Michael Jerome Jennings v. Christopher Smith, Justin Gable, Jeremy Brooks, and the City of Childersburg (Certified Question from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Eastern Division: 1:22-cv-01165-RDP).

── Michael Jerome Jennings v. Christopher Smith, Justin Gable, Jeremy Brooks, and the City of Childersburg (Certified Question from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Eastern Division: 1:22-cv-01165-RDP). ── Case No.: SC-2025-0372 Court: Supreme Court of Alabama Date: March 13, 2026 Author: Sellers Category: General Rel: March 13, 2026 Notice: This opinion is subject to revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter. SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA OCTOBER TERM, 2025-2026 _________________________ SC-2025-0372 _________________________ Michael Jerome Jennings v. Christopher Smith, Justin Gable, Jeremy Brooks, and the City of Childersburg Certified Question from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Eastern Division (1:22-cv-01165-RDP) SELLERS, Justice. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Eastern Division ("the district court"), has certified to this SC-2025-0372 Court a question pursuant to Rule 18, Ala. R. App. P. This Court accepted and answers the question. I. Certified Question "Under [Ala. Code 1975,] § 15-5-30, when a law enforcement officer asks a person for his name, address, and explanation of his actions, and the person gives an incomplete or unsatisfactory oral response, does the statute prohibit the officer from demanding or requesting physical identification?" II. Ala. Code 1975, § 15-5-30 Section § 15-5-30, the statute referenced in the certified question, is often referred to as Alabama's "stop and identify" statute. That section provides: "A sheriff or other officer acting as sheriff, his deputy or any constable, acting within their respective counties, any marshal, deputy marshal or policeman of any incorporated city or town within the limits of the county or any highway patrolman or state trooper may stop any person abroad in a public place whom he reasonably suspects is committing, has committed or is about to commit a felony or other public offense and may demand of him his name, address and an explanation of his actions." (Emphasis added.) III. Factual Background and Procedural History On May 22, 2022, Officers Christopher Smith, Justin Gable, and Jeremy Brooks of the Childersburg Police Department responded to an 2 SC-2025-0372 emergency-911 call in which a female had requested that someone check on her elderly neighbors' house. The caller conveyed that her neighbors had gone out of town and that she had observed an unfamiliar vehicle and a "younger black male" around their house. Officer Smith, who arrived at the house first, saw a black male watering flowers with a garden hose. In relevant part, Officer Smith asked the man if he lived at the house, and the man responded that he did not. Officer Smith explained that someone had called about a vehicle and a person being on the property who was not supposed to be there. The man replied that he was supposed to be there, that his name was Pastor Jennings, that he lived across the street, that he was looking out for the house while the neighbors were gone, and that he was watering their flowers. Officer Smith then asked the man if he had any identification, at which time the man became very agitated and stated that he would not provide any identification. Officers Gable and Brooks subsequently arrived at the house, at which time the conversation between the officers and the man escalated. After repeatedly refusing to talk to the officers and to properly identify himself, the man was placed und