are called to take the stand. Still, a case may arise where there is a substantial allegation that furnishing identity at the time of a stop would have given the police a link in the chain of evidence needed to convict the individual of a separate offense. In that case, the court can then consider whether the privilege applies, and, if the Fifth Amendment has been violated, what remedy must follow. We need not resolve those questions here.

The judgment of the Nevada Supreme Court is

 Affirmed.

 LARRY D. HIIBEL, PETITIONER v. SIXTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT OF NEVADA, HUMBOLDT COUNTY, et al.

 on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of nevada

 [June 21, 2004]

 Justice Stevens, dissenting.

 The Nevada law at issue in this case imposes a narrow duty to speak upon a specific class of individuals. The class includes only those persons detained by a police officer “under circumstances which reasonably indicate that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime”1–persons who are, in other words, targets of a criminal investigation. The statute therefore is directed not “at the public at large,” but rather “at a highly selective group inherently suspect of criminal activities.” Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Bd., 382 U. S. 70, 79 (1965).

Under the Nevada law, a member of the targeted class “may not be compelled to answer” any inquiry except a command that he “identify himself.”2 Refusal to identify oneself upon request is punishable as a crime.3 Presumably the statute does not require the detainee to answer any other question because the Nevada Legislature realized that the Fifth Amendment prohibits compelling the target of a criminal investigation to make any other statement. In my judgment, the broad constitutional right to remain silent, which derives from the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that “[n]o person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” U. S. Const., Amdt. 5,4 is not as circumscribed as the Court suggests, and does not admit even of the narrow exception defined by the Nevada statute.

“[T]here can be no doubt that the Fifth Amendment privilege is available outside of criminal court proceedings and serves to protect persons in all settings in which their freedom of action is curtailed in any significant way from being compelled to incriminate themselves.” Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 467 (1966). It is a “settled principle” that “the police have the right to request citizens to answer voluntarily questions concerning unsolved crimes,” but “they have no right to compel them to answer.” Davis v. Mississipi, 394 U. S. 721, 727, n. 6 (1969). The protections of the Fifth Amendment are directed squarely toward those who are the focus of the government’s investigative and prosecutorial powers. In a criminal trial, the indicted defendant has an unqualified right to refuse to testify and may not be punished for invoking that right. See Carter v. Kentucky, 450 U. S. 288, 299-300 (1981). The unindicted target of a grand jury investigation enjoys the same constitutional protection even if he has been served with a subpoena. See Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U. S. 760, 767-768 (2003). So does an arrested suspect during custodial interrogation in a police station. Miranda, 384 U. S., at 467.

There is no reason why the subject of police interrogation based on mere suspicion, rather than probable cause, should have any lesser protection. Indeed, we have said that the Fifth Amendment’s protections apply with equal force in the context of Terry stops, see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), where an officer’s inquiry “must be ‘reasonably related in scope to the justification for [the stop's] initiation.’ ” Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 439 (1984) (some internal quotation marks omitted). “Typically, this means that the officer may ask the detainee a moderate number of questions to determine his identity and to try to obtain information confirming or dispelling the officer’s suspicions. But the detainee is not obliged to respond.” Ibid. See also Terry, 392 U. S., at 34 (White, J., concurring) (“Of course, the person stopped is not obliged to answer, answers may not be compelled, and refusal to answer furnishes no basis for arrest, although it may alert the officer to the need for continued observation”). Given our statements to the effect that citizens are not required to respond to police officers’ questions during a Terry stop, it is no surprise that petitioner assumed, as have we, that he had a right not to disclose his identity.

The Court correctly observes that a communication does not enjoy the Fifth Amendment privilege unless it is testimonial. Although the Court declines to resolve this question, ante, at 10-11, I think it clear that this case concerns a testimonial communication. Recognizing that whether a communication is testimonial is sometimes a “difficult question,” Doe v. United States, 487 U. S. 201, 214-215 (1988), we have stated generally that “[i]t is the ‘extortion of information from the accused,’ the attempt to force him ‘to disclose the contents of his own mind,’ that implicates the Self-Incrimination Clause,” id., at 211 (citations omitted). While “[t]he vast majority of verbal statements thus will be testimonial and, to that extent at least, will fall within the privilege,” id., at 213-214, certain acts and physical evidence fall outside the privilege.5 In all instances, we have afforded Fifth Amendment protection if the disclosure in question was being admitted because of its content rather than some other aspect of the communication.6

Considered in light of these precedents, the compelled statement at issue in this case is clearly testimonial. It is significant that the communication must be made in response to a question posed by a police officer. As we recently explained, albeit in the different context of the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause, “[w]hatever else the term ['testimonial'] covers, it applies at a minimum … to police interrogations.” Crawford v. Washington, 541 U. S. ___, ___ (2004) (slip op., at 33). Surely police questioning during a Terry stop qualifies as an interrogation, and it follows that responses to such questions are testimonial in nature.

 Rather than determining whether the communication at issue is testimonial, the Court instead concludes that the State can compel the disclosure of one’s identity because it is not “incriminating.” Ante, at 11. But our cases have afforded Fifth Amendment protection to statements that are “incriminating” in a much broader sense than the Court suggests. It has “long been settled that [the Fifth Amendment's] protection encompasses compelled statements that lead to the discovery of incriminating evidence even though the statements themselves are not incriminating and are not introduced into evidence.” United States v. Hubbell, 530 U. S. 27, 37 (2000). By “incriminating” we have meant disclosures that “could be used in a criminal prosecution or could lead to other evidence that might be so used,” Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441, 445 (1972)–communications, in other words, that “would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute the claimant for a federal crime,” Hoffman v. United States, 341 U. S. 479, 486 (1951). Thus, “[c]ompelled testimony that communicates information that may ‘lead to incriminating evidence’ is privileged even if the information itself is not inculpatory.” Hubbell, 530 U. S., at 38 (citing Doe, 487 U. S., at 208, n. 6).

Given a proper understanding of the category of “incriminating” communications that fall within the Fifth Amendment privilege, it is clear that the disclosure of petitioner’s identity is protected. The Court reasons that we should not assume that the disclosure of petitioner’s name would be used to incriminate him or that it would furnish a link in a chain of evidence needed to prosecute him. Ante, at 12-13. But why else would an officer ask for it? And why else would the Nevada Legislature require its disclosure only when circumstances “reasonably indicate that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime”?7 If the Court is correct, then petitioner’s refusal to cooperate did not impede the police investigation. Indeed, if we accept the predicate for the Court’s holding, the statute requires nothing more than a useless invasion of privacy. I think that, on the contrary, the Nevada Legislature intended to provide its police officers with a useful law enforcement tool, and that the very existence of the statute demonstrates the value of the information it demands.

A person’s identity obviously bears informational and incriminating worth, “even if the [name] itself is not inculpatory.” Hubbell, 530 U. S., at 38. A name can provide the key to a broad array of information about the person, particularly in the hands of a police officer with access to a range of law enforcement databases. And that information, in turn, can be tremendously useful in a criminal prosecution. It is therefore quite wrong to suggest that a person’s identity provides a link in the chain to incriminating evidence “only in unusual circumstances.” Ante, at 12.

The officer in this case told petitioner, in the Court’s words, that “he was conducting an investigation and needed to see some identification.” Ante, at 2. As the target of that investigation, petitioner, in my view, acted well within his rights when he opted to stand mute. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

LARRY D. HIIBEL, PETITIONER v. SIXTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT OF NEVADA, HUMBOLDT COUNTY, et al.

on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of nevada

[June 21, 2004]

Justice Breyer, with whom Justice Souter and Justice Ginsburg join, dissenting.

Notwithstanding the vagrancy statutes to which the majority refers, see ante, at 4-5, this Court’s Fourth Amendment precedents make clear that police may conduct a Terry stop only within circumscribed limits. And one of those limits invalidates laws that compel responses to police questioning.

In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), the Court considered whether police, in the absence of probable cause, can stop, question, or frisk an individual at all. The Court recognized that the Fourth Amendment protects the ” ‘right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person.’ ” Id., at 9 (quoting Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, 251 (1891)). At the same time, it recognized that in certain circumstances, public safety might require a limited “seizure,” or stop, of an individual against his will. The Court consequently set forth conditions circumscribing when and how the police might conduct a Terry stop. They include what has become known as the “reasonable suspicion” standard. 392 U. S., at 20-22. Justice White, in a separate concurring opinion, set forth further conditions. Justice White wrote: “Of course, the person stopped is not obliged to answer, answers may not be compelled, and refusal to answer furnishes no basis for an arrest, although it may alert the officer to the need for continued observation.” Id., at 34.

About 10 years later, the Court, in Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47 (1979), held that police lacked “any reasonable suspicion” to detain the particular petitioner and require him to identify himself. Id., at 53. The Court noted that the trial judge had asked the following: “I’m sure [officers conducting a Terry stop] should ask everything they possibly could find out. What I’m asking is what’s the State’s interest in putting a man in jail because he doesn’t want to answer . . . .” Id., at 54 (Appendix to opinion of the Court) (emphasis in original). The Court referred to Justice White’s Terry concurrence. 443 U. S., at 53, n. 3. And it said that it “need not decide” the matter. Ibid.

Then, five years later, the Court wrote that an “officer may ask the [Terry] detainee a moderate number of questions to determine his identity and to try to obtain information confirming or dispelling the officer’s suspicions. But the detainee is not obliged to respond.” Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 439 (1984) (emphasis added). See also Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U. S. 352, 365 (1983) (Brennan, J., concurring) (Terry suspect “must be free to . . . decline to answer the questions put to him”); Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U. S. 119, 125 (2000) (stating that allowing officers to stop and question a fleeing person “is quite consistent with the individual’s right to go about his business or to stay put and remain silent in the face of police questioning”).

This lengthy history–of concurring opinions, of references, and of clear explicit statements–means that the Court’s statement in Berkemer, while technically dicta, is the kind of strong dicta that the legal community typically takes as a statement of the law. And that law has remained undisturbed for more than 20 years.

There is no good reason now to reject this generation-old statement of the law. There are sound reasons rooted in Fifth Amendment considerations for adhering to this Fourth Amendment legal condition circumscribing police authority to stop an individual against his will. See ante, at 1-6 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Administrative considerations also militate against change. Can a State, in addition to requiring a stopped individual to answer “What’s your name?” also require an answer to “What’s your license number?” or “Where do you live?” Can a police officer, who must know how to make a Terry stop, keep track of the constitutional answers? After all, answers to any of these questions may, or may not, incriminate, depending upon the circumstances.

Indeed, as the majority points out, a name itself–even if it is not “Killer Bill” or “Rough ‘em up Harry”–will sometimes provide the police with “a link in the chain of evidence needed to convict the individual of a separate offense.” Ante, at 12-13. The majority reserves judgment about whether compulsion is permissible in such instances. Ante, at 13. How then is a police officer in the midst of a Terry stop to distinguish between the majority’s ordinary case and this special case where the majority reserves judgment?

The majority presents no evidence that the rule enunciated by Justice White and then by the Berkemer Court, which for nearly a generation has set forth a settled Terry-stop condition, has significantly interfered with law enforcement. Nor has the majority presented any other convincing justification for change. I would not begin to erode a clear rule with special exceptions.

 I consequently dissent.

 FOOTNOTES

 Footnote 1

Nev. Rev. Stat. §171.123(1) (2003).

Footnote 2

§171.123(3).

Footnote 3

In this case, petitioner was charged with violating §199.280, which makes it a crime to “willfully resis[t], dela[y] or obstruc[t] a public officer in discharging or attempting to discharge any legal duty of his office.” A violation of that provision is a misdemeanor unless a dangerous weapon is involved.

Footnote 4

The Fifth Amendment’s protection against compelled self-incrimination applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. See Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 6 (1964).

Footnote 5

A suspect may be made, for example, to provide a blood sample, Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 765 (1966), a voice exemplar, United States v. Dionisio, 410 U. S. 1, 7 (1973), or a handwriting sample, Gilbert v. California, 388 U. S. 263, 266-267 (1967).

Footnote 6

See Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 U. S. 582, 598-599 (1990) (respondent’s answer to the “birthday question” was protected because the “content of his truthful answer supported an inference that his mental faculties were impaired”); Doe v. United States, 487 U. S. 201, 211, n. 10 (1988) (“The content itself must have testimonial significance”); Fisher v. United States, 425 U. S. 391, 410-411 (1976) (“[H]owever incriminating the contents of the accountant’s workpapers might be, the act of producing them–the only thing which the taxpayer is compelled to do–would not itself involve testimonial self-incrimination”); Gilbert, 388 U. S., at 266-267 (“A mere handwriting exemplar, in contrast to the content of what is written, like the voice or body itself, is an identifying characteristic outside its protection”); United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218, 223 (1967) (“[I]t deserves emphasis that this case presents no question of the admissibility in evidence of anything Wade said or did at the lineup which implicates his privilege”).

Footnote 7

Nev. Rev. Stat. §171.123(1) (2003). The Court suggests that furnishing identification also allows the investigating officer to assess the threat to himself and others. See ante, at 8. But to the extent that officer or public safety is immediately at issue, that concern is sufficiently alleviated by the officer’s ability to perform a limited patdown search for weapons. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 25-26 (1968).

The Trial

1937

Franz Kafka

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. Every day at eight in the morning he was brought his breakfast by Mrs. Grubach’s cook – Mrs. Grubach was his landlady – but today she didn’t come. That had never happened before. K. waited a little while, looked from his pillow at the old woman who lived opposite and who was watching him with an inquisitiveness quite unusual for her, and finally, both hungry and disconcerted, rang the bell. There was immediately a knock at the door and a man entered. He had never seen the man in this house before. He was slim but firmly built, his clothes were black and close-fitting,with many folds and pockets, buckles and buttons and a belt, all of which gave the impression of being very practical but without making it very clear what they were actually for. “Who are you?” asked K., sitting half upright in his bed. The man, however, ignored the question as if his arrival simply had to be accepted, and merely replied, “You rang?” “Anna should have brought me my breakfast,” said K. He tried towork out who the man actually was, first in silence, just through observation and by thinking about it, but the man didn’t stay still to be looked at for very long. Instead he went over to the door, opened it slightly, and said to someone who was clearly standing immediately behind it, “He wants Anna to bring him his breakfast.” There was a little laughter in the neighbouring room, it was not clear from the sound of it whether there were several people laughing. The strange man could not have learned anything from it that he hadn’t known already, but now he said to K., as if making his report “It is not possible.” “It would be the first time that’s happened,” said K., as he jumped out of bed and quickly pulled on his trousers. “I want to see who that is in the next room, and why it is that Mrs. Grubach has let me be disturbed in this way.” It immediately occurred to him that he needn’t have said this out loud, and that he must to some extent have acknowledged their authority by doing so, but that didn’t seem important to him at the time. That, at least, is how the stranger took it, as he said, “Don’t you think you’d better stay where you are?” “I want neither to stay here nor to be spoken to by you until you’ve introduced yourself.” “I meant it for your own good,” said the stranger and opened the door, this time without being asked. The next room, which K. entered more slowly than he had intended, looked at first glance exactly the same as it had the previous evening. It was Mrs. Grubach’s living room, over-filled with furniture, tablecloths, porcelain and photographs. Perhaps there was a little more space in there than usual today, but if so it was not immediately obvious, especially as the main difference was the presence of a man sitting by the open window with abook from which he now looked up. “You should have stayed in your room! Didn’t Franz tell you?” “And what is it you want, then?” said K., looking back and forth between this new acquaintance and the one named Franz, who had remained in the doorway. Through the open window he noticed the old woman again, who had come close to the window opposite so that she could continue to see everything. She was showing an inquisitiveness that really made it seem like she was going senile. “Iwant to see Mrs. Grubach …,” said K., making a movement as if tearing himself away from the two men – even though they were standing well away from him – and wanted to go. “No,” said the man at the window, who threw his book down on a coffee table and stood up. “You can’t go away when you’re under arrest.” “That’s how it seems,” said K. “And why am I under arrest?” he then asked. “That’s something we’re not allowed to tell you. Go into your room and wait there. Proceedings are underway and you’ll learn about everything all in good time. It’s not really part of my job to be friendly towards you like this, but I hope no-one, apart from Franz, will hear about it, and he’s been more friendly towards you than he should have been, under the rules, himself. If you carry on having as much good luck as you have been with your arresting officers then you can reckon on things going well with you.” K. wanted to sit down, but then he saw that, apart from the chair by the window, there was nowhere anywhere in the room where he could sit. “You’ll get the chance to see for yourself how true all this is,” said Franz and both men then walked up to K. They were significantly bigger than him, especially the second man, who frequently slapped him on the shoulder. The two of them felt K.’s nightshirt, and said he would now have to wear

one that was of much lower quality, but that they would keep the nightshirt along with his other underclothes and return them to him if his case turned out well. “It’s better for you if you give us the things than if you leave them in the storeroom,” they said. “Things have a tendency to go missing in the storeroom, and after a certain amount of time they sell things off, whether the case involved has come to an end or not. And cases like this can last a long time, especially the ones that have been coming up lately. They’d give you the money they got for them, but it wouldn’t be very much as it’s not what they’re offered for them when they sell them that counts, it’s how much they get slipped on the side, and things like that lose their value anyway when they get passed on from hand to hand, year after year.” K. paid hardly any attention to what they were saying, he did not place much value on what he may have still possessed or on who decided what happened to them. It was much more important to him to get a clear understanding of his position, but he could not think clearly while these people were here, the second policeman’s belly – and they could only be policemen – looked friendly enough, sticking out towards him, but when K. looked up and saw his dry, boney face it did not seem to fit with the body. His strong nose twisted to one side as if ignoring K. and sharing an understanding with the other policeman. What sort of people were these? What were they talking about? What office did they belong to? K. was living in a free country, after all, everywhere was at peace, all laws were decent and were upheld, who was it who dared accost him in his own home? He was always inclined to take life as lightly as he could, to cross bridges when he came to them, pay no heed for the future, even when everything seemed under threat. But here that did not seem the right thing to do. He could have taken it all as a joke, a big joke set up by his colleagues at the bank for some unknown reason, or also perhaps because today was his thirtieth birthday, it was all possible of course, maybe all he had to do was laugh in the policemen’s face in some way and they would laugh with him, maybe they were tradesmen from the corner of the street, they looked like they might be – but he was nonetheless determined, ever since he first caught sight of the one called Franz, not to lose any slight advantage he might have had over these people. There was a very slight risk that people would later say he couldn’t understand a joke, but – although he wasn’t normally in the habit of learning from experience – he might also have had a few unimportant occasions in mind when, unlike his more cautious friends, he had acted with no thought at all for what might follow and had been made to suffer for it. He didn’t want that to happen again, not this time at least; if they were play-acting he would act along with them.

He still had time. “Allow me,” he said, and hurried between the two policemen through into his room. “He seems sensible enough,” he heard them say behind him. Once in his room, he quickly pulled open the drawer of his writing desk, everything in it was very tidy but in his agitation he was unable to find the identification documents he was looking for straight away. He finally found his bicycle permit and was about to go back to the policemen with it when it seemed to him too petty, so he carried on searching until he found his birth certificate. Just as he got back in the adjoining room the door on the other side opened and Mrs. Grubach was about to enter. He only saw her for an instant, for as soon as she recognised K. she was clearly embarrassed, asked for forgiveness and disappeared, closing the door behind her very carefully. “Do come in,” K. could have said just then. But now he stood in the middle of the room with his papers in his hand and still looking at the door which did not open again. He stayed like that until he was startled out of it by the shout of the policeman who sat at the little table at the open window and, as K. now saw, was eating his breakfast. “Why didn’t she come in?” he asked. “She’s not allowed to,” said the big policeman. “You’re under arrest, aren’t you.” “But how can I be under arrest? And how come it’s like this?” “Now you’re starting again,” said the policeman, dipping a piece of buttered bread in the honeypot. “We don’t answer questions like that.” “You will have to answer them,” said K. “Here are my identification papers, now show me yours and I certainly want to see the arrest warrant.” “Oh, my God!” said the policeman. “In a position like yours, and you think you can start giving orders, do you? It won’t do you any good to get us on the wrong side, even if you think it will – we’re probably more on your side that anyone else you know!” “That’s true, you know, you’d better believe it,” said Franz, holding a cup of coffee in his hand which he did not lift to his mouth but looked at K. in a way that was probably meant to be full of meaning but could not actually be understood. K. found himself, without intending it, in a mute dialogue with Franz, but then slapped his hand down on his papers and said, “Here are my identity documents.” “And what do you want us to do about it?” replied the big policeman, loudly. “The way you’re carrying on, it’s worse than a child. What is it you want? Do you want to get this great, bloody trial of yours over with quickly by talking about ID and arrest warrants with us? We’re just coppers, that’s all we are. Junior officers like us hardly know one end of an ID card from another, all we’ve got to do with you is keep an eye on you for ten hours a day and get paid for it. That’s all we are. Mind you, what we can do is make sure that the high officials we work for find out just what sort of person it is they’re going to arrest, and why he should be arrested, before they issue the warrant. There’s no mistake there. Our authorities as far as I know, and I only know the lowest grades, don’t go out looking for guilt among the public; it’s the guilt that draws them out, like it says in the law, and they have to send us police officers out. That’s the law. Where d’you think there’d be any mistake there?” “I don’t know this law,” said K. “So much the worse for you, then,” said the policeman. “It’s probably exists only in your heads,” said K., he wanted, in some way, to insinuate his way into the thoughts of the policemen, to re-shape those thoughts to his benefit or to make himself at home there. But the policeman just said dismissively, “You’ll find out when it affects you.” Franz joined in, and said, “Look at this, Willem, he admits he doesn’t know the law and at the same time insists he’s innocent.” “You’re quite right, but we can’t get him to understand a thing,” said the other. K. stopped talking with them; do I, he thought to himself, do I really have to carry on getting tangled up with the chattering of base functionaries like this? – and they admit themselves that they are of the lowest position. They’re talking about things of which they don’t have the slightest understanding, anyway. It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves. I just need few words with someone of the same social standing as myself and everything will be incomparably clearer, much clearer than a long conversation with these two can make it. He walked up and down the free space in the room a couple of times, across the street he could see the old woman who, now, had pulled an old man, much older than herself, up to the window and had her arms around him. K. had to put an end to this display, “Take me to your superior,” he said. “As soon as he wants to see you. Not before,” said the policeman, the one called Willem. “And now my advice to you,” he added, “is to go into your room, stay calm, and wait and see what’s to be done with you. If you take our advice, you won’t tire yourself out thinking about things to no purpose, you need to pull yourself together as there’s a lot that’s going to required of you. You’ve not behaved towards us the way we deserve after being so good to you, you forget that we, whatever we are, we’re still free men and you’re not, and that’s quite an advantage. But in spite of all that we’re still willing, if you’ve got the money, to go and get you some breakfast from the café over the road.”

Without giving any answer to this offer, K. stood still for some time. Perhaps, if he opened the door of the next room or even the front door, the two of them would not dare to stand in his way, perhaps that would be the simplest way to settle the whole thing, by bringing it to a head. But maybe they would grab him, and if he were thrown down on the ground he would lose all the advantage he, in a certain respect, had over them. So he decided on the more certain solution, the way things would go in the natural course of events, and went back in his room without another word either from him or from the policemen.

He threw himself down on his bed, and from the dressing table he took the nice apple that he had put there the previous evening for his breakfast. Now it was all the breakfast he had and anyway, as he confirmed as soon as he took his first, big bite of it, it was far better than a breakfast he could have had through the good will of the policemen from the dirty café. He felt well and confident, he had failed to go into work at the bank this morning but that could easily be excused because of the relatively high position he held there. Should he really send in his explanation? He wondered about it. If nobody believed him, and in this case that would be understandable, he could bring Mrs. Grubach in as a witness, or even the old pair from across the street, who probably even now were on their way over to the window opposite. It puzzled K., at least it puzzled him looking at it from the policemen’s point of view, that they had made him go into the room and left him alone there, where he had ten different ways of killing himself. At the same time, though, he asked himself, this time looking at it from his own point of view, what reason he could have to do so. Because those two were sitting there in the next room and had taken his breakfast, perhaps? It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable. Maybe, if the policemen had not been so obviously limited in their mental abilities, it could have been supposed that they had come to the same conclusion and saw no danger in leaving him alone because of it. They could watch now, if they wanted, and see how he went over to the cupboard in the wall where he kept a bottle of good schnapps, how he first emptied a glass of it in place of his breakfast and how he then took a second glassful in order to give himself courage, the last one just as a precaution for the unlikely chance it would be needed.

Then he was so startled by a shout to him from the other room that he struck his teeth against the glass. “The supervisor wants to see you!” a voice said. It was only the shout that startled him, this curt, abrupt, military shout, that he would not have expected from the policeman called Franz. In itself, he found the order very welcome. “At last!” he called back, locked the cupboard and, without delay, hurried into the next room. The two policemen were standing there and chased him back into his bedroom as if that were a matter of course. “What d’you think you’re doing?” they cried. “Think you’re going to see the supervisor dressed in just your shirt, do you? He’d see to it you got a right thumping, and us and all!” “Let go of me for God’s sake!” called K., who had already been pushed back as far as his wardrobe, “if you accost me when I’m still in bed you can’t expect to find me in my evening dress.” “That won’t help you,” said the policemen, who always became very quiet, almost sad, when K. began to shout, and in that way confused him or, to some extent, brought him to his senses. “Ridiculous formalities!” he grumbled, as he lifted his coat from the chair and kept it in both his hands for a little while, as if holding it out for the policemen’s inspection. They shook their heads. “It’s got to be a black coat,” they said. At that, K. threw the coat to the floor and said – without knowing even himself what he meant by it – “Well it’s not going to be the main trial, after all.” The policemen laughed, but continued to insist, “It’s got to be a black coat.” “Well that’s alright by me if it makes things go any faster,” said K. He opened the wardrobe himself, spent a long time searching through all the clothes, and chose his best black suit which had a short jacket that had greatly surprised those who knew him, then he also pulled out a fresh shirt and began, carefully, to get dressed. He secretly told himself that he had succeeded in speeding things up by letting the policemen forget to make him have a bath. He watched them to see if they might remember after all, but of course it never occurred to them, although Willem did not forget to send Franz up to the supervisor with the message saying that K. was getting dressed.

Once he was properly dressed, K. had to pass by Willem as he went through the next room into the one beyond, the door of which was already wide open. K. knew very well that this room had recently been let to a typist called ‘Miss Bürstner’. She was in the habit of going out to work very early and coming back home very late, and K. had never exchanged more than a few words of greeting with her. Now, her bedside table had been pulled into the middle of the room to be used as a desk for these proceedings, and the supervisor sat behind it. He had his legs crossed, and had thrown one arm over the backrest of the chair.

In one corner of the room there were three young people looking at the photographs belonging to Miss Bürstner that had been put into a piece of fabric on the wall. Hung up on the handle of the open window was a white blouse. At the window across the street, there was the old pair again, although now their number had increased, as behind them, and far taller than they were, stood a man with an open shirt that showed his chest and a reddish goatee beard which he squeezed and twisted with his fingers. “Josef K.?” asked the supervisor, perhaps merely to attract K.’s attention as he looked round the room. K. nodded. “I daresay you were quite surprised by all that’s been taking place this morning,” said the supervisor as, with both hands, he pushed away the few items on the bedside table – the candle and box of matches, a book and a pin cushion which lay there as if they were things he would need for his own business. “Certainly,” said K., and he began to feel relaxed now that, at last, he stood in front of someone with some sense, someone with whom he would be able to talk about his situation. “Certainly I’m surprised, but I’m not in any way very surprised.” “You’re not very surprised?” asked the supervisor, as he positioned the candle in the middle of the table and the other things in a group around it. “Perhaps you don’t quite understand me,” K. hurriedly pointed out. “What I mean is …” here K. broke off what he was saying and looked round for somewhere to sit. “I may sit down, mayn’t I?” he asked. “That’s not usual,” the supervisor answered. “What I mean is…,” said K. without delaying a second time, “that, yes, I am very surprised but when you’ve been in the world for thirty years already and had to make your own way through everything yourself, which has been my lot, then you become hardened to surprises and don’t take them too hard. Especially not what’s happened today.” “Why especially not what’s happened today?” “I wouldn’t want to say that I see all of this as a joke, you seem to have gone to too much trouble making all these arrangements for that. Everyone in the house must be taking part in it as well as all of you, that would be going beyond what could be a joke. So I don’t want to say that this is a joke.” “Quite right,” said the supervisor, looking to see how many matches were left in the box. “But on the other hand,” K. went on, looking round at everyone there and even wishing he could get the attention of the three who were looking at the photographs, “on the other hand this really can’t be all that important. That follows from the fact that I’ve been indicted, but can’t think of the slightest offence for which I could be indicted. But even that is all beside the point, the main question is: Who is issuing the indictment? What office is conducting this affair? Are you officials? None of you is wearing a uniform, unless what you are wearing” – here he turned towards Franz – “is meant to be a uniform, it’s actually more of a travelling suit. I require a clear answer to all these questions, and I’m quite sure that once things have been made clear we can take our leave of each other on the best of terms.” The supervisor slammed the box of matches down on the table. “You’re making a big mistake,” he said. “These gentlemen and I have got nothing to do with your business, in fact we know almost nothing about you. We could be wearing uniforms as proper and exact as you like and your situation wouldn’t be any the worse for it. As to whether you’re on a charge, I can’t give you any sort of clear answer to that, I don’t even know whether you are or not. You’re under arrest, you’re quite right about that, but I don’t know any more than that. Maybe these officers have been chit-chatting with you, well if they have that’s all it is, chit-chat. I can’t give you an answer to your questions, but I can give you a bit of advice: You’d better think less about us and what’s going to happen to you, and think a bit more about yourself. And stop making all this fuss about your sense of innocence; you don’t make such a bad impression, but with all this fuss you’re damaging it. And you ought to do a bit less talking, too. Almost everything you’ve said so far has been things we could have taken from your behaviour, even if you’d said no more than a few words. And what you have said has not exactly been in your favour.”

K. stared at the supervisor. Was this man, probably younger than he was, lecturing him like a schoolmaster? Was he being punished for his honesty with a telling off? And was he to learn nothing about the reasons for his arrest or those who were arresting him? He became somewhat cross and began to walk up and down. No-one stopped him doing this and he pushed his sleeves back, felt his chest, straightened his hair, went over to the three men, said, “It makes no sense,” at which these three turned round to face him and came towards him with serious expressions. He finally came again to a halt in front of the supervisor’s desk. “State Attorney Hasterer is a good friend of mine,” he said, “can I telephone him?” “Certainly,” said the supervisor, “but I don’t know what the point of that will be, I suppose you must have some private matter you want to discuss with him.” “What the point is?” shouted K., more disconcerted that cross. “Who do you think you are? You want to see some point in it while you’re carrying out something as pointless as it could be? It’s enough to make you cry! These gentlemen first accost me, and now they sit or stand about in here and let me be hauled up in front of you. What point there would be, in telephoning a state attorney when I’m ostensibly under arrest? Very well, I won’t make the telephone call.” “You can call him if you want to,” said the supervisor, stretching his hand out towards the outer room where the telephone was, “please, go on, do make your phone call.” “No, I don’t want to any more,” said K., and went over to the window. Across the street, the people were still there at the window, and it was only now that K. had gone up to his window that they seemed to become uneasy about quietly watching what was going on. The old couple wanted to get up but the man behind them calmed them down. “We’ve got some kind of audience over there,” called K. to the supervisor, quite loudly, as he pointed out with his forefinger. “Go away,” he then called across to them. And the three of them did immediately retreat a few steps, the old pair even found themselves behind the man who then concealed them with the breadth of his body and seemed, going by the movements of his mouth, to be saying something incomprehensible into the distance. They did not disappear entirely, though, but seemed to be waiting for the moment when they could come back to the window without being noticed. “Intrusive, thoughtless people!” said K. as he turned back into the room. The supervisor may have agreed with him, at least K. thought that was what he saw from the corner of his eye. But it was just as possible that he had not even been listening as he had his hand pressed firmly down on the table and seemed to be comparing the length of his fingers. The two policemen were sitting on a chest covered with a coloured blanket, rubbing their knees. The three young people had put their hands on their hips and were looking round aimlessly. Everything was still, like in some office that has been forgotten about. “Now, gentlemen,” called out K., and for a moment it seemed as if he was carrying all of them on his shoulders, “it looks like your business with me is over with. In my opinion, it’s best now to stop wondering about whether you’re proceeding correctly or incorrectly, and to bring the matter to a peaceful close with a mutual handshake. If you are of the same opinion, then please…” and he walked up to the supervisor’s desk and held out his hand to him. The supervisor raised his eyes, bit his lip and looked at K.’s outstretched hand; K still believed the supervisor would do as he suggested. But instead, he stood up, picked up a hard round hat that was laying on Miss Bürstner’s bed and put it carefully onto his head, using both hands as if trying on a new hat. “Everything seems so simple to you, doesn’t it,” he said to K. as he did so, “so you think we should bring the matter to a peaceful close, do you. No, no, that won’t do. Mind you, on the other hand I certainly wouldn’t want you to think there’s no hope for you. No, why should you think that? You’re simply under arrest, nothing more than that. That’s what I had to tell you, that’s what I’ve done and now I’ve seen how you’ve taken it. That’s enough for one day and we can take our leave of each other, for the time being at least. I expect you’ll want to go in to the bank now, won’t you.” “In to the bank?” asked K., “I thought I was under arrest.” K. said this with a certain amount of defiance as, although his handshake had not been accepted, he was feeling more independent of all these people, especially since the supervisor had stood up. He was playing with them. If they left, he had decided he would run after them and offer to let them arrest him. That’s why he even repeated, “How can I go in to the bank when I’m under arrest?” “I see you’ve misunderstood me,” said the supervisor who was already at the door. “It’s true that you’re under arrest, but that shouldn’t stop you from carrying out your job. And there shouldn’t be anything to stop you carrying on with your usual life.” “In that case it’s not too bad, being under arrest,” said K., and went up close to the supervisor. “I never meant it should be anything else,” he replied. “It hardly seems to have been necessary to notify me of the arrest in that case,” said K., and went even closer. The others had also come closer. All of them had gathered together into a narrow space by the door. “That was my duty,” said the supervisor. “A silly duty,” said K., unyielding. “Maybe so,” replied the supervisor, “only don’t let’s waste our time talking on like this. I had assumed you’d be wanting to go to the bank. As you’re paying close attention to every word I’ll add this: I’m not forcing you to go to the bank, I’d just assumed you wanted to. And to make things easier for you, and to let you get to the bank with as little fuss as possible I’ve put these three gentlemen, colleagues of yours, at your disposal.” “What’s that?” exclaimed K., and looked at the three in astonishment. He could only remember seeing them in their group by the photographs, but these characterless, anaemic young people were indeed officials from his bank, not colleagues of his, that was putting it too high and it showed a gap in the omniscience of the supervisor, but they were nonetheless junior members of staff at the bank. How could K. have failed to see that? How occupied he must have been with the supervisor and the policemen not to have recognised these three! Rabensteiner, with his stiff demeanour and swinging hands, Kullich, with his blonde hair and deep-set eyes, and Kaminer, with his involuntary grin caused by chronic muscle spasms. “Good morning,” said K. after a while, extending his hand to the gentlemen as they bowed correctly to him. “I didn’t recognise you at all. So, we’ll go into work now, shall we?” The gentlemen laughed and nodded enthusiastically, as if that was what they had been waiting for all the time, except that K. had left his hat in his room so they all dashed, one after another, into the room to fetch it, which caused a certain amount of embarrassment. K. stood where he was and watched them through the open double doorway, the last to go, of course, was the apathetic Rabensteiner who had broken into no more than an elegant trot. Kaminer got to the hat and K., as he often had to do at the bank, forcibly reminded himself that the grin was not deliberate, that he in fact wasn’t able to grin deliberately. At that moment Mrs. Grubach opened the door from the hallway into the living room where all the people were. She did not seem to feel guilty about anything at all, and K., as often before, looked down at the belt of her apron which, for no reason, cut so deeply into her hefty body. Once downstairs, K., with his watch in his hand, decided to take a taxi – he had already been delayed by half an hour and there was no need to make the delay any longer. Kaminer ran to the corner to summon it, and the two others were making obvious efforts to keep K. diverted when Kullich pointed to the doorway of the house on the other side of the street where the large man with the blonde goatee beard appeared and, a little embarrassed at first at letting himself be seen in his full height, stepped back to the wall and leant against it. The old couple were probably still on the stairs. K. was cross with Kullich for pointing out this man whom he had already seen himself, in fact whom he had been expecting. “Don’t look at him!” he snapped, without noticing how odd it was to speak to free men in this way. But there was no explanation needed anyway as just then the taxi arrived, they sat inside and set off. Inside the taxi, K. remembered that he had not noticed the supervisor and the policemen leaving – the supervisor had stopped him noticing the three bank staff and now the three bank staff had stopped him noticing the supervisor. This showed that K. was not very attentive, and he resolved to watch himself more carefully in this respect. Nonetheless, he gave it no thought as he twisted himself round and leant over onto the rear shelf of the car to catch sight of the supervisor and the policemen if he could. But he turned back round straight away and leant comfortably into the corner of the taxi without even having made the effort to see anyone. Although it did not seem like it, now was just the time when he needed some encouragement, but the gentlemen seemed tired just then, Rabensteiner looked out of the car to the right, Kullich to the left and only Kaminer was there with his grin at K.’s service. It would have been inhumane to make fun of that.

That spring, whenever possible, K. usually spent his evenings after work – he usually stayed in the office until nine o’clock – with a short walk, either by himself or in the company of some of the bank officials, and then he would go into a pub where he would sit at the regulars’ table with mostly older men until eleven. There were, however, also exceptions to this habit, times, for instance, when K. was invited by the bank’s manager (whom he greatly respected for his industry and trustworthiness) to go with him for a ride in his car or to eat dinner with him at his large house. K. would also go, once a week, to see a girl called Elsa who worked as a waitress in a wine bar through the night until late in the morning. During the daytime she only received visitors while still in bed.

That evening, though, – the day had passed quickly with a lot of hard work and many respectful and friendly birthday greetings – K. wanted to go straight home. Each time he had any small break from the day’s work he considered, without knowing exactly what he had in mind, that Mrs. Grubach’s flat seemed to have been put into great disarray by the events of that morning, and that it was up to him to put it back into order. Once order had been restored, every trace of those events would have been erased and everything would take its previous course once more. In particular, there was nothing to fear from the three bank officials, they had immersed themselves back into their paperwork and there was no alteration to be seen in them. K. had called each of them, separately or all together, into his office that day for no other reason than to observe them; he was always satisfied and had always been able to let them go again.

At half past nine that evening, when he arrived back in front of the building where he lived, he met a young lad in the doorway who was standing there, his legs apart and smoking a pipe. “Who are you?” immediately asked K., bringing his face close to the lad’s, as it was hard to see in the half light of the landing. “I’m the landlord’s son, sir,” answered the lad, taking the pipe from his mouth and stepping to one side. “The landlord’s son?” asked K., and impatiently knocked on the ground with his stick. “Did you want anything, sir? Would you like me to fetch my father?” “No, no,” said K., there was something forgiving in his voice, as if the boy had harmed him in some way and he was excusing him. “It’s alright,” he said then, and went on, but before going up the stairs he turned round once more.

He could have gone directly to his room, but as he wanted to speak with Mrs. Grubach he went straight to her door and knocked. She was sat at the table with a knitted stocking and a pile of old stockings in front of her. K. apologised, a little embarrassed at coming so late, but Mrs. Grubach was very friendly and did not want to hear any apology, she was always ready to speak to him, he knew very well that he was her best and her favourite tenant. K. looked round the room, it looked exactly as it usually did, the breakfast dishes, which had been on the table by the window that morning, had already been cleared away. “A woman’s hands will do many things when no-one’s looking,” he thought, he might himself have smashed all the dishes on the spot but certainly would not have been able to carry it all out. He looked at Mrs. Grubach with some gratitude. “Why are you working so late?” he asked. They were now both sitting at the table, and K. now and then sank his hands into the pile of stockings. “There’s a lot of work to do,” she said, “during the day I belong to the tenants; if I’m to sort out my own things there are only the evenings left to me.” “I fear I may have caused you some exceptional work today.” “How do you mean, Mr. K.?” she asked, becoming more interested and leaving her work in her lap. “I mean the men who were here this morning.” “Oh, I see,” she said, and went peacefully back to what she was doing, “that was no trouble, not especially.” K. looked on in silence as she took up the knitted stocking once more. She seems surprised at my mentioning it, he thought, she seems to think it’s improper for me to mention it. All the more important for me to do so. An old woman is the only person I can speak about it with. “But it must have caused some work for you,” he said then, “but it won’t happen again.” “No, it can’t happen again,” she agreed, and smiled at K. in a way that was almost pained. “Do you mean that seriously?” asked K. “Yes,” she said, more gently, “but the important thing is you mustn’t take it too hard. There are so many awful things happening in the world! As you’re being so honest with me, Mr. K., I can admit to you that I listened to a little of what was going on from behind the door, and that those two policemen told me one or two things as well. It’s all to do with your happiness, and that’s something that’s quite close to my heart, perhaps more than it should be as I am, after all, only your landlady. Anyway, so I heard one or two things but I can’t really say that it’s about anything very serious. No. You have been arrested, but it’s not in the same way as when they arrest a thief. If you’re arrested in the same way as a thief, then it’s bad, but an arrest like this … . It seems to me that it’s something very complicated – forgive me if I’m saying something stupid – something very complicated that I don’t understand, but something that you don’t really need to understand anyway.”

“There’s nothing stupid about what you’ve said, Mrs. Grubach, or at least I partly agree with you, only, the way I judge the whole thing is harsher than yours, and think it’s not only not something complicated but simply a fuss about nothing. I was just caught unawares, that’s what happened. If I had got up as soon as I was awake without letting myself get confused because Anna wasn’t there, if I’d got up and paid no regard to anyone who might have been in my way and come straight to you, if I’d done something like having my breakfast in the kitchen as an exception, asked you to bring my clothes from my room, in short, if I had behaved sensibly then nothing more would have happened, everything that was waiting to happen would have been stifled. People are so often unprepared. In the bank, for example, I am well prepared, nothing of this sort could possibly happen to me there, I have my own assistant there, there are telephones for internal and external calls in front of me on the desk, I continually receive visits from people, representatives, officials, but besides that, and most importantly, I’m always occupied with my work, that’s to say I’m always alert, it would even be a pleasure for me to find myself faced with something of that sort. But now it’s over with, and I didn’t really even want to talk about it any more, only I wanted to hear what you, as a sensible woman, thought about it all, and I’m very glad to hear that we’re in agreement. But now you must give me your hand, an agreement of this sort needs to be confirmed with a handshake.”

Will she shake hands with me? The supervisor didn’t shake hands, he thought, and looked at the woman differently from before, examining her. She stood up, as he had also stood up, and was a little self-conscious, she hadn’t been able to understand everything that K. said. As a result of this self consciousness she said something that she certainly did not intend and certainly was not appropriate. “Don’t take it so hard, Mr. K.,” she said, with tears in her voice and also, of course, forgetting the handshake. “I didn’t know I was taking it hard,” said K., feeling suddenly tired and seeing that if this woman did agree with him it was of very little value.

Before going out the door he asked, “Is Miss Bürstner home?” “No,” said Mrs. Grubach, smiling as she gave this simple piece of information, saying something sensible at last. “She’s at the theatre. Did you want to see her? Should I give her a message?” “I, er, I just wanted to have a few words with her.” “I’m afraid I don’t know when she’s coming in; she usually gets back late when she’s been to the theatre.” “It really doesn’t matter,” said K. his head hanging as he turned to the door to leave, “I just wanted to give her my apology for taking over her room today.” “There’s no need for that, Mr. K., you’re too conscientious, the young lady doesn’t know anything about it, she hasn’t been home since early this morning and everything’s been tidied up again, you can see for yourself.” And she opened the door to Miss Bürstner’s room. “Thank you, I’ll take your word for it,” said K, but went nonetheless over to the open door. The moon shone quietly into the unlit room. As far as could be seen, everything was indeed in its place, not even the blouse was hanging on the window handle. The pillows on the bed looked remarkably plump as they lay half in the moonlight. “Miss Bürstner often comes home late,” said K., looking at Mrs. Grubach as if that were her responsibility. “That’s how young people are!” said Mrs. Grubach to excuse herself. “Of course, of course,” said K., “but it can be taken too far.” “Yes, it can be,” said Mrs. Grubach, “you’re so right, Mr. K. Perhaps it is in this case. I certainly wouldn’t want to say anything nasty about Miss Bürstner, she is a good, sweet girl, friendly, tidy, punctual, works hard, I appreciate all that very much, but one thing is true, she ought to have more pride, be a bit less forthcoming. Twice this month already, in the street over the way, I’ve seen her with a different gentleman. I really don’t like saying this, you’re the only one I’ve said this to, Mr. K., I swear to God, but I’m going to have no choice but to have a few words with Miss Bürstner about it myself. And it’s not the only thing about her that I’m worried about.” “Mrs. Grubach, you are on quite the wrong track,” said K., so angry that he was hardly able to hide it, “and you have moreover misunderstood what I was saying about Miss Bürstner, that is not what I meant. In fact I warn you quite directly not to say anything to her, you are quite mistaken, I know Miss Bürstner very well and there is no truth at all in what you say. And what’s more, perhaps I’m going to far, I don’t want to get in your way, say to her whatever you see fit. Good night.” “Mr. K.,” said Mrs. Grubach as if asking him for something and hurrying to his door which he had already opened, “I don’t want to speak to Miss Bürstner at all, not yet, of course I’ll continue to keep an eye on her but you’re the only one I’ve told what I know. And it is, after all something that everyone who lets rooms has to do if she’s to keep the house decent, that’s all I’m trying to do.” “Decent!” called out K. through the crack in the door, “if you want to keep the house decent you’ll first have to give me notice.” Then he slammed the door shut, there was a gentle knocking to which he paid no more attention.

He did not feel at all like going to bed, so he decided to stay up, and this would also give him the chance to find out when Miss Bürstner would arrive home. Perhaps it would also still be possible, even if a little inappropriate, to have a few words with her. As he lay there by the window, pressing his hands to his tired eyes, he even thought for a moment that he might punish Mrs. Grubach by persuading Miss Bürstner to give in her notice at the same time as he would. But he immediately realised that that would be shockingly excessive, and there would even be the suspicion that he was moving house because of the incidents of that morning. Nothing would have been more nonsensical and, above all, more pointless and contemptible.

When he had become tired of looking out onto the empty street he slightly opened the door to the living room so that he could see anyone who entered the flat from where he was and lay down on the couch. He lay there, quietly smoking a cigar, until about eleven o’clock. He wasn’t able to hold out longer than that, and went a little way into the hallway as if in that way he could make Miss Bürstner arrive sooner. He had no particular desire for her, he could not even remember what she looked like, but now he wanted to speak to her and it irritated him that her late arrival home meant this day would be full of unease and disorder right to its very end. It was also her fault that he had not had any dinner that evening and that he had been unable to visit Elsa as he had intended. He could still make up for both of those things, though, if he went to the wine bar where Elsa worked. He wanted to do so even later, after the discussion with Miss Bürstner.

It was already gone half past eleven when someone could be heard in the stairway. K., who had been lost in his thoughts in the hallway, walking up and down loudly as if it were his own room, fled behind his door. Miss Bürstner had arrived. Shivering, she pulled a silk shawl over her slender shoulders as she locked the door. The next moment she would certainly go into her room, where K. ought not to intrude in the middle of the night; that meant he would have to speak to her now, but, unfortunately, he had not put the electric light on in his room so that when he stepped out of the dark it would give the impression of being an attack and would certainly, at the very least, have been quite alarming. There was no time to lose, and in his helplessness he whispered through the crack of the door, “Miss Bürstner.” It sounded like he was pleading with her, not calling to her. “Is there someone there?” asked Miss Bürstner, looking round with her eyes wide open. “It’s me,” said K. and came out. “Oh, Mr. K.!” said Miss Bürstner with a smile. “Good Evening,” and offered him her hand. “I wanted to have a word with you, if you would allow me?” “Now?” asked Miss Bürstner, “does it have to be now? It is a little odd, isn’t it?” “I’ve been waiting for you since nine o’clock.” “Well, I was at the theatre, I didn’t know anything about you waiting for me.” “The reason I need to speak to you only came up today” “I see, well I don’t see why not, I suppose, apart from being so tired I could drop. Come into my room for a few minutes then. We certainly can’t talk out here, we’d wake everyone up and I think that would be more unpleasant for us than for them. Wait here till I’ve put the light on in my room, and then turn the light down out here.” K. did as he was told, and then even waited until Miss Bürstner came out of her room and quietly invited him, once more, to come in. “Sit down,” she said, indicating the ottoman, while she herself remained standing by the bedpost despite the tiredness she had spoken of; she did not even take off her hat, which was small but decorated with an abundance of flowers. “What is it you wanted, then? I’m really quite curious.” She gently crossed her legs.

“I expect you’ll say,” K. began, “that the matter really isn’t all that urgent and we don’t need to talk about it right now, but …” “I never listen to introductions,” said Miss Bürstner. “That makes my job so much easier,” said K. “This morning, to some extent through my fault, your room was made a little untidy, this happened because of people I did not know and against my will but, as I said, because of my fault; I wanted to apologise for it.” “My room?” asked Miss Bürstner, and instead of looking round the room scrutinised K. “It is true,” said K., and now, for the first time, they looked each other in the eyes, “there’s no point in saying exactly how this came about.” “But that’s the interesting thing about it,” said Miss Bürstner. “No,” said K. “Well then,” said Miss Bürstner, “I don’t want to force my way into any secrets, if you insist that it’s of no interest I won’t insist. I’m quite happy to forgive you for it, as you ask, especially as I can’t see anything at all that’s been left untidy.” With her hand laid flat on her lower hip, she made a tour around the room. At the mat where the photographs were she stopped. “Look at this!” she cried. “My photographs really have been put in the wrong places. Oh, that’s horrible. Someone really has been in my room without permission.” K. nodded, and quietly cursed Kaminer who worked at his bank and who was always active doing things that had neither use nor purpose. “It is odd,” said Miss Bürstner, “that I’m forced to forbid you to do something that you ought to have forbidden yourself to do, namely to come into my room when I’m not here.” “But I did explain to you,” said K., and went over to join her by the photographs, “that it wasn’t me who interfered with your photographs; but as you don’t believe me I’ll have to admit that the investigating committee brought along three bank employees with them, one of them must have touched your photographs and as soon as I get the chance I’ll ask to have him dismissed from the bank. Yes, there was an investigating committee here,” added K., as the young lady was looking at him enquiringly. “Because of you?” she asked. “Yes,” answered K. “No!” the lady cried with a laugh. “Yes, they were,” said K., “you believe that I’m innocent then, do you?” “Well now, innocent …” said the lady, “I don’t want to start making any pronouncements that might have serious consequences, I don’t really know you after all, it means they’re dealing with a serious criminal if they send an investigating committee straight out to get him. But you’re not in custody now – at least I take it you’ve not escaped from prison considering that you seem quite calm – so you can’t have committed any crime of that sort.” “Yes,” said K., “but it might be that the investigating committee could see that I’m innocent, or not so guilty as had been supposed.” “Yes, that’s certainly a possibility,” said Miss Bürstner, who seemed very interested. “Listen,” said K., “you don’t have much experience in legal matters.” “No, that’s true, I don’t,” said Miss Bürstner, “and I’ve often regretted it, as I’d like to know everything and I’m very interested in legal matters. There’s something peculiarly attractive about the law, isn’t there? But I’ll certainly be perfecting my knowledge in this area, as next month I start work in a legal office.” “That’s very good,” said K., “that means you’ll be able to give me some help with my trial.” “That could well be,” said Miss Bürstner, “why not? I like to make use of what I know.” “I mean it quite seriously,” said K., “or at least, half seriously, as you do. This affair is too petty to call in a lawyer, but I could make good use of someone who could give me advice.” “Yes, but if I’m to give you advice I’ll have to know what it’s all about,” said Miss Bürstner. “That’s exactly the problem,” said K., “I don’t know that myself.” “So you have been making fun of me, then,” said Miss Bürstner exceedingly disappointed, “you really ought not to try something like that on at this time of night.” And she stepped away from the photographs where they had stood so long together. “Miss Bürstner, no,” said K., “I’m not making fun of you. Please believe me! I’ve already told you everything I know. More than I know, in fact, as it actually wasn’t even an investigating committee, that’s just what I called them because I don’t know what else to call them. There was no cross questioning at all, I was merely arrested, but by a committee.” Miss Bürstner sat on the ottoman and laughed again. “What was it like then?” she asked. “It was terrible” said K., although his mind was no longer on the subject, he had become totally absorbed by Miss Bürstner’s gaze who was supporting her chin on one hand – the elbow rested on the cushion of the ottoman – and slowly stroking her hip with the other. “That’s too vague,” said Miss Bürstner. “What’s too vague?” asked K. Then he remembered himself and asked, “Would you like me to show you what it was like?” He wanted to move in some way but did not want to leave. “I’m already tired,” said Miss Bürstner. “You arrived back so late,” said K. “Now you’ve started telling me off. Well I suppose I deserve it as I shouldn’t have let you in here in the first place, and it turns out there wasn’t even any point.” “Oh, there was a point, you’ll see now how important a point it was,” said K. “May I move this table away from your bedside and put it here?” “What do you think you’re doing?” said Miss Bürstner. “Of course you can’t!” “In that case I can’t show you,” said K., quite upset, as if Miss Bürstner had committed some incomprehensible offence against him. “Alright then, if you need it to show what you mean, just take the bedside table then,” said Miss Bürstner, and after a short pause added in a weak voice, “I’m so tired I’m allowing more than I ought to.” K. put the little table in the middle of the room and sat down behind it. “You have to get a proper idea of where the people were situated, it is very interesting. I’m the supervisor, sitting over there on the chest are two policemen, standing next to the photographs there are three young people. Hanging on the handle of the window is a white blouse – I just mention that by the way. And now it begins. Ah yes, I’m forgetting myself, the most important person of all, so I’m standing here in front of the table. The supervisor is sitting extremely comfortably with his legs crossed and his arm hanging over the backrest here like some layabout. And now it really does begin. The supervisor calls out as if he had to wake me up, in fact he shouts at me, I’m afraid, if I’m to make it clear to you, I’ll have to shout as well, and it’s nothing more than my name that he shouts out.” Miss Bürstner, laughing as she listened to him, laid her forefinger on her mouth so that K. would not shout, but it was too late. K. was too engrossed in his role and slowly called out, “Josef K.!”. It was not as loud as he had threatened, but nonetheless, once he had suddenly called it out, the cry seemed gradually to spread itself all round the room.

There was a series of loud, curt and regular knocks at the door of the adjoining room. Miss Bürstner went pale and laid her hand on her heart. K. was especially startled, as for a moment he had been quite unable to think of anything other than the events of that morning and the girl for whom he was performing them. He had hardly pulled himself together when he jumped over to Miss Bürstner and took her hand. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, “I’ll put everything right. But who can it be? It’s only the living room next door, nobody sleeps in there.” “Yes they do,” whispered Miss Bürstner into K.’s ear, “a nephew of Mrs. Grubach’s, an captain in the army, has been sleeping there since yesterday. There’s no other room free. I’d forgotten about it too. Why did you have to shout like that? You’ve made me quite upset.”

“There is no reason for it,” said K., and, now as she sank back onto the cushion, kissed her forehead. “Go away, go away,” she said, hurriedly sitting back up, “get out of here, go, what is it you want, he’s listening at the door he can hear everything. You’re causing me so much trouble!” “I won’t go,” said K., “until you’ve calmed down a bit. Come over into the other corner of the room, he won’t be able to hear us there.” She let him lead her there. “Don’t forget,” he said, “although this might be unpleasant for you you’re not in any real danger. You know how much esteem Mrs. Grubach has for me, she’s the one who will make all the decisions in this, especially as the captain is her nephew, but she believes everything I say without question. What’s more, she has borrowed a large sum of money from me and that makes her dependent on me. I will confirm whatever you say to explain our being here together, however inappropriate it might be, and I guarantee to make sure that Mrs. Grubach will not only say she believes the explanation in public but will believe it truly and sincerely. You will have no need to consider me in any way. If you wish to let it be known that I have attacked you then Mrs. Grubach will be informed of such and she will believe it without even losing her trust in me, that’s how much respect she has for me.” Miss Bürstner looked at the floor in front of her, quiet and a little sunk in on herself. “Why would Mrs. Grubach not believe that I’ve attacked you?” added K. He looked at her hair in front of him, parted, bunched down, reddish and firmly held in place. He thought she would look up at him, but without changing her manner she said, “Forgive me, but it was the suddenness of the knocking that startled me so much, not so much what the consequences of the captain being here might be. It was all so quiet after you’d shouted, and then there was the knocking, that’s was made me so shocked, and I was sitting right by the door, the knocking was right next to me. Thank you for your suggestions, but I won’t accept them. I can bear the responsibility for anything that happens in my room myself, and I can do so with anyone. I’m surprised you don’t realise just how insulting your suggestions are and what they imply about me, although I certainly acknowledge your good intentions. But now, please go, leave me alone, I need you to go now even more than I did earlier. The couple of minutes you asked for have grown into half an hour, more than half an hour now.” K. took hold of her hand, and then of her wrist, “You’re not cross with me, though?” he said. She pulled her hand away and answered, “No, no, I’m never cross with anyone.” He grasped her wrist once more, she tolerated it now and, in that way, lead him to the door. He had fully intended to leave. But when he reached the door he came to a halt as if he hadn’t expected to find a door there, Miss Bürstner made use of that moment to get herself free, open the door, slip out into the hallway and gently say to K. from there, “Now, come along, please. Look,” she pointed to the captain’s door, from under which there was a light shining, “he’s put a light on and he’s laughing at us.” “Alright, I’m coming,” said K., moved forward, took hold of her, kissed her on the mouth and then over her whole face like a thirsty animal lapping with its tongue when it eventually finds water. He finally kissed her on her neck and her throat and left his lips pressed there for a long time. He did not look up until there was a noise from the captain’s room. “I’ll go now,” he said, he wanted to address Miss Bürstner by her Christian name, but did not know it. She gave him a tired nod, offered him her hand to kiss as she turned away as if she did not know what she was doing, and went back into her room with her head bowed. A short while later, K. was lying in his bed. He very soon went to sleep, but before he did he thought a little while about his behaviour, he was satisfied with it but felt some surprise that he was not more satisfied; he was seriously worried about Miss Bürstner because of the captain.