PMM v. State, 2D03-4568.
| Decision Date | 29 September 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 2D03-4568.,2D03-4568. |
| Citation | 884 So.2d 418 |
| Parties | P.M.M., Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Cynthia J. Dodge, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and John M. Klawikofsky, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
P.M.M. appeals an order withholding adjudication and placing her on probation for possession of marijuana. We reverse because the circumstantial evidence failed to rebut P.M.M.'s reasonable hypothesis of innocence.
The State's only witness at trial was Deputy Nathaniel Johnson, the school resource officer at the high school P.M.M. attended. Deputy Johnson recounted that he was present when the assistant principal of the school searched P.M.M.'s backpack and discovered a small baggie of marijuana. Deputy Johnson did not know where the backpack had been prior to that occasion. The baggie was not fingerprinted.
P.M.M. testified that she did not know marijuana was in her backpack, and she denied that it was hers. The marijuana was found in a front pouch, and P.M.M. testified that she had not opened this pouch in a week or two. P.M.M. testified that on the day of her arrest, she left her backpack on the classroom floor in her cooking class; her backpack was unattended for over an hour while she worked at a stove located twenty to twenty-five feet away. P.M.M. also testified that she left her backpack on a lunchroom table, unattended, while she waited in the lunch line for ten to fifteen minutes. Both times, there were other people around. During her next class, P.M.M. was called to the assistant principal's office. The assistant principal told her an anonymous source reported that she had something in her backpack that she should not have. P.M.M. agreed to a search of her backpack; she testified that she did not think there was anything in there.
Terranova v. State, 764 So.2d 612, 615 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999) (citations omitted). In this case, the marijuana was found in a backpack that admittedly belonged to P.M.M. But she denied knowledge of the contraband, and the State produced no direct evidence to establish that P.M.M. knew of its presence.
Most of the cases involving constructive possession of illegal drugs involve contraband found in a vehicle containing two or more persons. However, a few Florida cases have involved contraband found in a container known to belong to a particular...
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