STATE V. ESTRADA & CORTINA

State: Florida

Court: Florida Third District Court

Docket No: 10-0647

Case Date: 12/21/2011

Preview:Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida, July Term, A.D., 2011
Opinion filed December 21, 2011. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing. ________________ No. 3D10-647 Lower Tribunal No. 08-19215A & B ________________

The State of Florida,
Appellant, vs.

Cristian Estrada and Rodolfo Cortina,
Appellees. An appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Dennis J. Murphy, Judge. Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Michael C. Greenberg and Keri T. Joseph, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellant. Roderick Vereen, for appellee Cristian Estrada; Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Brian Ellison, Assistant Public Defender, for appellee Rodolfo Cortina.

Before LAGOA and EMAS, JJ., and SCHWARTZ, Senior Judge. LAGOA, J. The State of Florida appeals orders dismissing the information charging Cristian Estrada and Rodolfo Cortina (collectively "defendants") with trafficking in cannabis. We reverse.

Defendants were charged with trafficking in cannabis pursuant to section 893.135(1)(a), Florida Statutes (2008), which requires that the cannabis seized weigh in excess of twenty-five pounds. When the defendants were initially

arrested and the contraband was seized, the cannabis weighed twenty-six pounds.1 Approximately seventeen months later, the defendants' expert witness, Dr. Hall, weighed the cannabis again. He discovered that a pool of liquid had formed at the bottom of the container holding the cannabis and packaging. When Dr. Hall reweighed the cannabis without the packaging and the liquid, the cannabis weighed twenty-four pounds. Defendants filed sworn motions to dismiss asserting that no material facts were in dispute because the weight of the cannabis was below the twenty-five pound requirement for the charged trafficking offenses. The State filed a traverse that did not dispute that the cannabis weighed twenty-four pounds without the liquid and the packaging. However, it asserted that the liquid was not present in the container when the cannabis was initially weighed and that expert testimony would explain to the trier of fact the reason for the difference in weight from the date of impounding to the date of re-weighing by Dr. Hall. The State agreed that there was now water in the container, but that the expert would explain the The officers seized twenty-four cannabis plants from the hydroponics lab and six live plants and six cut plants from Estrada's vehicle. "Hydroponics is `the science of growing plants in chemicals and water without the use of soil.'" MorenoGonzalez v. State, 67 So. 3d 1020, 1022 n.1 (Fla. 2011) (quoting S

Download STATE V. ESTRADA & CORTINA.pdf