## Facts

- A deputy stopped Garcia for erratic driving, administered field sobriety tests, and arrested him for DUI.
- Deputies searched Garcia’s vehicle incident to arrest and found an object under the front passenger seat wrapped in electrical tape.
- Laboratory testing showed the item contained methamphetamine mixed with a cutting agent.
- Garcia denied knowing the object was in the car or knowing what it contained, asserting others had access to the vehicle and it had recently been stolen and returned.
- The State charged Garcia with trafficking in methamphetamine; the jury acquitted on trafficking and convicted Garcia of the lesser-included offense of possession of methamphetamine.

## Issues

1. Whether unlawful possession of a controlled substance requires proof that the defendant knew both the presence of the substance and its illicit nature.
2. Whether failure to expressly instruct the jury on “knowledge of the illicit nature” for the lesser-included possession offense was fundamental error reviewable without a timely objection.

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court held that possession of a controlled substance requires proof of both knowledge of the substance’s presence and knowledge of its illicit nature.
- The Court approved the affirmance of Garcia’s conviction because the challenged jury-instruction omission was not fundamental error in light of the instructions as a whole.
- Because Garcia did not properly preserve the instructional issue at trial, the unpreserved error did not warrant reversal.

## Legal Principles

- To convict for unlawful possession of a controlled substance, the State must prove the defendant knew (1) the substance was present and (2) the substance’s illicit nature.
- Jury instructions are evaluated in context; an incomplete statement of an element is not automatically fundamental error.
- Fundamental error is limited to instructional defects that so affect the validity of the trial that the verdict could not have been obtained without the error.
- Absent fundamental error, a defendant must make a timely, specific objection to preserve a jury-instruction claim for appellate review.

## Conclusion

The Florida Supreme Court clarified that drug possession requires proof of knowledge of both presence and illicit nature, while also holding that an unpreserved omission of explicit “knowledge of nature” language in a lesser-included offense instruction was not fundamental error where the overall charge sufficiently conveyed the required scienter.


Garcia v. State, 901 So. 2d 788 (Fla. 2005)