Florida Court's Decision Backs Limbaugh's Medical Privacy Case

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A decision by a Florida court Wednesday, which threw out a conviction because the state illegally obtained a defendant's medical records, provides powerful new ammunition for Rush Limbaugh's lawyers.

The radio host has said in a court filing that his medical records were also illegally seized and therefore may not be used against him.

Roy Black, Limbaugh's attorney, immediately filed a notice informing the 4th District Court of Appeals of this new decision by another Florida court.

Black has said the Palm Beach County state's attorney improperly obtained Limbaugh's medical records. The prosecutor claims that without those records they cannot continue their investigation until they review Limbaugh's medical records, which have been sealed since Dec. 23.

A judge in Florida's 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the conviction of Timothy Sneed for second-degree murder committed in October 1998 was invalid because the state used his medical records seized by police without his permission, as required by law.

According to Judge Cecilia Altonaga in Miami, the conviction must be reversed because Sneed's hospital records, which were used to help convict him, were seized by police in violation of Florida statutes.

Only after the seizure did the state file notice that it it intended to seek a court order to obtain the records. Altonaga ruled that move could not overcome the illegality of the seizure.

Sneed had pleaded that the shooting was in self-defense. Police said there were inconsistencies between his claims to them and statements he made at a hospital.

Noting that Sneed argued the state had used illegally obtained hospital records to convict him, the court reversed his conviction and sentence. It ordered a new trial "in which Sneed's hospital records must be excluded from the state's case-in-chief."

In April, Limbaugh told his listeners: "There are things in people's medical files that are irrelevant to whatever it is would be searched. But this prosecutor ignored the statute, a statute, by the way, he had been admonished for ignoring two years ago by this same appellate court and stormed into the offices of four of my doctors with search warrants, with the sole purpose of intimidating the doctors and their staff."

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