Your hospital records are some of the most private information that exists about you. Florida law treats them that way. Before the State can use the blood alcohol notation in your medical chart against you in a DUI case, it has to overcome a right to privacy that is written into the Florida Constitution and reinforced by statute and federal law. That right is real, it has teeth, and it places a genuine obstacle in the State’s path.
Understanding the privilege matters because it is the foundation beneath the procedural fight. The Hunter hearing is the courtroom where the battle plays out, but the reason the State has to fight at all is this underlying privacy right. It is not a technicality. It is a constitutional protection that the State must affirmatively defeat.
The privacy right is the shield. The State has to show a compelling interest before a court will let it reach what is behind it.
Your Records Are Constitutionally Private
Florida is one of the states whose constitution contains an express right to privacy. Article I, Section 23 protects against government intrusion into private matters, and courts have recognized that medical records fall squarely within it. That constitutional status is what makes the protection so strong. A privacy interest grounded in the constitution is not something the State can brush aside with routine process. It has to clear a high bar, and the court is there to make sure it does.
Layers of Protection
The constitutional right does not stand alone. Florida Statute section 456.057 makes patient medical records confidential and limits who can obtain them and how. On top of that, the federal HIPAA scheme governs the disclosure of health information. These layers reinforce one another, so the State faces protection at the state constitutional level, the state statutory level, and the federal level all at once. The blood alcohol notation in your chart is wrapped in each of them.
State constitutional, state statutory, and federal protections overlap. The State has to satisfy the courts despite all three.
What the State Must Overcome
To intrude on a fundamental privacy right, the State must demonstrate a compelling state interest, and the intrusion has to be no broader than necessary to serve that interest. Florida courts have applied this in the DUI context, holding that the State must show a reasonable founded suspicion that the records contain information relevant to a criminal investigation before it can reach them. Guardado v. State, 61 So. 3d 1210 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011), is among the decisions recognizing that the government must clear this compelling-interest standard before intruding into protected medical information. A vague hope that the records might help is not enough.
Florida guards your records more closely than most states
Your medical records sit behind an unusually strong wall in Florida, and that wall is the point. Florida has an express constitutional right of privacy, Article I, Section 23 of the Florida Constitution, which protects your medical information beyond what federal law alone provides. That is why the State cannot simply help itself to hospital records because you were in a crash. In Guardado v. State, 61 So. 3d 1210 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011), the court held that when the State failed to follow the required procedure and notice before reaching a patient’s records, it violated that person’s privacy rights. So the question is never only whether the records exist, it is whether the State followed the exact path the law requires to reach them, and when it cut a corner, what it found can be challenged.
Where the Privilege Is Enforced
The privilege is enforced through the procedure on the Hunter hearing page. When the State sends notice that it wants to subpoena your records, your written objection forces a hearing, and at that hearing the privacy right described here is what the State has to overcome. The two pages describe the same protection from two angles: this one is the right itself, and the Hunter hearing is the courtroom where it is tested. The wider context of why hospital blood is treated differently is on the medical versus legal blood page.
What We Do
We assert the full scope of the privilege, object to disclosure, and require the State to make its compelling-interest showing rather than letting it treat your records as routine evidence. Where the State cannot meet the standard, the goal is to keep the blood alcohol notation out of the case entirely. We also confirm that the hospital did not improperly release records without proper authority, which sometimes happens and matters.
Why This Matters
The strength of a medical-blood case for the State depends on getting past your privacy, and that is not a given. The privilege is constitutional, statutory, and federal all at once. Holding the State to the compelling-interest standard can keep the most damaging number in the case out of the jury’s hands.
Your medical records are some of the most private information you have, and Florida law treats them that way, so I do not let the State treat them casually. I check whether it followed the constitutional and statutory path to reach your records, gave the notice the law requires, and stayed within what it was allowed to take. When the State went around your privacy instead of through the front door the law built, I move to keep what it seized out of your case, because a right that can be skipped is not much of a right at all.
I started out as an Assistant Public Defender in Florida’s Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, in Tampa, and today I am one of six ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientists in Florida. I work both the science and the procedure in your case the way the State’s own analysts and officers are trained to, and I show a jury the exact point where the evidence does not hold up. Learn more about my background.
Questions About Medical Records and Privilege
Are my hospital records private in a DUI case?
Yes. Your medical records are protected by the right to privacy in Article I, Section 23 of the Florida Constitution, by Florida Statute 456.057, and by federal HIPAA. The State has to overcome that protection to use them.
What does the State have to show to get them?
A compelling state interest, applied in DUI cases as a reasonable founded suspicion that the records contain information relevant to a criminal investigation. A mere hope that the records might help does not meet the standard.
How is the privilege different from the Hunter hearing?
The privilege is the underlying privacy right. The Hunter hearing is the courtroom procedure where that right is tested after you object to the State’s subpoena. One is the protection, the other is where it is enforced.
Does HIPAA stop the State from getting my records?
HIPAA limits how health information is disclosed and adds a federal layer of protection, but it does not by itself end the matter. The constitutional and statutory privacy rights, enforced through the hearing, are where the contest usually turns.
What if the hospital already gave my records to police?
That can be a problem for the State. We check whether records were released without proper authority or process, because an improper disclosure can support keeping the information out.
Can the privilege keep my blood alcohol level out of evidence?
It can. If the State cannot meet the compelling-interest standard, a court can deny access to the records, which keeps the blood alcohol notation out of the case.
Related: the Hunter hearing, medical versus legal blood, serum versus whole blood, the warrant requirement, and how we challenge a blood test.
This page is general information, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. The privacy protections discussed here arise under Article I, Section 23 of the Florida Constitution, Fla. Stat. 456.057, and the federal HIPAA scheme, as applied in cases including Guardado v. State. Procedures and rules change, and every case turns on its own facts. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
