JOSE SANTANA (Appellant) v. STATE OF FLORIDA
Apr 13, 2016OUTCOME: Acquittal
Appeal from Circuit Court, 17th Judicial Circuit, Broward County, The Honorable Michael Robinson Judge, L.T. Case No. 09-005565 Gary Ostrow of Law Office of Gary Ostrow, P.A. Associate Counsel Melanie ... Batdorf, Esq Fort Lauderdale, for Appellant Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee The Fourth District Court of Appeal has issued an opinion on an Appeal undertaken by this office, to reverse Santana's conviction for Trafficking in MDMA, following a 5-day jury trial before the Honorable Judge Michael Robinson. Santana was acquitted for one of the two Trafficking counts at trial and therefore counsel for Appellant undertook an appeal to the 4th District Court of Appeal for the count the jury convicted on. Santana was sentenced to 12 years Florida State Prison. The Appellate Court heard oral argument on Wednesday, April 13, 2016. Defense counsel (Appellant) raised five issues on Appeal, including Objective Entrapment, Subjective Entrapment, Inconsistent jury verdicts and the inadmissibility of audio recordings alleged to be between the Confidential Informant and Santana as well as violations of Due Process based on Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) and Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972) The Appellate court found that the trial court abused it's discretion in admitting audio tapes that the state failed to properly authenticate as "no foundation was laid as to the accuracy of the recordings" between Santana and the Informant. The state could not further authenticate these as a "fair and accurate representations" of the pivotal conversations.
