Florida Statutes 322.202 – Admission of evidence obtained from the Division of Motorist Services
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Terms Used In Florida Statutes 322.202
- Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
- Court: means any tribunal in this state or any other state, or any federal tribunal, which has jurisdiction over any civil, criminal, traffic, or administrative action. See Florida Statutes 322.01
- Department: means the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles acting directly or through its duly authorized representatives. See Florida Statutes 322.01
- Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
- United States: means the 50 states and the District of Columbia. See Florida Statutes 322.01
(1) The Legislature finds that the Division of Motorist Services of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles is not a law enforcement agency. The Legislature also finds that the division is not an adjunct of any law enforcement agency in that employees have no stake in particular prosecutions. The Legislature further finds that errors in records maintained by the division are not within the collective knowledge of any law enforcement agency. The Legislature also finds that the missions of the division and the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles provide a sufficient incentive to maintain records in a current and correct fashion.
(2) The Legislature finds that the purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter misconduct on the part of law enforcement officers and law enforcement agencies.
(3) The Legislature finds that the application of the exclusionary rule to cases where a law enforcement officer effects an arrest based on objectively reasonable reliance on information obtained from the division is repugnant to the purposes of the exclusionary rule and contrary to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1 (1995) and United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984).
(4) In any case where a law enforcement officer effects an arrest based on objectively reasonable reliance on information obtained from the division, evidence found pursuant to such an arrest shall not be suppressed by application of the exclusionary rule on the grounds that the arrest is subsequently determined to be unlawful due to erroneous information obtained from the division.