STATE'S ATTORNEY STILL QUESTIONS HCSO EVIDENCE

Highlands County Sheriff Susan Benton compared past issues with
evidence handling to "a tidal wave that drowned us."

Everything from a facility standpoint to storage space to staffing was
listed by Benton as helping compact the problem.

"I can't minimize at all, or excuse, the fact that items are not able
to be located, that we should in fact have," she said. "Also, I can't
minimize at all the human error."

Benton was responding to a letter sent by State Attorney Jerry Hill
stating he still had concerns over their evidence. The correspondence
came almost a week after the HCSO submitted an evidence inventory
report on more than 20,000 items, which represented 73 percent of all
catalogued pieces of evidence.

The sheriff sent a response in writing to Hill on Tuesday.

"Regarding your continuing concerns, I have assigned staff to address
each of them in detail and we will be prepared to continue discussion
with you," Benton's response letter stated.

Hill said his primary concerns are in relation to unaccounted for
evidence, some of which was criminal related and some that may have
been categorized as lost.

"Anything that's been missing, lost (or) possibly destroyed, those
things will have a bearing for some time to come," he said.

Issues of "continuing concern," according to the Oct. 17 letter sent
from Hill to Benton, include a missing firearm that was possibly
destroyed, missing drugs, items characterized as having no evidentiary
value, such as narcotics and paraphernalia, and the roughly 80 grow
house cases, some of which have been "compromised."

In February's original evidence inventory, completed by Stephen
Newell, a 34-year police veteran, it stated that marijuana seized from
16 of 80 grow-house raids "were unable to be weighed or individually
accounted for due to advanced spoilage."

In August, a motion was filed by defense attorney Justin Gaines on
behalf of his client, Nelson Rodriguez, to dismiss marijuana evidence
against him.

Rodriguez was arrested Oct. 30, 2007, when sheriff's deputies seized
120 marijuana plants from inside his home. The plants eventually
suffered severe decay.

On Oct. 13, Judge Peter Estrada issued an order denying the
motion.

"The Highlands County Sheriff's Office could not have been expected to
have continued the grow house operation for the sole purpose of
allowing the defense its right to inspect or test the evidence,"
Estrada wrote in his ruling, according to an Oct. 17 Highlands Today
report.

This second evidence inventory was agreed upon by both Hill and Benton
on Sept. 10 and was to be completed within 30 days.

Hill thanked Benton for her "cooperation and support" in preparing the
inventory.

"I certainly agree with him that our evidence handling is certainly
much better than it was a year ago and it's probably better than it
ever has been," Benton said.

"They've done some good things with the evidence," Hill said Tuesday.
"We simply have to work through what we have right now."

The inventory was completed through cooperation between the state
attorney's office, the sheriff's office and the Florida Department of
Law Enforcement (FDLE). Hill said in his letter to Benton that he
wished the entire process could have been completed by an "independent
entity," but knew it wasn't possible in the time frame they had agreed
upon.

"We now have a baseline from which to work, a current inventory of
existing evidence," the letter stated.

Benton reiterated that past mistakes with evidence handling have been
addressed and the office will hold itself accountable in ensuring they
don't happen again.

"Not only have we identified the problem and implemented solutions,
but we are holding ourselves accountable for making sure that the
solutions that have been put in place are going to be utilized, so
that it minimizes any opportunity to misplace evidence," she said.