Admissibility of Statements to Law Enforcement during Motor Vehicle Accidents

For those who make statements to law enforcement, there is often a question about whether those statements can be used against the reporter. In motor vehicle accident cases, Fla. Stat. §316.066(4) applies and states that “(e)xcept 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.” The purpose is to allow those witnesses and those involved to have candor with law enforcement. 

For statements made to law enforcement outside of motor vehicle accidents, there are protections as well. Florida courts have been clear that statements to law enforcement by private citizens are typically protected in the interest of cooperation. The Court has found:

A private citizen may not be held liable in tort where he neither actually detained another nor instigated the other’s arrest by law enforcement officers. If the private citizen makes an honest, good faith mistake in reporting an incident, the mere fact that his communication to an officer may have caused the victim’s arrest does not make him liable when he did not in fact request any detention. Escambia County School Bd. v. Bragg, 680 So.2d 571, 572 ( Fla. 1st DCA 1996) quoting Pokorny v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n of Largo, 382 So.2d 678, 682 (Fla. 1980). 

Thus, whether making a statement to a law enforcement officer in the setting of a motor vehicle accident or other incident, the courts have been clear that in the interest of cooperation between the public and law enforcement, these statements are generally protected from being used against the person making the statement.