267) What is FL’s “Accident Report Privilege"? ~ #HaberPA Miami Criminal Defense DUI Lawyer
Channel: Michael Haber
Date: 2018-10-13

“What is FL’s “Accident Report Privilege”?”

F.S.  316.066(4) containes FL’s “Accident Report Privilege, and it states: “Except as specified in this subsection, each crash report made by a person involved in a crash and any statement made by such person to a law enforcement officer for the purpose of completing a crash report required by this section shall be without prejudice to the individual so reporting. Such report or statement may not be used as evidence in any trial, civil or criminal.”

What it means is that anything that you say to a cop who’s conducting an traffic accident investigation is inadmissible as evidence against you in a - in any - subsequent court proceeding.   Civil, criminal, it doesn’t matter.

The privilege exists because police are required by law to write crash reports, and in order to do that they have to ask questions of the folks who were involved in the crash.  

In order to encourage people to give  an accurate report of the circumstances surrounding an accident - so that the State can use that information to make the highways safer - the FL Legislature made the decision that in both criminal and civil actions, it is better that statements made by a defendant not be introduced before the jury than to restrict the goal of safer highways for society.

The key to the INadmissibility of statements is that they have to be made during the course of an accident, and not a criminal, investigation... but more that in my next Webisode: # 300 “FL’s Accident Report Privilege and DUI Cases”

Thank you for your question.  I appreciate your having asked it.  Please remember that at #HaberPA it’s all about reasonable doubt!
      
At Michael A. Haber, PA "it's all about reasonable doubt"!

Please note that no attorney-client relationship with either Michael A. Haber, PA or Michael A. Haber, Esq. exists as a result of your watching this Webisode series.  Further any and all information which is both contained in and may be construed from this Webisode series is generic in nature and should only be considered as informational and not as actual legal advise in any specific case.  Should you wish to seek actual legal advise then please feel free to contact Michael A. Haber, Esq. as follows:

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