MELPHYS SANTANA-OZUNA

v.

THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed July 16, 2025. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

No. 3D23-1818 Lower Tribunal No. F20-17380C ________________

Melphys Santana-Ozuna, Appellant,

vs.

The State of Florida, Appellee.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, William Altfield, Judge.

Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Deborah Prager, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.

James Uthmeier, Attorney General, and Kayla H. McNab, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before LOGUE, LINDSEY, and BOKOR, JJ.

LINDSEY, J.

2

Appellant Melphys Santana-Ozuna raises two issues in this timely appeal of his convictions for Trafficking in Cocaine and Conspiracy to Traffic in Cocaine. Santana-Ozuna was tried together with a codefendant, Aldrin Gomez-Martinez.¹ Both men were convicted at trial and separately appealed their convictions. On appeal, Gomez-Martinez raised one of the issues Santana-Ozuna raises here, “challeng[ing] the admission into evidence of recorded calls between [Santana-Ozuna and] a confidential informant” over an authentication objection. Gomez-Martinez v. State, 50 Fla. L. Weekly D1285, D1285 (Fla. 3d DCA June 11, 2025). This Court affirmed, holding that the admission of these recordings at the joint trial was not error. Id. at D1288. Because this Court has already decided this issue, we are constrained by Gomez-Martinez to affirm.2

Santana-Ozuna raises a second issue, claiming that the evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to support a conviction for Trafficking in Cocaine because he only agreed to purchase specific “Louis Vuitton” branded cocaine that did not actually exist, not the unbranded cocaine an

BOKOR, J., specially concurring. Melphys Santana-Ozuna and co-defendant Aldrin Gomez-Martinez were charged with trafficking cocaine, conspiracy, and money laundering. The co-defendants were tried together. The State relied on a tape recording of calls between a confidential informant and Santana-Ozuna to prove the existence of a conspiracy to traffic cocaine and the defendants’ part in such conspiracy. Because the issues on appeal are identical, we are bound by this court’s opinion in Gomez-Martinez v. State, 50 Fla. L. Weekly D1285 (Fla. 3d DCA June 11, 2025).3 I therefore agree we must affirm. But I write to express my agreement with Judge Gooden’s dissent in Gomez-Martinez. I respectfully suggest that the Gomez-Martinez majority’s use of circumstantial evidence, including the post-hoc actions of the parties, comes close to providing sufficient indicia of reliability to place the recording before

3 “Unless the Florida Supreme Court overrules a prior panel’s decision, a subsequent panel of this Court is not free to disregard, and must follow, precedent of the prior panel. Only the Court, sitting en banc, may recede from a prior panel’s decision.” Nat’l Med. Imaging, LLC v. Lyon Fin. Servs., Inc., 347 So. 3d 63, 64 n.2 (Fla. 3d DCA 2020) (citations omitted).

4 Originally a Russian proverb, the expression made its way to English, and political fame, through President Reagan’s use of the phrase at a White House signing ceremony for the U.S.-Soviet Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on December 8, 1987. See William D. Watson, Trust, but Verify: Reagan, Gorbachev, and the INF Treaty,⁵ Hilltop Rev. 22, 38 (2011).