Conviction Annulled for Drug Transport Due to Defective Evidence AssessmentAnulación de condena por transporte de drogas y defectos en la valoración probatoria

Resolución: 2025-0619 TRIBUNAL DE APELACIÓN DE SENTENCIA PENAL. Second Judicial Circuit of San José. Goicoechea, at seven hours and fifty minutes on the twenty-first of April, two thousand twenty-five.

APPEALS filed in this case against [Name 009], of legal age, Costa Rican, with identification number [Value 001], born on December 30, 1998, 25 years old, son of [Name 002], in a common-law union, father of two minor daughters, construction helper, resident of Tirrases de Curridabat; and against [Name 016] (cc. [Name 016]) [Name 016], of legal age, Nicaraguan, with irregular migratory status, born in Managua, Nicaragua, on November 11, 1999, Nicaraguan passport number [Value 002], 25 years old, son of [Name 006] and [Name 007], in a common-law union, father of one child, incomplete secondary education, works as a home hairdresser, resident of Dos Cercas de Desamparados, for the crime of DRUG TRANSPORT to the detriment of PUBLIC HEALTH. Judges Rosaura Chinchilla Calderón, Kathya Jiménez Fernández, and Ivette Carranza Cambronero participate in the decision on the appeals. Ms. Esther Salazar Rojas appeared at this venue as public defender of the defendants; Mr. Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, as private counsel for the defendant ([Name 009]), and Master Héctor Chacón Chang as prosecutor of the Public Prosecutor's Office.

RESULTANDO:

I.- That by means of judgment number 122-2025, at 4:00 p.m. on February 2, 2025, the Flagrancy Criminal Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José, by majority, resolved: "POR TANTO: In accordance with Articles 39 and 41 of the Political Constitution; Articles 1, 11, 14, 18, 19, 20, 30, 31, 45, 54, 59, 60, 62, 63, and 71, all of the Penal Code; Article 58 of Law No. 8204, Articles 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 239, 249, 258, 265, 266, 360, 361, 363, 364, and 367, all of the Code of Criminal Procedure; by majority of judges CARLOS NÚÑEZ NÚÑEZ and SHIRLEY MAYORGA ESPINOZA, the defendants [Name 009] AND [Name 016] [Name 016] are declared criminally responsible for ONE CRIME OF DRUG TRANSPORT, for which the following penalty is imposed: on the convicted person ([Name 009]), EIGHT YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT, and on the convicted person [Name 016], the penalty of NINE YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT. Due to inadmissibility, the benefit of conditional execution of the sentence is NOT granted to the convicted persons, nor is it substituted by house arrest with electronic monitoring or the rendering of services of public utility. It is ordered to communicate to the Judicial Record for its corresponding purposes, regarding (sic) the revocation of the benefit of conditional execution of the convicted person [Name 016], which was issued through judgment number 625-24 at 4:25 p.m. on July 23, 2024, of the Flagrancy Criminal Court of the II Judicial Circuit of San José, in case number 24-000685-1092-PE, which has also not been registered. The pretrial detention of the accused [Name 016] is ordered for a term of SIX MONTHS starting today until AUGUST 2, 2025, and the detention of the accused [Name 009] is extended for a term of SIX MONTHS, from today until AUGUST 2, 2025. It is ordered to communicate the resolution to the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería, for its corresponding purposes, regarding (sic) the convicted person [Name 016]. Judge WARREN JUGO MADRIGAL dissents, acquits both defendants of all penalty and responsibility, and orders their immediate release, unless another reason prevents it. By virtue of having been resolved orally and integrally, all parties are duly notified in the act, and this resolution is available to them in digital format. Carlos Núñez Núñez. Shirley Mayorga Espinoza. Warren Jugo Madrigal." (sic, folios 600-602).

II.- That, against the preceding pronouncement, Ms. Esther Salazar Rojas, as public defender of the defendants, and Mr. Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, as private counsel appointed by the accused ([Name 009]), filed appeals.

III.- That, having verified the respective deliberation in accordance with the provisions of Article 465 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the court considered the issues raised in the appeals.

IV.- That in the proceedings, the pertinent legal requirements have been observed.

Judge Chinchilla Calderón writes; and,

CONSIDERANDO:

I.- Procedural matters. (A) Admissibility. Ms. Esther Salazar Rojas, as public defender of both defendants, filed an appeal against the judgment issued in the case record, a decision that is challengeable by said procedural subject (subjective admissibility) and through this avenue (objective admissibility). This challenge was raised by means of a reasoned brief, filed before the lower court body and within the legal period, as it was delivered on February 21, 2025, at 6:00 p.m., according to the received stamp on the document attached to the case file (folios 611 to 617). Likewise, on that same February 21, 2025, the private counsel—appointed on February 3, 2025, by the defendant ([Name 009])—, Mr. Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, submitted an appeal brief (folios 607-610). Given that the full judgment was issued orally on February 2, 2025 (see folio 598), the 15-business-day period did not expire until February 22, 2025, and, therefore, the appeals must be admitted, without further formalities being necessary, as otherwise, the mandate established in Article 8.2.h of the American Convention on Human Rights and the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Mauricio Herrera Ulloa v. Costa Rica, judgment of July 2, 2014, would be breached. The prosecutor details that the defendant [Name 009], as of February 3, 2025 (folio 599), terminated the representation exercised by the Public Defense and appointed Mr. Rafael Jenkins Grispo as his counsel of choice, so, in Master Chacón's opinion, the defender lacked standing to act on his behalf. Although, in fact, the information provided by this professional corresponds to what happened in the case file, what he does not take into account is that the rule is that any change of legal representation takes effect from when the variation is accepted by the court, not from when it is made by the defendant, without prejudice that, even after the resignation, the previous professional continues to attend to the interests of their client for up to 10 additional business days (Article 46 of the Code of Legal, Moral and Ethical Duties of the Legal Professional), because the appointed person may not be a legal professional, may be suspended, or the defendant may have debts to honor with another previously designated legal representative (as even happened with this professional in this same case, in which there was a resignation by him and non-payment of fees as stated in folio 574 verso). This jurisdictional acceptance of the substitution of defense did not take effect until February 21, 2025 (by resolution of the lower court body at 8:01 p.m., visible in folio 618, a decision notified to all parties on that same date, as stated in folios 619 to 621), so at the time the public defender submitted her brief, she had not been formally released from the position, and in attention to Article 102 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which obligates the removed defense counsel to remain in the position until the substitute intervenes, her brief is admissible, as is also that of the private defender submitted on that same date, before the substitution (at 4:10 p.m.), but after being formally appointed by the defendant. In any case, as will be seen, both appeals address similar issues for that defendant. (B) Procedural summary. The judgment issued stems from a remand ordered by this court (with the panel of M. Escalante Quirós, R. Badilla Rojas, and E. Montero Mena) in vote number 2024-1882 (volume I, folios 192 to 196) where, upon hearing a prosecutorial appeal against a first acquittal of both defendants (issued by judges A. Sobrado, M. Salas, and judge K. Durán), it entirely annulled that pronouncement and ordered a new trial. Therefore, it has been verified that in the handling of the case there are no violations of the principle of impartiality in the integration of this chamber, that the remand competence has been respected, and that neither material res judicata nor the double conformity principle is violated. (C) Procedural issues. (i) In this matter, both due to the aforementioned remand and the ordered testimonies of pieces, the same actions have been duplicated and accumulated, to the point that "the flagrancy summary" has more than 600 folios distributed over two volumes. In folio 501 (which heads volume II), it was ordered to create volume II, and from there, erratic folio numbering is noted because it first continued the previous consecutive numbering (although making inexplicable numeration jumps), then that was crossed out, and a new numbering started from 1, until, finally, this chamber renumbered everything to strictly respect the consecutive order. This last numbering is the one that will be referenced in this judgment, so it is not necessarily the one cited by the parties. (ii) Finally, the defendant's name appears in official documents written in two different ways; "[Name 016]" and "[Name 016]", so the reference to the name used in each case will be respected, noting that this situation previously caused the defendant's criminal record to be kept separately, one under each name, but this refers to the same person.

II.- In the first ground of the public defender's challenge, the complaint is set forth regarding the determination of the facts, as she argues that this was the product of an erroneous assessment of the evidence and inadequate intellectual evidentiary reasoning. After describing the charged facts (transport of 22 doses of marijuana by [Name 016] and 60 rocks of crack and one dose of ketamine by [Name 009]) and the manner of police intervention (the defendants were walking and, upon seeing the police presence, one ran and threw the bag, and the other remained at the site, and upon searching, the total referenced was found, distributed between what each carried), the defense asserts that the drugs were carried for personal use, that the toxicological expert reports denote that both are users, and that the fact that one of them ran is not a univocal element to establish the purpose of trafficking, as it could have the objective of avoiding his detention and the suppression of the substance on which he depends. She says that the seized quantity is not significant and, lacking other elements (for example, operations or sales), an acquittal by doubt was mandatory. She considers the analysis of the sentencing court biased as it, in her opinion, reversed the burden of proof regarding whether the defendants had to demonstrate that the drug was for their consumption, when it was the prosecutorial entity that had the responsibility to accredit that the transport was carried out for sale purposes. She adds that the narration of the only witness received at trial, the police officer (who said he saw the defendants consume drugs), was not subject to controversy, but rather what was important was whether or not the seized drug had trafficking as its purpose and, based on this, the majority vote uses the statements of her clients to affirm this aspect. Thus, it is stated that the defendants did not agree to carry out joint consumption but rather each went to make individual purchases and met on the road and there decided to consume together, mutually supplying each other with drugs, which, although illicit, was not charged in that manner nor is it mentioned in the proven facts. By assuming a different purpose in the judgment, the appellant asserts that the correlation was violated. She criticizes that, in the majority vote, the defendants were not given credibility under the argument that the toxicological report does not allude to ketamine consumption, when the presence of drugs in the body depends on many factors, including the days elapsed between consumption and the examination. She states that it is the dissenting vote that correctly resolves the point. She alludes that the two toxicological expert reports show consumption by both defendants and that in [Name 016]'s medico-legal history it is recorded that he said he had consumed ketamine since he was 18 years old and his last intake was February 2, 2024, which explains why no evidence of the substance appeared in the toxicological report. She requests the ineffectiveness of the resolution. In the sole ground of Mr. Jenkins Grispo's appeal, a lack of intellectual reasoning and erroneous assessment of the evidence regarding ([Name 009]) is alleged. He says, in a somewhat confusing manner (for someone unfamiliar with the context), that between one trial and another, a Public Force officer changed his version: "…in the first trial that was annulled, the Public Force officer tells us that it was him who ran and that his partner stayed with my client, and my client says that they never took the drug alleged in the report from him, and that later appears as evidence, in the second trial the police officer changes that version, not just superficially, that is, he changes it in a way that gives it a 180-degree turn, managing to correct the error that resulted in the judgment of the first annulled trial. The only witness at trial, the officer, relates under oath something that later varies in the second trial, that is, what happened, in which one did he fail his truth, in which one did the perjury occur, in the first trial or in the second." (Cf. appeal brief). Furthermore, while the Public Prosecutor's Office, in the accusation, stated that only one defendant ran and [Name 009] remained static, the police officer, in his sworn testimony, stated that both subjects ran, which generates doubts about the real truth of what happened. He adds that the accusation does not mention the purpose and this was not demonstrated at trial, so the judgment places this point on the defendants, reversing the burden of proof. He adds that the total amount of drugs, divided by two, does allow estimating that it was for personal use and that the fact that ketamine did not appear in his client's body does not mean he did not want to try it that day. He considers that what was resolved by the dissenting judge was correct because there is no impact or harm to third parties from their consumption and requests to annul the judgment regarding [Name 009], order his release (as he was detained by the conviction), and order a remand. Upon answering the arguments, the counterparty requested that they be rejected. It summarized what happened at other times (acquittal of both defendants), the facts proven by the majority, the evidence admitted (the statement of [Name 012], of both defendants who did not deny possessing the substance seized from them, the seizure records and the analytical chemistry report, the toxicological analyses of the accused, and the medico-legal report of one of them) and the reasoning set out in the vote, both majority and dissenting, to demonstrate what it qualifies as the "intersubjectivity" of the point under discussion. It describes that, although there is a difference between the oral complaint of the police officers and their account at trial regarding whether one or both subjects ran, the fact that only one did so makes the police intervention lawful, which was not questioned, and that the issue under discussion is the purpose of the possession. In this regard, the prosecutor points out that, in the majority vote, the judges—thus in the brief, although the jurisdictional body to which it refers is composed of a man and a woman and despite the fact that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), an instrument duly signed, ratified, and in force in the country, obliges, in its Article 2, sections d), e), and f), the public officials to banish patterns of discrimination that include sexist language—analyzed that neither of the defendants said they consumed ketamine, nor did this substance appear in the toxicological reports performed on them: ([Name 009]), in his initial inquiry, said he consumed only marijuana, but later added crack or cocaine as well, and although [Name 016] stated he consumed both substances, only traces of marijuana appeared in his urine. In the prevailing judgment, it was indicated that if one transported drugs to supply the other, it was a typical act, the ketamine had no basis in the defense's theory, and the way the 66 doses of crack and the 22 joints of marijuana were packaged, along with the flight of [Name 016] upon the police presence, were indications of a trafficking purpose. The prosecutor describes the dissenting vote (which is based on the doubt about whether the drug was for consumption) and says, relying on votes of the Third Chamber, that for the crime to occur, it is enough to transport drugs from one point to another and that it is not for personal use. He adds that: "…the possession and transport of this latter drug by [Name 009], which was objectively demonstrated, is relevant, since the ketamine seized under the demonstrative conditions of the case sub examine presented a clear impossibility of being plausibly associated with a purpose of personal use of ([Name 009]). Unlike [Name 016] [Name 016], the accused [Name 009] at no time claimed to be addicted to ketamine, and his defensive allegation was limited to saying that his and [Name 016]'s intention was to make a coca paste (bazuco) mixture with the marijuana carried by [Name 016] and the crack rocks carried by [Name 009]. Nor did the accused [Name 009] state at trial that, upon being arrested, he was carrying that drug to 'try it for the first time'. For this reason, the allegation made in this regard by esteemed attorney Jenkins Grispo comes from the mere imagination of the cited colleague, lacks all evidentiary support, and is purely conjectural." (Cf. prosecutorial response, the improper use of generalized capital letters in proper names is corrected, but the spelling used by the appellant for these is maintained). He adds that the defendants incurred contradictions throughout the process regarding their addiction condition, which diminished their credibility: "[Name 009] asserted that he only consumed marijuana and said so to the court in the presence of his defense. He did not state that he primarily consumed a coca paste mixture (bazuco), which is a mixture of crack and marijuana. Nor did he say he was addicted to cocaine. Nor did he assert that he consumed ketamine. And this is relevant, because at no time was marijuana seized from [Name 009]. What was seized from him and what he was transporting was crack cocaine and ketamine. Ergo, if [Name 009] was not transporting drugs to which he stated he was addicted at the time of the initial hearing, it is quite logical that [Name 009] could not be transporting those substances for personal use before that initial hearing (…) In relation to (sic) the accused [Name 016] [Name 016], the finding of ketamine cannot be associated with a purpose of personal use either. Certainly, when interviewed by the forensic doctor, this accused said he consumed ketamine, inhaled, every 3 days, and this was recorded in medico-legal report 2024-000918. Although that expert report is dated February 7, 2024, the assessment was performed the day before. In it, just as contained in folio 65, [Name 016] relates having consumed ketamine on the very day of his detention, February 2, 2024. But, in report DCF 2024-00546 TOX, performed with samples taken just on February 6, 2024, at 1:11 p.m. (and not a year later, as the public defender falsely states), it is reported that ketamine was not detected in the urine of that defendant—see folio 80—. Here it is important to say that to detect ketamine in urine in this case, gas chromatography was used, and by this method, amounts of 0.1 mg/ml of the compound can be detected, according to toxicological literature. According to the same medico-legal literature, the maximum detection time is approximately 72 hours for a single dose. However, it is warned that in users with habitual or addictive consumption, as the accused [Name 016] said he had, ketamine can take more than 7 days to be eliminated [The nonmedical use of ketamine. Part two. A review of problem use and dependence. J Psychoactive Drugs 2001 (…) cited in J. Royo “La “keta” (ketamine), from pharmaceutical drug to drug of abuse. Biopsychosocial clinic of the consumer and some therapeutic proposals, in Revista Elsevier No. 34, volume 3 (…)] a situation that equally makes it hardly believable that the drug in question had been consumed by the accused with the assiduity or habitualness he referred to, on the date he stated, and that the carrying of that substance was also for a real purpose of personal use (…) Another aspect that equally, and with grounds, called into question the allegation that the drug carried by the accused was for personal use, was the detail set forth by [Name 009] in the sense that he and [Name 016] [Name 016] had opened a small bag of cocaine and both had consumed from it shortly before the arrest. However, [Name 016] [Name 016] did not present cocaine metabolites in blood (see report No. 2024-0546 TOX, folio 80), and no powder cocaine was seized from either of the accused, so again the version of ([Name 009]) is hardly credible. Likewise, it is also not possible to believe that what the accused supposedly consumed was ketamine and not cocaine, confusing the latter with the former, since from an objective point of view, neither of the two showed traces of ketamine in urine" (Cf. prosecutorial response, the improper use of generalized capital letters in proper names is corrected, but their spelling is respected). Due to these inconsistencies and because the defendants varied the purpose from personal use to supply to the other and "…[Name 016], in a sign of guilty conscience, took to his heels when he noticed the police presence and tried to hide the drug by throwing it onto a neighbor's roof" (Cf. prosecutorial response, the improper use of generalized capital letters in proper names is corrected, respecting their spelling), the prosecutor considers that the conviction was correct. Immediately thereafter, the representative of the prosecuting entity makes an extensive disquisition on the criminal policy and criminal dogmatic reasons for not prosecuting or penalizing personal use, an action different from supply. He stated that it is not essential whether both defendants ran or only one did so, according to the change in the police officer's version, as it is understandable that this varies due to the elapsed time and the various existing trials, and that the fact that [Name 009] did not flee upon seeing the police does not exclude his knowledge that he was transporting 66 rocks of crack and a packet of ketamine from the place of purchase to the place of arrest, and that the purpose of that transport, regarding at least part of that stash, was not personal use, as he admitted in his account. He affirms that there was no reversal of the evidentiary burden but rather an analysis of indications, that being a drug user does not grant a license to carry out typical conduct, that although the defendants were approached without a prior investigation to demonstrate the purpose of their possession, this does not generate grievance as each of them, duly advised, accepted that the drug each was transporting was intended for mutual barter, and that the public defender's explanation of the reason why [Name 016] ran before the police presence is a simple conjecture that does not derive from the evidence, as the officer stated that he could not detect that, at that moment, he was under the influence of the substance. He argues that the non-seizure of money or the small quantity of the substance is superfluous, as the defendants accepted that they were going to exchange drugs where, according to Article 1100 of the Civil Code, money is substituted, and that, although the appellant mentions that there are biases in the majority vote, these are not explained. He accepts that the accusation does not mention the purpose of supply or distribution, but argues that for the configuration of the crime, only the common intent (dolo), which is to transport, is required, and it was ruled out that it was for personal consumption, all of which was charged and therefore the correlation is not violated, from which everything else is peripheral. He adds that "…the defendants themselves, freely and voluntarily, once they were warned of their right to abstain and knowing that anything they said could be used against them, tried to create an allegation of personal use, without succeeding, since the material defense argument of [Name 009] and [Name 016] ended up degenerating, degrading, and foundering on the admission of a partial purpose of supply or distribution to a third party on account of the exchange of drugs that each individually transported, which, whether the appellant likes it or not, and whether the respected dissenting judge likes it or not (…) clearly denaturalized the thesis of a transport supposedly for mere individual personal use of each accused. It is also worth saying that this defensive nonsense was carried out through the respective statements of the accused, made with all procedural guarantees and which, moreover, were not the responsibility of the Court (…) nor of the Public Prosecutor's Office, which must be considered for the purposes of the principle nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem (no one can claim their own turpitude), which is contemplated in Art. 439 of the CPP." (Cf. prosecutorial response, the improper use of generalized capital letters in proper names is corrected, although their spelling is respected). He explains why, in his opinion, the principle in dubio pro reo was not violated and delves into the analysis of the dissenting vote, regarding which he criticizes several fundamental issues: one, that the doubt should not fall on essential issues or those not explainable by the rules of psychology, and that, in the case of the variation in the officer's version about who ran, this could be explained by the passage of time; a second topic, related to starting from a conjecture by mentioning the possible reason for the flight, as the defendant did not say he did it so they would not take the substance away from him, in addition to the fact that although the police officer stated that [Name 016] was "shaken up" or emotional, the officer did not describe conduct that evidenced his consciousness was altered, so it is not rational that, if he only intended to prevent them from taking the drug away, he would throw it onto the roof where others could take it or from where it would be difficult for him to recover it. For this reason, he qualifies this doubt as "far-fetched and contrived (…) markedly absurd and even contradictory." The third criticism the prosecutor makes of the dissenting vote is that it is irrelevant to indicate in the accusation whether the purpose is trafficking, as the criminal type only requires knowledge and will to transport drugs, and what the defendants were carrying (ketamine, crack cocaine base, and marijuana) were such, and personal use was ruled out because barter falls outside that sphere. Fourthly, the prosecutor criticizes the "concept bag" that "drug trafficking" represents, as indicated by the dissenting judge, where everything fits, for which he alludes to the treaties on the matter ratified by the country and the content of the article: "It is not true that the majority vote set out in its reasoning that once transport was demonstrated, any destination would be an act of drug trafficking. What the Court indicated in its majority vote was that given the inconsistencies and contradictions between the statements of the accused throughout the process about the substances to which they claimed to be addicted and the results of the toxicological tests, and the way the accused were carrying different types of drugs, in doses packaged for retail sale, together with the very statements of the accused about their intention to mutually supply and distribute the drugs through a barter, it must be emphatically excluded that the drug transport was for a true purpose of individual personal use." (Cf. prosecutorial response, the original spelling is respected). Fifthly, he also does not share the argument of the dissenting vote that it is important whether the investigation was scarce or did not exist to prove other purposes.

The prosecutor relies on the criterion of the “Sala de Casación Penal” —whose name he records using the grammatically incorrect use of generalized capitalization, even though the name provided in the special law, Article 56 of the Organic Law of the Judicial Branch, which prevails over the general law, is different— to stipulate that this body has indicated that nothing more is required than demonstrating the transport and simple intent, and that the requesting entity has investigative autonomy, so the rest of the judge's assertions are, he affirms, only opinions. “Nor is it reality that the majority vote convicted the defendants because they did not demonstrate the purpose of individual personal consumption (autoconsumo). It was rather that the statements given at trial by the defendants, added (sic) to the rest of the evidence set forth previously, allowed the exclusion —entirely independent of the quantity of drugs seized— of the purpose of individual personal consumption (autoconsumo individual) of each defendant. Ergo, there was no inversion of the burden of proof, as the dissenting vote carelessly stated. It is worth emphasizing that it does not depend on the Public Ministry or the judges of the Judicial Branch that a typical figure of abstract danger, such as the crime of drug transport, has a minimum sentence of 8 years in prison (…) That is a decision belonging to the Legislative Branch. If the judge (…) has or had doubts about the proportionality of the minimum sentence, the correct thing to do was to make a constitutional consultation or propose, de lege ferenda, a legislative reform, giving his personal reasons for ‘concern’ to the Legislative Branch, like any other citizen (sic). What is not possible is to demand requirements that the law does not expressly impose on the accusatory body or on the other judges (sic) of the collegiate chamber, as a pretext for the law not to be applied, or for it to be applied only according to the personal likes and dislikes that are intuited in the dissenting opinion. It is not true that a figure of drug transport ‘without content’ has been created as an activity punishable by 8 years in prison as a minimum sentence. It is a type of abstract danger that is consummated by the mere act of moving from one place to another drugs capable of producing physical or psychic dependence, according to the international Conventions signed and ratified by Costa Rica. The criminal figure has a specific, concrete content clearly derived from the wording of the type, according to the proper meaning of the words used in the legislative drafting and according to the meaning of the rules of semantics and syntax that govern the Spanish language. It is not appropriate for the dissenting opinion to want, by itself, before itself, and for itself, to impose additional content on the criminal type, on the Prosecutor's Office, and on the judges (sic) drafting the majority opinion, based on a mere individual opinion about what the figure of drug transport ‘should be,’ starting from an idealized vision of the right to presumption of innocence or the ultima ratio principle (…) the action of someone who transports the same drug they are going to consume from the place of purchase to their home is not the same as the action of someone who transports a drug from the place of purchase to another place to supply or distribute it to a third party, even when the latter pays for the drug with another type of drug reciprocally. It is clear that the dissenting opinion inadvertently confuses the general concept of drug consumption with the more restricted concept of individual personal consumption (autoconsumo individual) of drugs. Drug consumption responds to a more general concept than individual personal consumption (autoconsumo individual) and encompasses any use of psychoactive substances, regardless of quantity, frequency, or motivation. It can include both personal use and distribution to third parties, and does not specify the purpose of consumption. Individual personal consumption (autoconsumo individual), on the other hand, refers specifically to the consumption of psychoactive substances for personal and exclusive use (in this case, by the person transporting the drug). It implies that the substance being possessed or transported is destined solely for the individual consumption of the person possessing or transporting the drug, without intent to sell, distribute, or supply, totally or partially, to third parties. Individual personal consumption (autoconsumo) is characterized by the will to use the drug only by the subject who possesses or transports it. Whereas generic consumption may involve distribution or supply as a mode of disposing of the drug. And it is only the purpose of individual personal consumption (autoconsumo individual) that generates the non-prosecutability of drug possession or transport. This is the epistemological foundation that the dissenting opinion ignores, conceals, and disregards when equating a purpose of individual personal consumption (autoconsumo) with a purpose of transporting drugs to barter for another drug used as currency. Our liberal, democratic, and republican State tolerates (does not legitimize) someone transporting drugs to endanger their own health, but it is not obligated to tolerate citizens (sic) commercializing drugs through drug-for-drug barter agreements, where substances capable of producing physical or psychic dependence, according to the international conventions signed and ratified by Costa Rica, pass from hand to hand, extending beyond the health sphere of an individual the risk that the promotion or maintenance of addictions causes to society. In the first case, that of individual personal consumption (autoconsumo), we are in the presence of a matter of personal self-determination, but in the second case, we are in the presence of conduct that, according to the abstract danger figure created by the legislator (sic), endangers public health, since it is understood that the normalization and generalization of acts of drug-for-drug barter or supplies or distributions of drugs among a collective can endanger the very stability of the economic and social system, just as happens, for example, in cities like Los Angeles in California or in the drainage channels of Las Vegas, Nevada, where the spread of highly addictive drugs like ketamine, cocaine, and fentanyl not only cause growing workplace absenteeism but also uncontrollable expenses in the health system, an increase in violent crime, premature deaths, and increases in premiums for unemployment and life insurance policies, while growing shantytowns of fentanyl zombies and mentally disabled (sic) individuals are created that must be supported by the rest of the population. For the reasons stated above, this representation vigorously disagrees with the arguments for which the honorable judge (…) chose to acquit.” (Cf. prosecutorial response). He ended by requesting the rejection of Attorney Jenkins' appeal and the first ground of Attorney Salazar's appeal. The arguments must be accepted, which, due to the connectedness of their reasoning, are addressed together. To understand why this must be so, it is convenient to begin by making a simple description of what happened during the trial phase, an aspect that is of utmost utility considering that the judgment was delivered entirely orally, so that, to delve into the analysis of its content, it is convenient to capture it (albeit in summary form) in a medium that is easier to manipulate, such as written text. Then, in another section, we will delve into the analysis of the arguments presented there against those of both parties, but not before, in this second moment, making an introduction about what is expected in a jurisdictional decision regarding the rules of legal argumentation, setting aside opinions or personal pretensions not derived from the documents, evidence, or legal rules, conclusions not derived from the premises used, or personal or ideological attacks.

(A) Procedural Summary. The prosecutorial accusation attributed the following to the defendants: “On February 2, 2024, at approximately 2:30 p.m. in San José, Curridabat, Tirrases, in front of Barrio Colonia Cruz, Calle El Mirador, on a public thoroughfare, the accused [Name 009] and [Name 016] possessed and transported for trafficking purposes 60 doses of cocaine, crack base, one point of a drug and twenty-two points of the drug marijuana respectively, wrapped in transparent plastic bags, while walking from one side to the other, from East to West. At this same time and place, officers of the Public Force were conducting a routine patrol, they observe both accused walking together on a public thoroughfare, being (sic) that upon approaching and noticing the police presence they take a suspicious attitude, being (sic) that [Name 016] flees running from the scene, being closely followed by Public Force officers, at which moment barely 10 meters away he throws a plastic wrapper onto the roof of one of the houses, being detained at that same place and locating the plastic package that he had just thrown on the roof, which contained 22 joints of the drug marijuana. At the same time, Public Force officers detain [Name 009], who remained still upon noticing the police presence, locating on him 60 doses of the drug cocaine, crack base and one joint of Ketamine, for which reason both accused were formally detained and the seizure of the drug described above is carried out.” (The highlighting is added, see folios 88 to 89 of the physical case file).

At the remanded trial —ordered by another panel of this court (M. Escalante Quirós, R. Badilla Rojas, and E. Montero Mena) after a first unanimous acquittal appealed by the prosecution whose appeal was upheld according to vote number 2024-1882, completely annulling what was then decided— officer [Name 012] appeared as a witness and the documentary and expert evidence were incorporated, consisting of the police report or communiqué, the drug seizure record and field test result, two medico-legal expert opinions and two toxicological expert opinions of the accused and their addendum, analytical chemistry expert opinions of the seized substances, identification data of the defendants and certification of their criminal records. The decision was issued orally, by majority, and is supported by an audiovisual file with a total duration of 1:03:54. Formally, in the section so named, the following was established as proven: “ONE: On February 2, 2024, at approximately 2:30 p.m., in San José, Curridabat, Tirrases, in front of Barrio Colonia Cruz, Calle el Mirador, on a public thoroughfare, the accused [Name 009] and [Name 016] possessed and transported, for trafficking purposes, 60 doses of cocaine crack base, one point of ketamine and 22 joints of marijuana, wrapped in transparent plastic bags, while walking from East to West.” (Written court record of judgment and time marker 12:42 onwards of the audiovisual file containing the oral judgment, the emphasis is added). However, the construction of that section denotes that it was not as exhaustive as it should have been (for which reference is made to the vote of this court, with a panel composition partially similar to the current one: R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas, and K. Jiménez, number 830-2022, in which, among other similar matters, the meaning and purpose of the procedural forms that a criminal judgment must meet are explained), for from the exposition of the judgment by the majority, understood as a unit of logical-legal meaning, it follows that this considered additional events as proven, such as those enumerated below, not without first clarifying that this chamber makes the connection of ideas that will be made, for the exposition of those events was dispersed throughout the entire ruling, on occasions when the co-judge (off microphone) complemented the exposition of the presiding judge reporting for the majority (who added the information that the former provided him). The same words were not used to describe these events either: a) While the police unit was circulating, it encountered the defendants, who were walking on the public thoroughfare, at which moment [Name 016] ran and threw a bag onto a roof, was pursued and detained by two officers ([Name 012] and [Name 017]) and it was determined that said wrapper contained 22 joints of cannabis sativa or marijuana with a mass of 6.17 grams (time counter 13:54 to 16:12 of the audiovisual file containing the oral judgment).

• b)Upon searching, the third police officer, [Name 018], found 60 doses of crack on [Name 009] (of which 45 were analyzed at random, with an estimated mass of 105.40) and one point of solid powder of something that turned out to be ketamine and not cocaine, as initially thought. [Name 016] narrated this to officer [Name 012], who was the only one who testified at trial (time counter 16:38 to 19:17 of the same aforementioned file). c) On February 6, 2024, the medico-legal examination was conducted on [Name 009] and there he stated he was an addict to crack and marijuana, that he had consumed the crack (in the amount of eight rocks) six days prior (that would be January 31) and the marijuana five days before that date (February 1). In the medical evaluation, it is indicated that he shows clinical signs compatible with habitual drug consumption. Then, in the toxicological expert opinion, which analyzes a sample taken on the same date, it was determined that he tested positive for cannabinoids, that is, for marijuana consumption; negative for ketamine and confirmatory in urine for the cocaine metabolite benzoylecgonine (counters 26:44 to 27:13 and 28:39 to 29:08 ibidem). d) On February 6, 2024, the medico-legal examination was conducted on [Name 016] and there he stated he was an addict, since age 18, to various drugs: cocaine (he said he had consumed it inhaled three days prior, that is, February 2), crack, ketamine —28:10 to 28:11—, clonazepam, tusi, cartones, etc. In the medical exploration, no signs of addiction or prolonged consumption of drugs are found. However, in a subsequent clarification of the expert opinion, it is indicated that this could vary between individuals and that there could be other signs not contained in the expert report. The toxicological test was negative for cannabinoids, ketamine, and cocaine metabolite (counter 27:39 to 29:08 and 29:33 ibidem). e) The defendant [Name 009] lacks a criminal record, and [Name 016] has records for illegal carrying of a permitted weapon (he was sentenced to two years and six months with a benefit that was later revoked) and for aggravated robbery (sentence of seven years in prison).

Although the judgment does not expressly record any section of “unproven facts,” it is derived from its content that, for the members of the majority of the court, there was one in that nature, as it was established as not proven that the defendants possessed or transported the substances found on them for personal consumption.

Regarding the intellectual analysis and foundations of the appealed decision, this, which was a conviction, was adopted, as already stated, by majority —with the dissenting vote of a judge who acquitted—. In no part of the decision is the deliberation method used explained (step-by-step or total: for which reference is made, among others, to the vote of this same panel number 2024-1233), so this court must infer it was the latter, considering that, regarding the penalty, nothing is recorded. The majority arguments for the conviction were explained starting from the minute marker 13:50 in the following terms that are now simply summarized, respecting the meaning of what was indicated, although without necessarily using the same words: i. The patrol, according to the officer, goes in the opposite direction to the one in which the two subjects walk together (who, in the end, are identified as the defendants here). Upon being alongside them, the vehicle stops, and it is at that moment that [Name 016] ran off towards the street where he was detained. Two officers follow him and see him throw a bag onto the roof of a house; they detain him, look for a ladder, and bring down what was thrown, determining it was marijuana. In the police report, it says that [Name 009] stayed still and that is why officer [Name 016] guarded him, but at trial, the officer who testified ([Name 012]) said that he also ran and that that officer detained him. This contradiction —says the presiding judge of the majority vote— is not serious nor does it affect the decision to consider that the police approach and detention were legitimate, because one runs and substances are seized from both, which, in field tests, are identified as drugs. In these events —date, time, mode, and place of the detention and seizures, as well as persons involved— there was no controversy, for the police reports and records coincide with the statements of the defendants and officer [Name 012], who is given credibility as he is not an enemy of the accused, but only knows them from having seen them, together or separately, both at points of sale or búnkers, as well as on street corners or wandering about, but the intervention was almost random, because of running away. ii. There was no break in the chain of custody, and what was analyzed in the laboratories was the same as what was seized, determining that it was drugs: marijuana, crack, and ketamine (the latter originally confused by the police with cocaine). iii. The discussion lies —the majority-vote judge continues— in the purpose of the transport (accepted by both) of these substances. The only lawful purpose for transport is that it be for personal consumption, a highly personal task; any other is prohibited by law. The accused, in the debate, say they are consumers, that they did not agree to any drug purchase, but rather just met at the exit of the búnker when each had already purchased and decided to consume together. [Name 009] had bought crack (with a value of 30 thousand colones) and ketamine; he said he consumes crack “bañado”, pressed or in bazuco (on the intake form, he puts four or five rocks with chopped marijuana), not in a pipe or rock, but in the identification data he stated that he only smoked marijuana (in trial he adds that he also consumes crack). [Name 016] alluded to consuming crack and marijuana (in trial he added cocaine). Neither said, then, that they consumed ketamine. From the medical and toxicological expert opinions, it follows that “…there was a confirmatory consumption of cannabinoids for both: confirmatory in urine for [Name 016] and presumptive positive for the case of [Name 009]. But all were negative for the matter of ketamine (…) Here, then, what we have here is a sample that, although it is true both could consume drugs, ummm, of unauthorized use, according to these toxicological tests, the truth of the matter is that you were carrying that day a drug in the conditions in which you were carrying them, one on one side, ummm, in these crack rocks and a point of ketamine, of which neither of the two appears as a consumer of that type of drug, and on the other hand the marijuana that Mr. [Name 016] was carrying” (see time sequence 29:58 to 30:55). The statements of the defendants lose credibility and weight that they were going to consume because of “…the possibilities that (…) at least the point of ketamine was intended for consumption in the first place, and that the marijuana alone was going to be destined for consumption, given the forms in which you say you consume it, according to the statement (…) that at that moment you were carrying that drug to then go and consume it in the manner you indicated here (…) even if we were to say that, well, that you were going to consume this drug, that there was going to be a consumption by both of you of this drug, that it was solely for consumption and had no other purpose, other than the one established for consumption, that is, any other purpose that is prohibited for its transport, then we would have to accept that both of you, upon meeting in the street and deciding —as you yourselves accept— to meet, were going to, between yourselves, distribute drugs that you did not purchase with a prior agreement. That is to say, you went to a point of sale, each one individually bought or acquired or came to possess individually different types of drugs, and if your thesis of consumption between yourselves were really true, in the manner in which both of you said you were going to consume it, which was a bazuco that required the combination of both drugs, it means that [Name 009] would have had to distribute and that was his purpose (the purpose, believing the defense’s thesis), his purpose would be to distribute crack to [Name 016] so that he would consume crack, and the purpose of [Name 016] would be to distribute, supply, even if free of charge, supply marijuana to [Name 009] so that he could consume a bazuco. And that activity is illicit, is a prohibited activity, consumption is one's own, is highly personal, any other supply, any other delivery of the drug is prohibited by law. Therefore, although the court considers, in any case, that this drug was not for consumption, at least not in the manner in which you indicated it was going to occur, there was not even, even your own statement banishes the possibility that the two of you reached a common agreement, a pot, to start consuming the drug that both had purchased, the truth of the matter is that the court, not having established as proven even that point, that aspect, as illicit transport, the truth of the matter is that the other thesis raised by you also leads you to a criminal offense, which is the transport of drugs for distribution and supply of the drug, yes, to supply it to each other mutually.” (See time sequence 30:54 to 34:19). iv. The way in which the drug was individualized (22 joints of marijuana, 60 doses of crack, and the point of ketamine) shows that it was not destined for personal consumption, but rather could (34:55) be taken for distribution or commercialization. [Name 009] was carrying a point of ketamine. This is important because neither admitted to being an addict, consuming, or planning to consume ketamine that day, so what was going to happen with that ketamine? That is the issue that precisely speaks to us of an illicit transport of a drug that is not permitted (minute marker 34:37 to 35:33). v. The majority judge alludes to Article 58 of law 8204 and its various verbs, all individual. He reiterates that the only lawful form of drug transport is for personal or own consumption or by the police when they seize it and take it to the authorities, which is a permission due to compliance with a legal duty. He adds that the typical transport was configured because the defendants knew what they were carrying and that it was illicit, to the point that there is an evasive attitude upon encountering the police. [Name 016] said that this was because he was very high, very crazy, but the police do not see them consuming or that they were under the effects of any drug. Mr. [Name 012] does not see signs or behaviors related to drug consumption in them. (See time sequence 37:44 to 38:25). vi. Starting from time counter 41:35 of the audiovisual file containing the judgment, after the presiding judge has alluded to the segments of the Theory of Crime, he refers to the penalty and justifies the minimum sentence of eight years in prison for [Name 009] for being of clean record and young, without reduction because there are no circumstances that suggest vulnerability due to consumption nor are other sanctions possible. For [Name 016], from minute 43:02 until 45:07, it is indicated that the situation is different because he has a record for illegal carrying of a permitted weapon (two years and six months in prison), he had been given a benefit of conditional execution of the sentence that was revoked by another criminal judgment that found him responsible for aggravated robbery, imposed seven years, and added that other amount. The judge refers to there having been a problem with the Judicial Registry due to the way of writing the name ([Name 016] in one and [Name 016] in another) but there are already two convictions. Therefore, the minimum sentence is not adequate and the penalty was set at nine years in prison, proportional because he is young. vii. The extension of the pre-trial detention was ordered for both to make the judgment effective, although it was later clarified (upon observation by the co-judge) that this measure was issued for [Name 016] at that moment because he did not have it before. The procedural dangers of either were not mentioned. It was also decided to communicate the decision to the General Directorate of Migration given the irregular situation of [Name 016] (this only in the operative part).

From time counter 46:36 of the audiovisual file containing the oral judgment, the dissenting judge explained his dissenting opinion on the basis of the following considerations: i. There are factual issues between the police action and what is said in the accusatory document. He deems the statement of police officer [Name 012] credible, for the most part, especially given the time elapsed from the intervention to his statement in this trial. Here he said that both subjects ran, and, when asked what would have happened if they had not done so, the police officer, transparently, stated that they would not have intervened. The accusation says that [Name 009] did not run but remained still, and although here the police officer stated that he did run, there is an important contradiction that affects the police intervention: to what extent can [Name 009] be attributed with the suspicious action of [Name 016] running? ii. If the prosecutorial thesis is accepted, that running is not typical of someone who is going to consume, a very large assumption is made because no one can refer to an atypical or abnormal reaction; one can also think that one runs to avoid having the drug taken away, and therefore throws it onto the roof. iii.

The accusation cites the generic term “trafficking purposes”; it is like a bag where everything fits. (Just in this segment, minute marker 52:29, he is interrupted because one of the accused speaks and states that he wishes to withdraw, as indeed he is allowed to do and is taken out of the courtroom by the guards). For the majority, any purpose that is not consumption is illicit, except the transport permit of the police officers. We all have the transport confirmed, you (addressing the defendants) do not deny it. The majority says that this transport was for distribution or supply between the two of you, without an agreement prior to the purchase. It is unacceptable, the dissenting judge continues, that —if Article 58 alludes to 16 or 17 verbs, each of which describes illicit activities— the Public Ministry comes with such a scant investigation that it does not allow stating which of those activities the accused were engaging in. The hypothesis of distribution or supply arises from the court's deliberation, it is never mentioned by the prosecuting entity, which takes cover under an element as arcane and imprecise as “trafficking,” without describing which activity they were going to perform. Yes, it is a matter of flagrante delicto; yes, the investigation is short, but that does not mean it does not warrant some, especially when the penalty is so high. He alludes to the principles of ultima ratio and innocence and “…what is being, at least in the judgment of the dissenting voter, what is being said here is that since you could not prove the issue of consumption and said things that suggest a matter of supply, then ergo, you must be convicted, when it is supposed that the one who should prove this activity different from consumption is the Public Ministry, within the avalanche of possibilities that exist with what you declared and the facts, the court cannot, at least I cannot, extract as a court, conclusively that the drug was not for consumption, as my colleagues discard with the circumstantial evidence elements they used and to which I will not refer so extensively because they are already known.” (Cf, time counter 55:40 to 56:34). From this vote, and from others of different courts, the dissenting judge continues to explain, it is inferred that the burden of proof has been inverted and a transport without content, or with circumstantial content, has been determined as a penalized activity. iv. Jurisprudentially, a difference has been established between consumption with or without a prior agreement. Here it was said that there was no prior agreement. I do not understand —the official continues— how the danger to public health changes. He shows his disagreement with this thesis. If both carry drugs to consume and exchange something, what is the danger to public health from that? If they had not met, they probably would have gone to consume the drug in the same way; if the purpose was consumption, and if it was another purpose, in this trial it could not be proven, because there was no element to mention sale. The judge even expresses doubts because the police officer does not remember if the accused had elements for consumption; the prosecutor says that this must be somewhere, in the logbook or the Clerk's Office, but he did not bring them. The accused say that they did carry lighters, a situation that the majority of the court discredits, without this thesis of the majority being supported with certainty by the evidence. The doubt is also about the harm to the legal right, the intervention of the Public Force and the actions that each one performed, as well as the difference between the prior or subsequent agreement for consumption, and this does not generate certainty, and therefore, acquittal is ordered.

(B) An excursus (long, but necessary) on the conceptual instruments to apply.

This case, both due to the nature of the facts and the content of the prosecution's submission, the procedural history (various outcomes reached by different judges), the arguments of the trial judges, as well as, before this court, those of the parties, highlights the need to emphasize that, in States governed by the Rule of Law, legal operators cannot depart from the rules that bind them, even if these rules do not have the content they desire, nor can they detach themselves from the evidence, for it is not their consciences that guide their actions. Therefore, this chamber finds it relevant to emphasize three fundamental topics for the legal scholar:

i.- on one hand, the role of jurisdiction in the resolution of disputes, in the face of which all disputes hold the same importance and must be addressed with the same diligence and care. For this reason, in procedural dogmatics, it is understood that jurisdiction (as the state power to resolve conflicts) is one and indivisible —unlike competence, which is divisible into thematic areas— and is exercised, in its entirety, by the judge of a rural area in a petty offense matter just as by those who make up courts of the highest rank in the pyramid. Hence, as a tangential clarification, a dogmatic imprecision is incurred when referring to "organized crime jurisdiction," "tax criminal jurisdiction," etc., since these are material sub-competencies of competence, in this case, criminal competence. From what has been said, it follows that there is no "small case," and if someone improperly believes that one can be small (such as the seizure, in flagrante delicto, of a small quantity of drugs in the hands of two people), they may be "surprised" to find that enormous legal discussions are involved, such as some of those that will be addressed here, for that consideration stems from the anchoring bias or the Dunning-Kruger effect (to which reference will be made later), where, the greater the ignorance of a topic—and all human beings are ignorant, to a greater or lesser extent, of the majority of topics, since knowledge is procedural and sources of information today are almost unattainable, an aspect that, in Greek philosophy, was synthesized by the phrase attributed to Socrates, "I only know that I know nothing"—the greater the rashness in making assertions of that type. For the same reason, the value of the decision of each judge is the same, regardless of the role they hold when inserted in procedural systems where vertical scrutiny or instances operate, and also regardless of whether they are in the majority or dissenting in a collegiate body they integrate. Evidently, if, faced with this equal value of all jurisdictional criteria, the legal system did not propose further remedies, chaotic situations could be generated and the purpose of Law, which is the civilized resolution of disputes between persons, would be thwarted. Thus, to mitigate the effects that this equivalence of value in the decision of each judge may produce, legal systems —by legislative policy decision and in accordance with the constitutional principle of legal certainty— adopt numerical rules, both in voting and in the composition of courts. Thus, for example, decisions within the same body are ultimately accepted as valid based on a certain majority (incorporating the democratic constitutional principle of numeral 1 of the current Political Constitution), and the appeals system is established, according to which the decisions of judges of the controlling bodies (who tend to have, legally, higher selection requirements) prevail, in the specific case, over those of members of lower-ranked bodies, thus incorporating the constitutional principle of suitability provided for in constitutional canon 192. Now, this is as a general thesis, for the fact that a decision is adopted by a majority or by a higher body does not make it "legitimate per se" (that is, extendable to other cases by the force of its argumentative framework), but only when, descending to its content, it follows the rules pre-established in the respective legal system, precisely in consideration of respect for the principle of judicial independence which, constitutionally (article 154 of the supreme norm) and conventionally (e.g., canon 8.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights), is provided for as a guarantee for individuals, so that their disputes are decided free from other non-legal factors. And there, then, the jurisdictional limits arise (for any court, regardless of instance, subject matter, or composition), one of which is given by:

ii.- the transcendence of legal argumentation in the adopted decision. In justice systems of Romano-Germanic or Continental-European accent, such as ours —as opposed to the rules existing in other legal systems, such as Anglo-Saxon, indigenous, etc., for, contrary to what we tend to normalize, the one we use is not the only valid legal system— this topic is what marks the validity of some reasonings over others (without prejudice to limits, which must also be in the regulations, to avoid eternal discussions). In other words: a dissenting opinion may be better structured than a majority one, which may present defects that invalidate it, in which case the matter can be annulled so that the integral resolution can be constructed anew. Likewise, a decision of a trial-level body may be more convincing and reasonable ("more closely adhering to the rules of law") than one from a higher-grade body, a situation in which, although the latter prevails for legal certainty, its signatories assume responsibility before the citizenry and exempt the other body from it. Legal argumentation is embedded in all work with the Law: from its creation (legislative) to its application (judicial). So, if we were to take an "overview" of our legal systems (in general), we could indicate, broadly, that they are characterized because, in designing them:

ii.a)- legislation must be based on a constitutional framework that provides for the existence of a State, that is, a third party that —in exercise of the sovereign power given to it in that founding document (Political Constitution) recognized as valid— will resolve, even coercively, the conflicts of its population located in its territory. Therefore, it is improper, in this context, to refer to "citizenry" (as mentioned several times in the prosecutorial response submission), for this condition is only held by nationals of a certain age and in exercise of their political rights, while the resolution of conflicts also involves foreign persons, minors, or even those politically disenfranchised. Likewise, that foundational norm, and in its very text, is given a dogmatic value that others cannot contradict, and from that constitutional supremacy, a hierarchy of sources of law is broken down, where lower-ranked rules cannot contradict those of a higher rank. This will be important to return to when analyzing, for example, whether ketamine is a prohibited drug at this time in the country, or whether what case law says the law contains prevails over the text of the law, according to the hermeneutical rules usable in that matter. That Constitutional State, moreover, was defined, in current Article 1, as Democratic, that is, there is decision-making by majorities, whether simple or absolute (which, as stated, is also incorporated into the decision-making systems of collegiate courts), but where minorities, by that position alone, do not lose the dignity inherent to their condition as human beings nor renounce their fundamental rights, but are protected by a host of international instruments, signed and ratified by the country, which, by national decision (article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and votes number 282-90, 3435-92, 2315-93, 2313-95, 1319-97, 4356-98, and 6830-98 of the Constitutional Chamber), are incorporated into domestic law and predominate over lower-ranking regulations. Likewise, that qualifier implies a commitment to reinforced protection of liberty, in its multiple manifestations (personal, movement, thought, expression, association, assembly, economic, worship, academic, etc.) and to individual guarantees, which include the rules of adjudication in accordance with due process. That Democratic and Constitutional State is, also, a State of Rule of Law and Republican, that is, where those who hold power (both factual and institutionalized) subject themselves to pre-existing legal rules in which a design of checks and balances is established, with defined functions, and where, in the Costa Rican case, as a result of the conflict of the 1940s, to the three classical powers (Executive, Judicial, and Legislative), other controlling bodies were incorporated (the Electoral Power, reinforced autonomies of some institutions, the Comptroller General of the Republic, etc.). As can be seen, the constitutional qualifiers of the Costa Rican "State" are many more than those enumerated by the prosecutor in their response, and their expression according to which "Our liberal, democratic, and republican State tolerates (does not legitimize) someone transporting…" is not entirely accurate, for precisely in consideration of the principle of autonomy of will (constitutional article 28) and those other characteristics of the political regime, liberty becomes the rule (giving sustenance to the constitutional principles pro libertatis and pro persona) and prohibition is the exception (hence the definition of Criminal Law as a 'discontinuous order of wrongfulness,' because continuity is provided by liberty). Therefore, it is not that the State tolerates liberty (that which is not prohibited) but that it empowers it, and this is the essence of the system. Everything not prohibited is legitimized by the principle of liberty. As will be set forth below, the judge must analyze whether the legal rules (both formal or procedural and substantial or substantive) they apply conform to that model, or if, for example, in the definition of the content of what is criminally prohibited, that scheme is violated or not.

ii.b) Adjudication must be based on legitimate, current, and valid rules (as stated above). In substantive law, it is a matter of applying the methods of interpretation (grammatical or restrictive, historical, teleological, systematic, analogical, genealogical, logical…) appropriate to each sub-discipline, as well as the general principles of law (e.g.: later law repeals earlier law; special law prevails over general law) and the rules of validity in time, space, and person. For criminal matters, procedurally, regarding evidentiary valuation and the determination of the historical event that occurred (and as a principle increasingly extended to other matters), the starting point is a system of freedom of proof where, as a general rule (with its regulated exceptions), any fact can be proven by any legitimate means of proof (article 182 of the Procedural Criminal Code). This introduces the system of free evaluation of evidence or sound criticism (in contrast to systems based on legal or appraised proof or on conscience or intimate conviction), where other areas of human knowledge play a fundamental role, such as social sciences, within which psychology is highly relevant for the valuation of statements and human behavior; formal sciences for effecting a logical explanatory argumentation, derived from the evidence and not merely speculative —although this does not mean that clues with amphibological meaning are admissible as evidence, topics that must not be confused—, complete (that is, without pretermission of evidence or arguments), and non-contradictory. Also found are the "hard" sciences (for extracting principles of physics in the dynamics of events, knowledge of ballistics, the human body, Forensic Medicine, criminalistics, etc.). On multiple occasions, this same panel has insisted that the notions of freedom of proof and sound criticism do not constitute letters of marque with which to disguise the subjectivity or arbitrariness of the decision-makers or the parties arguing in favor of their theses. Rather, contemporary procedural dogmatics specifies a series of criteria —valid as of this date according to the current state of human knowledge— for deciding which means or element of evidence prevails over another, if several complement or exclude each other, which version is acceptable and which is not, etc. Thus, it has been stated that:

«…in the mission of objectifying the level of verifiability of the information introduced into a trial, among which are mentioned (i) some related to the declarant person themselves, emphasizing the absence of subjective incredibility, that is, that without entering into a minute analysis of the account, objectively there are no reasons to consider that the version is issued for spurious motives to unduly blame or exculpate someone deliberately for the obtainment of procedural, economic, or personal benefits (e.g.: persons convicted for false testimony; documents alluding to payment for benefits, allegations of vengeance, obedience, physical incapacity to see or hear and make references of this type, etc.). Here it is necessary to attend to the characteristics of the personality of the declarant, fundamentally their mental development and maturity and (ii) others alluding to the content of what is narrated that include verifying the following: (a) Coherence of the account: the structure of the declaration is analyzed to verify if it possesses internal contradictions in its own current discursive thread or with the rest of the evidence and to rule out that the version is absolutely fanciful or incredible, and that there is persistence in the incrimination and its details over time. (b) Contextualization of the declaration: in such a way that allows inferring temporal, environmental, and spatial circumstances in which the narrated events occurred, for mental perception does not usually concentrate on a single topic but rather captures the whole. (c) Peripheral corroborations with objective data: that is, it concerns the possibility that even secondary topics find support in other means or elements of evidence that give them verisimilitude or that confirm some extremes. (d) Appearance of opportunistic details in the declaration: this allows focusing on how, through interrogation even on minor topics, new details can appear that allow confirming or falsifying the declaration and exercising better control over its logicality and completeness. A detailed analysis of these factors allows discarding the assumption of decisions made in intimate conviction, disguised with analytical language, in the style of sketching a series of words (credible, reliable, truthful, etc.) but without giving them content. However, it is not enough that any one of them is present for the evidence to be, ipso facto, disqualified, but rather it obliges one to be more scrupulous in the examination (…) it seems to require exactness in declarations to give them credibility, forgetting that the lack of it is not necessarily a sign of mendacity, for each person narrates the events according to the cognitive, cultural, linguistic, and memory development they have. It is known that the capacity to understand, verbalize, and reproduce events varies in each human being, and to understand it, the psychology of testimony has emerged (a branch of psychology that, like all science, is in constant evolution and is not static), which has dealt, among other things, with explaining the functionality of memory, describing how three elements converge in the recollection of events: sensory memory (which depends on the perception the declarant has and which, in turn, is influenced by factors such as their visualization, listening, and attention capacity, the visual level at which they find themselves, distance, luminosity, duration of the event, age of the perceiving person, their emotional state, etc.), short-term memory (which encodes and decodes the information transmitted by sensory memory, whether visually, spatially, or verbally, and gives meaning to what is perceived by the senses), and long-term memory (which uses two sources: semantic memory, which recovers general cognitive knowledge according to space and time coordinates of the learner, and autobiographical or episodic memory, which stores our experiences in the form of "mnemic traces." However, those memory traces do not remain intact but are gradually modified by various factors. One of them is degradation over time regarding details less consistent with the general scheme; another factor has to do with the process of recodification of the original information, which occurs due to higher mental activities of the human being [Cf. Ferrer, Francisco; Dieuzide, María (2018). Psychology of testimony: the seven sins of memory in witnesses and victims. Revista Pensamiento Penal, Argentina and Atkinnson, R. and Shiffrin, R. (1983) Human memory. A proposed system and its control processes. In: K. W. Spence and J.T. spence (eds.). The psychology of learning and motivation: advances is research and theory. New York: Academic press (trad. cast. In M.V. Sebastián, comp. Readings in the psychology of memory, Alianza Universidad)]. By virtue of the foregoing, a story that constantly changes, denoting the absence of a core that has left an imprint on the memory, can be just as suspicious as a version that remains invariable over time, even in the smallest details (which is contrary to the gradation of the mnemic trace due to the insignificance of what was captured). In fact, many of the arguments of the professional challenging the decision stem from this bias, for they question and qualify as anomalous (when it is not necessarily so) that there have been variations or omissions in the account between the moment of the complaint and the declaration at trial, without such conduct being irregular, according to specialized literature, but rather it tends to be common, not necessarily due only to the passage of time and maturity of persons but, above all, due to the therapeutic and empowerment process that a person has undergone to remember without 'blockages' and without pain, especially in the face of traumatic or violent events such as those described in this case…» San José Criminal Sentence Appeals Court, vote number 452-2024.

Neurosciences and the study of phenomena of attention, perception, orientation, and memory provide greater inputs for better evaluating certain means of proof. Likewise, there are certain disorders that affect memory (such as amnesia in its various types: retrograde, anterograde, lacunar, dissociative, or global, which is a loss of memories, facts, information, and experiences; paramnesia, or the experience of delusions as memories; cryptomnesia, or implicit memory that considers an idea original when it is an induced or prior thought product of the environment; and ecmnesia, in which there is an experience of past situations as if they were current) which, therefore, introduce distortions into the information obtained in a process. Further on, when we descend to the specific case, we will see why this conceptual framework is relevant.

ii.c) Finally, one must decide based on the rules of sound criticism (briefly enunciated above), but the decision must be reasoned following the rules of language, both of the official language to be used and of the legal sub-language, using legal terms correctly so as not to generate semantic confusions regarding the meanings of words, which, in each discipline, have a specific meaning (for this reason, we insist, purely for illustrative purposes, on the difference between plazo-término [time limit-term], caducidad-prescripción [lapse-statute of limitations], vulva-vagina, among many other concepts that are, not infrequently, used interchangeably and erroneously). On not a few occasions, the decision adopted by a court is correct (for example, who is believed, which evidence prevails over another, what happened, who did it), but the explanation of that decision is flawed. In that labor of making a decision explicit, logic is fundamental, a sub-discipline derived from philosophy that leads us to banish paralogisms or argumentative fallacies, both formal —which generate an invalid inference between the premises and give rise to an error that rests on the structure of the argument, among which are enumerated: denial of the antecedent, which uses a conditional, and when the first element is denied, it is incorrectly inferred that the second is also denied ("if I give him a gift, he will be my friend; if I do not give him a gift, he will not be my friend"); affirmation of the consequent, which also starts from a conditional but affirms the second element, and from this it is incorrectly inferred that the first is true ("If I pass, I'll uncork the champagne; I uncorked the champagne, therefore I passed"); undistributed middle or fallacious disjunctive syllogism, where the central element of the syllogism that connects two propositions does not appear in the conclusion ("Every Frenchman is European, some Russian is European, therefore some Russian is Frenchman"); fallacious negation of the conjunction occurs when a phenomenon does not occur as a result of a set of elements, and therefore one of those elements is denied ("A good cake requires flour and eggs; the cake did not turn out well, therefore no flour was added"); categorical syllogism with negative premises, where both premises are negative and nothing can be validly concluded from them ("No mammal has feathers; no mouse has feathers; ergo, no mammal is a mouse"); fallacy of four terms, where one of the terms has two meanings and the syllogism relies on only three elements for its validity ("Man is the only animal capable of creating the wheel; woman is not a man; woman cannot create a wheel"); fallacy of illicit conversion, in which the relationship of the terms of a proposition is incorrectly inverted ("All dogs are mammals, therefore, all mammals are dogs"); the existential premise fallacy, in which conclusions about the existence of something are drawn from universal propositions, without premises that justify it ("Dragons breathe fire. Ergo, dragons exist"); or the affirmation of a false disjunct or excluding alternative ("It is A or B; if it is B, it is not A")— as well as informal fallacies. In the latter, the reasoning error is based on the content of the premises, not on the structure of the argument. Examples are numerous, so, without prejudice to delving deeper later into some applicable to the specific case, only some informal fallacies will be mentioned:

*ad populum or populist sophism (the validity of the information is based on the number of people who support the premise); *ad ignorantiam (since it cannot be demonstrated that the idea is false, it is accepted as true). Within this category is the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion or ignoratio elenchi, in which, often intentionally, to distract attention, one seeks to prove the wrong point that is not related to the topic at hand; *ad hominem (the message is discredited by attacking the sender for some of their personal characteristics); *ad baculum (the structure of an argument is sustained by resorting to imposition, threat, or violence to persuade); *ad antiquitatem (traditions are resorted to as a basic guide for proceeding in daily life); *ad novitatem (newness is resorted to as support for truthfulness); *ad nauseam (repeating the same idea enough times to make it real for the interlocutor); *ad misericordiam (pity or mercy is resorted to in order to reinforce the suitability of what is sought to be achieved); *ad crumenam and ad lazarum (in the first case, truthfulness is attributed to the argument because the person using it is rich, and in the second, because they are poor); *fallacy of ambiguity or antanaclasis, which are subdivided into: equivocation, based on the different meanings of a term; amphibology, in a sense similar to the previous but the confusion arises from the premises of the sentence and not from the content of the words; emphasis, accent, or phonetic ambiguity, in which the erroneous understanding of the message arises from an error in intonation; composition, in which the whole is of the same nature as the parts, such as "the lemon is acidic, the cake is lemon, the cake is acidic"; and division, which attributes what is true for the set to be true for the parts, such as "University A is excellent; Juan is from University A, Juan is excellent"; *ad verecundiam or appeal to authority (the truthfulness of the proposition is linked to the authority of the person defending it); *ad consequentiam (the validity or not of an idea depends on whether what can be inferred from it is desirable or not); *hasty generalization (general conclusions are drawn from insufficient individual data to extrapolate them); *incomplete or anecdotal evidence (conclusions are reached from low-quality information); *straw "man" fallacy (the idea is not refuted following the presented line of argument, but with a different argument: "we want young people to read literature; in other words, you want young people to stop doing sports"); *fallacy of composition (if something is true as a whole, it is assumed that everything within that whole is true: "within the universe, every phenomenon has a cause, ergo, the universe has a cause"); *fallacy of the middle ground, moderation, or compromise (an equidistant posture between two conflicting positions is adopted without considering whether any of the conflicting premises is of greater value than the other); *tu quoque fallacy: the illusion of refuting an argument is created by pointing out that the person proposing it does not act in accordance with that idea; and, *post hoc ergo propter hoc (if one event happens after another, it is assumed that the latter is a consequence of the former: "the dollar fell and the volcano erupted, ergo, the volcano erupted because the dollar fell")— [for an extensive development of this topic, cf. Arroyo Gutiérrez, José Manuel and Rodríguez Campos, Alexander (2002). Legal Logic and Reasoning of the Criminal Sentence. Judicial School, San José, Costa Rica].

Correct human understanding also integrates experience (which must not be confused with the private knowledge of the court, which, if used, generates an error by making it impossible for the parties to counter the information derived therefrom) and elementary psychology. While logic, from philosophy, provides the analytical toolkit of fallacies, psychology, from the social sciences, ventures into cognitive biases or heuristics that, roughly, can be conceptualized as mental shortcuts in decision-making to economize resources and guarantee efficiency or survival, but which generate distortions of information and reasoning. Although, in some cases, there is similarity in the names and effects of formal or informal fallacies and some cognitive biases or heuristics, these reasoning vices arise at different moments. The latter appear in the immediate perception or action of persons, the former in the more thoughtful and mediatized exposition of ideas. Thus, when the persons who make up a court make immediate decisions, in the heat of the circumstances, and present their ideas verbally, as happens in the delivery of oral sentences, it is more probable that biases are identified, whereas if they present them in more detailed writing, the probability leads to identifying fallacies. However, the lines can cross and one does not exclude the other. The list of cognitive biases or heuristics is enormous, but among the most common can be found:

*confirmation bias (this is the tendency to find and remember information that confirms our opinions or perceptions, topics now amplified by social media algorithms); *anchoring bias (relying too heavily on the first piece of information offered when making decisions); *survival bias (an error is incurred in the selection of objects, persons, or data by relying only on success cases and omitting the negative ones where the key to the explanation may lie); *retrospective bias (tendency to reconstruct the past to make it compatible with current knowledge and forgetting the limitations of the earlier time) and idyllic retrospect (judging the past in a disproportionately positive way compared to the present, in the style of "everything past was better"); *correspondence bias, attribution error, or over-attribution effect (overvaluing internal motives when trying to explain a phenomenon or behavior, setting aside or undervaluing external motives).

Other people are judged by their personality, but each of us judges ourselves by the situation); * in-group favoritism (preference is shown and favor is given to those who belong to the same group, compared to those outside it, which in our environments is often linked to citing pronouncements from our own offices and not others); * the bandwagon effect (the tendency of people to adopt beliefs, behaviors, or attitudes simply because a large number of people think or assume such behavior or belief, for example, recently, the effect on social media of making Studio Ghibli-style images without analyzing its effects on the delivery of facial recognition data, the environment, or employment); * false consensus (the tendency to think that many people think similarly to how each person does, a topic exploited by social media with its algorithms that generate "bubbles" of affinities); * the just-world hypothesis (starts from the premise that people get what they deserve: just people will receive good things and bad people, bad things; it is a self-esteem protection tendency); * the Dunning-Kruger effect (people with limited abilities in certain fields, because of those limitations, overestimate their ability and performance as they cannot visualize their shortcomings); * tachypsychia (takes its name from the symptom of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder related to the acceleration of thought, but it concerns the distortion we human beings sometimes have regarding the passage of time); * the curse of knowledge (a person, in the communicative process, assumes that the interlocutor possesses the same information and can understand what is being explained, which is shown, in this matter, when the private defender, in convoluted phrases transcribed when summarizing their argument, does not adequately explain what happened with the police officer's version in the two trials and presumes that this court has the same data, which, then, made what they initially indicated unintelligible, which was clarified upon descending to examine the historical records of this case); * the halo effect (our impression or assessment of a person, idea, or object arises from the way a property of that person, idea, or object is valued. If something positive or negative emerges at first glance about the person or situation, one tends to extend that to the rest); * availability (the tendency of human beings to judge the frequency or availability of an event by the ease of thinking of examples of that situation. The determining factor is the ease of imagination or memory that extends to other aspects: if an aviation accident has recently occurred, one tends to think that traveling by plane is more dangerous than by car, for example, since that was the available memory in the mind); * the availability cascade (given the psychological need for social acceptance, collective beliefs end up being accepted through public repetition, a phenomenon exploited by computer bots on social media); * naive realism (the tendency to believe that other people are irrational or uninformed, but we observe the situation objectively, very typical of litigation that emphasizes the arguments it deems "correct" without evidencing others that underlie or are not wanted to be seen); * the third-person effect (such as considering that it is others, and not us, who are affected by the subliminal biases of communicational processes); * blind spot bias (believing that one does not have prejudices, but others do); * disconfirmation bias (carrying out critical scrutiny of information when it contradicts what one believes but not doing so if the information is congruent with one's own beliefs); * the Forer effect (making vague attributions or descriptions that can be applied to many situations, as in astrology, graphology, or divination, or like when courts copy "templates" of what the legal reasoning is but do not actually do it, or the litigants say how the decision should be but do not critique the specifically given argumentation); * automation bias (trusting excessively in automated processes, ignoring that they are fed by people or that the programming can fail. For example, the belief that Artificial Intelligence or ChatGPT is infallible; that automated justice will be better, etc.); * status quo bias (valuing more what remains stable, hence "jurisprudence" tends to have more value than a pronouncement that views the same phenomenon differently or anew); * the spotlight effect (the tendency to overestimate the number of people who notice one's appearance or behavior); * the Zeigarnik effect (remembering incomplete tasks and not those that have been completed); * cultural bias (interpreting phenomena based on the standards of one's own culture or universalizing them without ceasing to see their limited imprint); * self-serving bias (using ambiguous information as beneficial for our purposes); defensive attribution (the observing person attributes the causes of a phenomenon to a false cause to minimize their fear of being a victim or cause of something similar); * out-group homogeneity (people in one group see those in other groups as more similar to each other than to those in their own group. For example, in matters of line-up recognitions, when a subject is Indigenous, Afro-descendant, or Asian and the person recognizing does not belong to that group, the latter tends to see all those of those nationalities or belongings as having similar characteristics, thus the risk of error is greater, and vice versa); * authority bias (trusting information because an authority issues it); * placebo effect bias (a cognitive or perception error that makes effects attributable to causes that do not generate them); * Parkinson's law of triviality or bikeshedding (people tend to waste more time on trivial aspects, which is problematic when that generates frustration and not well-being); * the IKEA effect (giving greater value to a product just because the person has contributed to its creation) and (among hundreds more), the meta-bias (believing that we do not have biases but others do).

Stereotypes are also biases; they are simplified ideas that a group has about the reality or identity characteristics of other people (nationality, ethnicity, sex, gender, age, religion, etc.) derived from the cultural matrix in which one is inserted and which, therefore, makes it impossible to see other realities or characteristics and are assumed as the only valid ones, generating a hierarchy between what shares my stereotype (with greater value) and what does not (which becomes an outcast 'other'). For example, starting from the premise that our system of judging is the only valid one (a very widespread idea in the West) is a stereotype, as is considering that language is objective or neutral and, therefore, refusing to use inclusive language for different populations, ignoring that official idiomatic rules arise or emanate from organs of power with certain culturally assumed characteristics and minimizing the importance of a normative, conventional system (hierarchically superior to idiomatic rules), which obliges state organs to banish discriminatory expressions contained in the official structures of the lexicon— [for a broad development of the topic of cognitive biases, which usually goes unnoticed in our environment, cf. Porter Aguilar, Raymond (2024). Legal Reasoning and Argumentation. Anthology. Judicial School, FIAJ, San José, Costa Rica].

It is now understood that the preceding diatribe seeks to avoid the bias of the "curse of knowledge," according to which it is assumed that all legal operators start from the same conceptual bases and make use of the same reasoning tools, when this is not necessarily the case.

So, to close the initial idea, if jurisdiction is one and it is expressed argumentatively, the persuasive value of a reasoning will be given no longer by simple numerical issues (majority or minority vote) or hierarchical issues (role of the organs) but by the greater rigor that is had both when examining the evidence, extracting the relevant data from it and using the legal, procedural, and substantive rules for the scrutiny of the factual and legal data that must be applied, as well as when presenting that process. Of course, as already stated, in the interest of legal certainty, the legislator can stipulate, and frequently does, normative limits (such as endowing the decision of a body at the apex with indisputable value; regulating the double instance conformity, formal and material res judicata, etc.) all in an effort to avoid endless discussions and settle the controversy. Although this is valid, the content of the argumentation, if it does not comply with those rules, cannot be extrapolated to other cases. Therefore, it is affirmed, bluntly, that in a democratic legal system, it is argumentative rectitude under those parameters, and not fallacies or biases, that must predominate. The third element to highlight is, iii.- the importance of an adequate architectural-legislative design of the judicial system to enhance reason and not authority: developing this topic exceeds the pretensions of this decision, but it suffices to exemplify with two situations that can be observed in this case regarding how an inadequate normative design of the judicial architecture can ruin argumentative efforts, and with it, the value of jurisdictionality. The first example is when common legislation grants power to a body to impose its factual reasoning and interpretation of the law on all other judges (who, like that body, develop jurisdictionality under equal conditions). In such cases, a principle that, in the hierarchy of norms stipulated in the Political Constitution and in human rights treaties, prevails, namely judicial independence, would be violated. Hence, this type of regulation is only valid if incorporated into constitutional and conventional law. Therefore, in Costa Rica, provisions that make the arguments of constitutional or international courts binding for all cases would not be unconstitutional, as this is permitted by higher-ranking norms such as, respectively, Article 13 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction —a law of reinforced value, derived from constitutional provision 10— and provision 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in relation to the value of supreme interpreter that each convention stipulates for certain bodies. However, provisions established in common laws or regulations that intend to impose the criteria of one on the other bodies endowed with jurisdictionality (a constitutional principle) beyond the specific case (since, for this, the matter of hierarchy and constitutional suitability that it implies prevails, in addition to the legal certainty already referred to) would be contrary to the supreme norm. For this reason, this court descends to the various arguments set forth in votes (both from other appellate courts and from the Third Chamber) and does not assume them, as the prosecutor intends, as unquestionable arguments (which is an authority fallacy), even though the Code of Criminal Procedure (an ordinary law) has alluded to the intention of unifying criteria (Article 468, subsection a), given that this regulatory body cannot contradict one of greater value. The second relevant situation, resulting from what has been said, is that this equal value of jurisdictional criteria has been the underlying historical reason for courts to be formed with an odd number of members: if they were even and the criteria of their members were divided in half, since all votes have the same value and the quantitative issue cannot be used, the decision would be impossible. For this same reason, historically as well, the higher body in degree has usually been composed of a greater number of members compared to the lower degree: to avoid ties in total jurisdictional criteria. For example, consider the case where a trial court resolves, by majority, in one direction and one judge considers another. That arrives on appeal to a collegiate court composed of the same number of people as the lower court and there the decision is again divided, but now in the opposite direction (the majority of the higher court is of the criteria of the dissenting trial judge and the one who saved their vote on appeal coincides with the majority of the lower court). In such a case, there would technically be three votes in favor of one thesis and three against. If the jurisdiction exercised by each judge has the same value, there would be a technical tie that can only be resolved by resorting to extra-argumentative solutions, that is, hierarchical or authority-based, which is to say that the criteria of some are worth more than others, a topic in which the democratic-argumentative design deteriorates. Regrettably, this is the criminal procedural system that the country has had for quite some time, as a result of the reforms that have been carried out with the manifest discourse of addressing the country's conviction in the case of Mauricio Herrera Ulloa (judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of July 2, 2014): a collegiate court of three people at trial can decide in a divided manner and the appeal corresponds to a superior in degree composed of the same number of judges. The same occurs in single-judge criminal resolutions regarding the judge of minor offenses and in the case of a criminal judge versus a trial judge. Despite this structural flaw, given that it is the legally designed system and this body is governed by the principle of procedural legality, it must abide by it, but the above is presented only as evidence of the implications this can have on argumentative quality and the principle of jurisdictionality.

Nor does it mean that this is what has occurred in the present case. Although to date four judges (three from the first annulled decision and the dissenter in the vote under review) have considered that the defendants should be acquitted, and five (three from the previous appeal, because they found errors in the construction of the decision, and two from the trial court in the judgment now appealed, because they are convinced of guilt) have considered that acquittal is not appropriate, it remains for this chamber to make the determination based on a new analysis. While theoretically this "argumentative tie" could happen (in the event that the vote of this court were divided and the majority joined the criteria of the other four judges and the dissenting vote joined that of the other five, in which case it would be 6-6) and then the decision that prevails would be the latter, regardless of its rationality, the truth is that this panel will try to evidence the argumentative errors, both in the majority and minority votes and in the arguments of the parties, so as to generate a unanimous conviction judgment. It is worth concluding by saying that, although fallacies and biases in the reasoning of other procedural subjects will be exposed, that does not mean, in any way, that this same argumentation does not contain them, without our realizing it, despite the extreme care taken not to incur them, a task that falls to the parties to evidence.

(C) The specific case examined in light of the said instrument. If one starts, then, from strictly applying the argumentative-legal rules, which is what the regulations require of legal professionals, a series of affirmations (contained in the majority criteria, minority, and in the arguments of the parties) that incorporate legal or conceptual inaccuracies or start from fallacies and biases can be dismantled, and actions or omissions that are not sufficiently explained in legal matters can be evidenced. Let us see:

C.1 First, legally, the principle of impartiality (Article 39 of the Political Constitution) of the deciding court must be respected since this is part of due process (Sala Constitucional vote number 1739-92). This is part of the Rule of Law and the Constitutional State. Therefore, it has been sustained (since the Inter-American Court of Human Rights vote in the Mauricio Herrera case referenced above) that the court that issues a criterion on the criminal probability for the purposes of issuing pretrial detention cannot form part of the deciding body because, in such a case, it has already advanced a criterion, even at a probability level, regarding the accused's involvement (in this regard, one may consult, among many others, Sala Constitucional resolution number 7531-1997 reiterated in resolution 2006-17737). It should be remembered that said precautionary measure requires not only probability of commission of the act but also a procedural danger. In this case, it is recorded that Judge Shirley Mayorga Espinoza (who formed part of the majority of the deciding body) ordered the pretrial detention of [Name 009] (according to resolution 184-2025-B at 14:37 hours on January 27, 2025, which is recorded in the minute visible on folio 574 of volume II and in the audiovisual file that was sent by the trial court at the express request of this court, since it was not in the official records). That decision was issued in the framework of a severance of documents that had been carried out against said accused for their failure to appear at a previous debate, but later, the same current panel of the deciding body annulled what they themselves had previously carried out regarding the other defendant (the debate against him was underway although no evidence had yet been received and was suspended, within the legal term, awaiting the officer's appearance), re-joined the cases, and restarted the debate against both. Originally, the audiovisual file of that proceeding, as stated, was not located in the digital case file of this case, nor in the annexes of the physical file, and it was necessary to request it from the deciding body, which evidences the procedural disorder of this matter, of which severances of documents, de-accumulations due to default, new accumulations due to the appearance of the defaulter, annulments of the ongoing debate, and repetition and changes of foliation give account. From the analysis of the content of said hearing, it can be deduced that the judge based the probability required by the precautionary measure (provisions 239 and 243 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) on the fact that it was a remand and, therefore, there was an accusation, thereby avoiding making the jurisdictional analysis of the probable involvement of the accused or the evidentiary sufficiency and transferred it to the prosecuting party. It must be taken into account that in the flagrancy process there is, formally, no committal for trial order issued by a different jurisdictional authority that allows one to avoid that descent to the facts of the specific case that is constitutionally required (Articles 422 to 429 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and 37 of the Political Constitution), so any issuance of precautionary measures in flagrancy must examine the requirements thereof, which was not done. Although, in this way, the judge avoided advancing criteria on the merits of the matter in order to be able to form part of the deciding body (she herself indicated, in that hearing, that there was another similar initiated process that had been annulled to accumulate it with this one), she thereby evaded part of the control pertinent to the precautionary measures. In any case, for transparency, she should have expressly warned the parties, at the beginning of the debate, of that intervention, to avoid suspicions and enable them to exercise possible recusals in order to better protect the principle of impartiality. Although she did not do so and, in principle, it is verified, ex officio, that there was no advancement of criteria that affects her intervention in the trial or generates an absolute defect (Article 178 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), it is convenient to evidence the impropriety of these practices so that, in future cases, they are not incurred.

C.2 Secondly, it is not legally correct to maintain —as the majority vote and the prosecutor before this court do— that the only two drug transports permitted by the legal system are those carried out for purposes of personal use or in compliance with the legal duty of the police when the latter makes seizures. To subsume a conduct under the respective criminal offense, the scope of that offense must be determined. As is well known, there is a difference between an article, an offense type, and criminality since a single article can contain many offense types (sanctioned conducts that are structured with a subject, a verb, and conditions of manner) and the judgment of criminality involves, in addition to the scrutiny of the objective elements, that of the subjective elements (intent, fault, or preterintentionality) which, in most cases, are not expressly contemplated in the offense types but are extracted (starting from a systematic but restrictive interpretation) from the rest of the criminal norms, in this case, from the general part of the Penal Code, which starts from the premise that the rule is intent and for there to be fault there must be an express indication (numerus clausus system: Articles 30 and 31 of the Penal Code). In the specific case, the parties have invoked provision 58 of Law No. 8204, called Law on Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances, Drugs of Unauthorized Use, Related Activities, Money Laundering, and Financing of Terrorism (hereinafter abbreviated as the "Law on Psychotropic Drugs"), which provides: "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization, distributes, trades, supplies, manufactures, elaborates, refines, transforms, extracts, prepares, cultivates, produces, transports, stores, or sells the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law, or cultivates the plants from which such substances or products are obtained." Then, a single article contains 15 offense types (which are actually 14 because, as will be seen, "to cultivate" is provided for twice), since the relationships of the initial and final elements must be made with each verb. Thus, the resulting offense types would be:

* "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization, distributes (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), trades (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), supplies (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), manufactures (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), elaborates (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), refines (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), transforms (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), extracts (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), prepares (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), cultivates (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), produces (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), transports (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), stores (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), sells (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added). * "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization, (...) cultivates the plants from which such substances or products are obtained." (emphasis added).

Note that, already from the legislative technique, a first error is palpable, not only because of the number of conducts but because "cultivation" is mentioned twice: both in the initial list of verbs and in the final phrase of the article.

Of interest for our purposes is the fourth offense type (starting the count from back to front in the list made), which, at the risk of it being tiresome to quote it again, is necessary to have it at a glance when breaking it down into its elements: "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (...), transports (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." If one makes the "taxonomy" of this last offense type following the parameters given by substantive criminal dogmatics (which is important for extracting various consequences in the Theory of the Crime as in topics of co-authorship, participation, etc.), it can be classified as an offense type that, by its severity, is a felony (it is not a crime or a minor offense); by the modalities of action, it is an action offense (it does not admit commission by omission as it is not a result offense according to the stipulations that, for Costa Rica, provision 18 of the Penal Code collects); by the active subject, it is a common offense, since any person can fit their conduct there, even if they have addiction problems, since this topic is not relevant for criminality purposes, although it may be for other topics within other segments of the Theory of the Crime or for topics related to procedural matters (evidence assessment); by the relationship between action and object (or modality of the objective part), it is one of mere activity or pure action (all abstract danger offenses are located there; as opposed to result offenses. By the same offense type construction, that danger is assumed and does not need to be proven, although this does not entirely eliminate some discussions about harmfulness typical of material unlawfulness); by the form of consummation, it is an instantaneous offense (the action is consummated in a single moment, as opposed to state offenses or permanent offenses); according to the relationship of the objective and subjective part of the offense type, it is a congruent offense type (as opposed to incongruent offense types, either due to an excess of the objective type —such as those based on fault or preterintentionality— or due to an excess of the subjective type —such as attempt, cut-off result offenses, two-act mutilated offenses, or those of intensified internal tendency, this last reason why, indeed, the court is correct in that no additional element to intent is required, no further purpose, although from this it does not follow the consequences that the majority of the court intends to derive, as will be seen later); by the protected legal interest, it intends to protect public health; according to the number of actions, it is an offense type of a simple or elementary action (as opposed to offense types constructed by the legislator as having multiple actions, which includes compound offense types —with their subclassification of two-act mutilated, mixed, complex offenses, and those of transcendent internal tendency, a characteristic that the one at hand does not have—, continued offenses, and mixed alternative offense types) since, indeed, to transport is to move between two points, although, as will be seen, the intended consequences do not follow from this since they are aspects of a different order; according to the procedural form, they are offenses subject to public prosecution (Article 17 of the Code of Criminal Procedure); following other classifications, it is ruled out that the one at hand is an expression offense, nor a breach of duty offense, nor is it one of determined means, and it is an autonomous offense (not a relational offense, connection offense, or link offense as money laundering is) and, finally and perhaps more relevant for these purposes, following the structure of the offense type, it is an open offense type since, to appropriate the prohibited conduct, it is not enough to read that provision, but the conduct must be completed by referring to other provisions.

Indeed, the criminal offense includes normative elements, specifically of a legal nature:

(i) on the one hand, it mentions “without legal authorization (sin autorización legal)”. This phrase in the construction of criminal offenses is problematic and discouraged in proper legislative technique, because it introduces, as an element of the offense, a matter that should pertain to unlawfulness. In principle, all typical conduct only becomes a crime if, in addition to that typicality, there are no permissions or justification causes that justify it within the rest of the Legal System. Therefore, in all cases it will always be necessary, by virtue of the Theory of Crime, to carry out, after the analysis of objective typicality (and the others that apply), the examination of formal unlawfulness. However, when the criminal offense introduces this type of phrases, it elevates to the rank of an element of the offense issues and problems that, in the Theory of Crime, were analyzable but at other levels, generating a problem of specialty: if something is within typicality, it must be analyzed there first and, therefore, the general rules of the Criminal Code (which would treat it in other segments of the Theory of Crime) are displaced by the rule of typicality that demands its primary analysis. The aphorism, proper to arithmetic and specifically to multiplication, which is the commutative property according to which the order of the factors does not affect the product, does not apply here. In these cases, the order in which a topic is approached does affect the final result because, incorporated into objective typicality, an error about this element becomes an error of fact (error de tipo) and ceases to be an indirect error of prohibition (error de prohibición indirecto), as treated in dogmatics, with disparate consequences, on which it is not necessary to elaborate further than citing what has already been indicated by this same chamber in vote number 2024-452, taking up previous criteria from other compositions:

«…in certain types of crimes, where the criminal offense was constructed in such a way that in that description the legislator introduced aspects such as "illicitly (ilícitamente), illegitimately (ilegítimamente)" or similar, there may be discussion about the nature of the error that falls on that specific element. This has been determined by this Court, with a composition partially similar to the current one but which is shared here, when indicating: "Regarding the nature of the invoked error. In principle, there is no major confusion when defining the error of fact (error de tipo) as the one that falls on the objective elements of the criminal offense, nor when referring to the error of prohibition (error de prohibición) as the one that occurs both when the agent is unaware of the rule, considers it not in force, or interprets it incorrectly (direct) and when they are mistaken about the existence or limits of justifications (error of permission or indirect error of prohibition). Although there is an important discussion regarding the nature and manner in which, in Costa Rica, the error regarding the factual circumstances of a cause of justification or error of type permission (error de tipo permiso) should be treated (...), the truth is that this issue is not relevant to define this matter, so it will be bypassed. What is necessary, however, is to determine the nature of the error involved when the criminal offense is constructed in such a way that, in its objective elements, it introduces terms such as "illicitly (ilícitamente)", "illegitimately (ilegítimamente)", "illegally (ilegalmente)", "unlawfully (antijurídicamente)", etc., because these terms become, then, normative elements of a legal nature which, by integrating the criminal offense, would eventually mean that the error alleged regarding them is no longer one of prohibition but of fact (error de tipo). On this matter, the doctrine states: ¬"...it was M.E. MAYER himself who realized the novelty that the normative elements of the offense 'discovered' by him generally posed; in short: despite being components of unlawfulness (antijuridicidad), as they do not cease to be elements of the offense, they would fall, for this author, under the rule of error regarding the circumstances of the fact (...) that is, they would require -contrary to unlawfulness (antijuridicidad)- to be encompassed by the intent (dolo) of the subject, since they would form part of the factual assumption on which the value judgment of unlawfulness (antijuridicidad) falls, so that the error regarding a normative element of the offense would be what we today call an error of fact (error de tipo), or if one prefers, with more neutral terminology, an error excluding intent (error excluyente del dolo)." DIAZ Y GARCÍA CONLLEDO, M. El error sobre elementos normativos del tipo penal. La Ley, 1st edition, Madrid, 2008, p. 42. Thus understood, the intent (dolo) of the active subject must also encompass that normative-legal element. The issue has been addressed by the jurisprudence of this Court, with compositions different from the current one, in the following terms: ¬"Section a- of Article 61 of the Forestry Law (Ley Forestal) (Number 7575) contains a normative element, such as the permit from the Forest Administration, meaning, in this case, that for the active subject to commit the crime, it is required that they have a permit (...) as the criminal figure is defined, the permit constitutes a normative element of the criminal offense, such that an error regarding its existence does constitute an error of fact (error de tipo) (Art. 34 of the criminal code); it is an error of type regarding law, a situation that introduces, eventually, confusion, because between this, excluding the criminal offense, and the error of prohibition (error de prohibición), excluding culpability, there exists a conceptual proximity (...) The normative elements of the offense, when they refer to legal requirements or concepts, have a close proximity to the categories that integrate the judgment of reproach for culpability, however, such proximity does not justify the confusion between one concept and another" Criminal Cassation Court, vote number 20031113 of 09:50 hrs. on October 31, 2003 (Cruz, Dall'Anese and Salazar)...." Criminal Cassation Court, vote number 20070358 of March 29, 2007 (Chirino, Morales and Gullock).» Criminal Cassation Court of San José (R. Chinchilla, E. Salinas and H. Sbravatti) vote number 2011-398. In the same sense from the same body, vote number 641-2010 (R. Chinchilla, U. Zúñiga and I. Estrada).

For the purposes that interest us here, the topic of error (of fact (error de tipo)) is not at stake, but rather the discussion, introduced by the majority reporting judge, the minority judge, and the prosecutor in their response, of whether another purpose is typically required in the criminal offense. The offense does not directly contemplate it. Certainly, this is not, as the majority reporting judge well stated and was already anticipated, a criminal offense of internal transcendent purpose (tipo penal de fin interno trascendente), nor does it contain subjective elements distinct from intent (dolo) where, for example, the profit motive or something similar is necessary in the active subject to configure the conduct. Here there is no such further subjective element, nor is anything else described objectively. However, that this is so does not mean, as might be lightly thought, that merely transporting drugs is sufficient for typicality, but rather that this transport must be “without legal authorization (sin autorización legal)”. That is to say, from one of the classification guidelines of the criminal offense, of the many that exist, it cannot be concluded that it is not necessary to verify the other classification rules (each with different purposes), nor can it be concluded that it is possible to obviate the scrutiny of other institutes proper to both the Theory of Crime and procedural law. Proceeding in that manner would be to incur the informal fallacy of irrelevant conclusion, because there is no relationship between the premises and the conclusion.

The expression “without legal authorization (sin autorización legal)” qualifies all the typical verbs broken down above and, to fill it with content, regarding transport, the entire legal system must be reviewed because, as happens with justification causes, these are not numerus clausus but apertus (because they favor freedom, as a constitutional value). For the reporting judge of the majority criterion, the only two transports of drugs permitted by the legal system (although initially he only mentioned one, later he expanded) are when the transfer is made for purposes of personal use (autoconsumo) or when carried out by judicial authorities in compliance with the legal duty of the police. This reasoning is partially correct, from the point of view of the elements of the offense because, although indeed, those are cases where the transport of drugs, by being done with legal authorization (autorización legal), ceases to be typical: in one case because it follows from the constitutional principle of autonomy of will —(Article 28 of the Constitution) developed by numeral 79 of the “Psychotropic Substances Law (Ley sobre Psicotrópicos)” No. 8204 insofar as it “only” provides for a security measure (which could be unconstitutional, since there is no prior unlawful act) for anyone who consumes drugs in public places— and, in the other, because it is regulated in the general clause of Article 25 of the Criminal Code, what is erroneous is to consider that they are “the only assumptions”. It is not correct to affirm that these are “the only” cases that exclude the illegality of the conduct, because it is not so. On the one hand, the regulatory evolution must be taken into account, where more recently it is possible to find cases of decriminalization of use (and therefore of transport) of drugs for various purposes. Regarding this, this chamber has already advanced, on other occasions and for similar discussions, the following:

«…although hypothetically the purposes of sale were referred only to possession and this was not related to the other verbs, the legal system must be interpreted as a whole, on the one hand and, on the other, in the theory of crime, the scrutiny of harmfulness is necessary, from which it is concluded that supplying, manufacturing, elaborating, transporting, or performing any of the other mentioned verbs for personal consumption is not a crime because that numeral 58 must be related to numeral 79 of the cited law which decriminalized personal consumption, and if the final conduct (more serious) is not a crime, the prior phases of the iter criminis cannot be either. On the other hand, none of these verbs is a crime either when they relate specifically to the substance of cannabis sativa and medicinal purposes are invoked (which are not in Law No. 8204 but in a later one). Note that, with the approval of the Law of cannabis for medicinal and therapeutic use and hemp for food and industrial use No. 10113, published on March 9, 2022, the panorama regarding the criminalization of said substance partially changed, as the cited law indicates: “ARTICLE 1- Purpose. The purpose of this law is: 1) To regulate and permit access to and use of cannabis and its derivatives exclusively for medicinal and therapeutic use, in order to guarantee the fundamental right to health of the entire Costa Rican population. 2) To authorize the production, industrialization, and commercialization of hemp for industrial and food use and psychoactive cannabis for exclusively medicinal and therapeutic purposes, and its derived products. 3) To promote economic and social development and the adequate distribution of wealth in the rural areas of our country, through the incentivization of the production, industrialization, and commercialization of hemp and psychoactive cannabis for exclusively medicinal and therapeutic purposes, and their derivative products; as well as the promotion of productive linkages that primarily benefit small agricultural producers” (the underlining is supplied).» Criminal Sentence Appeals Court of San José, vote number 541-2023 (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas and K. Jiménez; some highlights are from the original and others added).

The foregoing is not intended to exhaust the list of possible decriminalizations, as not only is the legislative happening dynamic (there are other initiatives in parliamentary process that could be approved) but it is also very profuse, whereby a detailed examination of the thousands of laws in force could yield other conclusions. Therefore, to the two cases mentioned by the majority reporting judge (which the prosecutor accepts) must be added the case where, in the case of cannabis, its use is medicinal or therapeutic (a topic which, it is worth advancing, the majority did not even mention, rendering the reasoning incomplete).

On the other hand, all the justifications that the legal system provides must also be added (and which, under usual conditions, would be treated as part of unlawfulness (antijuridicidad) but here, due to the peculiar construction of the regulation, becomes subject to mandatory scrutiny in objective typicality). Like which ones? Like any situation that can fit into other compliances with legal duties different from the actions of the police, which was mentioned by the majority (Article 25 of the Criminal Code), including that of other judicial officials (prosecutors, experts, etc.) but also of other types (administrative officials of health authorities for sample analysis, health personnel regarding substances contemplated in the lists, etc.).

Also contemplated is any situation that fits into the legitimate exercise of a right (Article 25 of the Criminal Code), in assumptions typical of justifying states of necessity —for example, someone who uses other types of regulated substances, thereby violating an abstract legal interest, to save a concrete one of higher degree such as the life or physical integrity of a patient suffering from pain, etc. (Article 27 of the Criminal Code)—, among other assumptions. Therefore, this chamber considers that the reference of the trial court (endorsed by the prosecutor) is partially erroneous insofar as it enumerates only two cases of exclusion, without taking into consideration that, upon introducing that element (“without legal authorization (sin autorización legal)”) into the typical description, the scrutiny must be extensive and exhaustive and must be sought throughout the entire normative order with the rank of law.

(ii) The second normative element contained therein is “the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law.” This expression generates a blanket criminal offense (tipo penal en blanco) which, in principle, is classified as improper because, to fill the above with content, one must refer to another provision of legal rank, specifically the first numeral of that law, which states:

«Article 1°.- This Law regulates the prevention, supply, prescription, administration, handling, use, possession, trafficking, and commercialization of narcotics, psychotropic substances, inhalable substances, and other drugs and pharmaceuticals capable of producing physical or psychic dependence, included in the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of the United Nations, of May 30, 1961, approved by Costa Rica through Law No. 4544, of March 18, 1970, amended in turn by the Protocol Amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, Law No. 5168, of January 25, 1973, as well as in the Vienna Convention on Psychotropic Substances, of February 21, 1971, approved by Costa Rica through Law No. 4990, of June 10, 1972; likewise, in the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, of December 19, 1988 (1988 Convention), approved by Costa Rica through Law No. 7198, of September 25, 1990.

Furthermore, the lists of licit narcotics, psychotropic substances, and similar are regulated, which will be prepared and published, in La Gaceta, by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG). Likewise, the regulations that these Ministries will provide on the matter are ordered.

The control, inspection, and oversight of activities related to inhalable substances, drugs or pharmaceuticals, and of the products, materials, and chemical substances involved in the elaboration or production of such substances are also regulated; all without prejudice to what is ordered on this matter in the General Health Law (Ley general de salud), No. 5395, of October 30, 1973, and its amendments; the General Law of the National Animal Health Service (Ley general del servicio nacional de salud animal), No. 8495, of April 6, 2006 and its amendments; the Law Ratifying the Loan Agreement signed between the Government of Costa Rica and the Inter-American Development Bank, for a Livestock Development and Animal Health Program (Progasa), No. 7060, of March 31, 1987.

Furthermore, financial activities are regulated and sanctioned, in order to prevent the legitimization of capital and actions that may serve to finance terrorist activities, as established in this Law.

It is a function of the State, and is declared of public interest, the adoption of the necessary measures to prevent, control, investigate, avoid, or repress any illicit activity related to the subject matter of this Law.» (Highlights added).

But note that that first blanket criminal offense (tipo penal en blanco), qualified as “improper”, makes a further referral: in some cases to treaties ratified by Costa Rica through laws or to other laws, as occurs in the first and third paragraphs highlighted above, in which case it remains an improper criminal norm and, in others, it refers to norms of lower rank than law, such as lists, directives, or decrees issued by the Ministry of Health (second paragraph), in which case there is an evident violation of the principle of legality. The regulation of cocaine (and its derivatives) and cannabis (and some of its derivatives) is found, among others, in Articles 26 and 28 of the 1961 Single Convention, so there is no discussion on this matter. The point arises regarding ketamine as was warned, among others, in vote number 541-2023 (R.

Chinchilla, P. Vargas and K. Jiménez):

«(…) in the accusation, reference is made to ketamine and the prosecutor assumes, in their arguments, that such substance is illicit. However, it must be taken into account what this court has already previously warned. Specifically, in vote number 2022-464 this same panel indicated: «III.- […] it is advisable to warn the trial court and the prosecutorial representation that when it attributes, as it does here, conduct related to ketamine, it has the duty to analyze whether, for the date of the accused acts, said substance was illicit. Although in this case such a thing has no major typical repercussions (because, together with that substance, the transport of others that are indeed illicit is attributed), the truth is that it could have them if it were the only one mentioned in the prosecutorial documents, without the court pausing to perform the minimum analysis on the issue of objective typicality. It must be taken into account that this court, with a panel partially similar to the current one (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas and E. Salinas) in vote number 2021-548, stipulated: «…it is mandatory for all courts to analyze (and not just mention) typicality, not only because, in this case, the vast majority of references in the lower court's judgment allude to the generic term "drugs" and, when they become specific, what stands out most (although it is not the only term) is "ketamine" and the question that immediately arises is… is ketamine found in those lists? According to the official website of the Institute on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (IAFA), ketamine (hydrochloride) is an anesthetic and analgesic used to regulate pain and anxiety and was created in the 1960s especially for veterinary purposes but which, due to its hallucinogenic effects or opioid properties, is currently used under the names "Gati" "Kit Kat" or "Special K" especially among adolescent populations. It is said that it can generate greater addiction than marijuana and cocaine and damages memory and cognitive abilities. The point on the issue is that in 2015, at the 58th session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the discussion was just beginning, following China's proposal, to include ketamine in Schedule I of the 1971 Convention (See the complete document E/CN.7/2015/7… on the website:

https://www.tni.org/files/cnd_document_on_mefedrone_and_ketamine_v1408359_esp1.pdf). Even a quick review of the web allows one to infer that the discussion was still ongoing in later years. For example, the European Parliament carried out a review of its regulations and incorporated it as an illicit substance only in October 2017 (See the MICOF website. Very Illustrious Official College of Pharmacists of Valencia.

“Spice, ketamine and 'cannibal drug': the list of prohibited substances in Europe grows”. Locatable at… https://www.micof.es/ver/12831/spice--ketamina-y-%C2drogacanibal%C2-crece-la-lista-de-sustancias-prohibidas-en-europa.html).This implies that the court should have questioned, and did not, whether in the lists accepted by the laws referred to in the first paragraph of Article 1 of Law No. 8204, ketamine was included for (…) the period stipulated in the accusation. Now, the panorama does not end there because, as transcribed, in later paragraphs of Article 1 the content is complemented by referring to “…the lists of licit narcotics, psychotropic substances, and similar, which will be prepared and published, in La Gaceta, by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG). Likewise, the regulations that these Ministries will provide on the matter are ordered” with which here the issue acquires another level because it ceases to be an open criminal offense (with a normative element of a legal type that allows its filling) to become a blanket criminal law (ley penal en blanco) (for this chamber, clearly violating the principle of legality) since the lists of medications would be created by decree or similar norm but not by law. The court did not question any of this.» (The original typography is preserved except for the underlining, which is added). In a similar sense, vote number 646-2022 (Chinchilla, Vargas and Jiménez).

Ketamine is indeed included in the lists of the Ministry of Health of Costa Rica according to ministerial resolution MS-DM-RM-1912-2022 of 12:00 hours on April 1, 2022 (page 25) and circular 002-2015 of December 14, 2015, which includes what was decided by the Drug and Narcotics Surveillance Board, session 2996 of December 4, 2015, Article 3. However, these sources are inferior to the law, and the World Health Organization, as far as this court knows, has not incorporated it into its lists as a prohibited substance, whereby the criminal offense would be completed in violation of the principle of legality. This would warrant a judicial consultation of constitutionality, but it turns out that the formalities were not met either because the trial court omitted any allusion to this aspect, which was highly relevant insofar as the consumption of ketamine was an indication valued by the majority as decisive for the adopted decision. Therefore, there is an evident lack of reasoning in this aspect, which undermines numeral 142 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Código Procesal Penal).

C.3 It is not legally correct to base an argument on criteria of authority without descending to the scrutiny of the argumentation to verify its adequacy to the prevailing rules. Even less so when the invoked precedents do not examine all the aspects of a topic or when they deal with cases that are not comparable to each other, due to the lack of similarity in the factual and legal premises. Despite the fact that in the votes invoked, both by the majority of the trial court and by the prosecutor, the Third Chamber omitted to carry out the aforementioned scrutiny, its use, without assessing the rigor or possibility of argumentative extrapolation, constitutes a clear fallacy and authority bias. Note that, in the first place, due to the date of the vote (prior to many of the regulatory reforms referred to above), what was indicated therein about the illegality of all transports of prohibited substances is not accurate to maintain now. Secondly, the cited pronouncement does not address the already mentioned issues regarding the construction of the criminal offense and the referral it makes to normative elements of a legal type. For a criterion of authority to be legally invocable, it must contain an analysis of a case exactly equal to the one being resolved; a solid argumentation that covers the aspects in play and that does all this from an interpretative methodology valid for the discipline in question (in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law, it is restrictive interpretation, but also taking into account the law as a whole and the instruments given by the Theory of Crime). The parties must be clearly aware that in a conflict between the law —applied according to the methods in force for a discipline— and jurisprudence, the latter must yield in its value over the former. Not because this court affirms it, but because it derives from the hierarchy of norms contained in the Legal System, both in the Political Constitution itself (Articles 7, 39 and 154), and in the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de la Administración Pública) (Articles 1, 2.1, 3.1 and 6) and the Civil Code (canons 1 to 10), among many other sources. Not accepting it in that way, invoking criteria of authority, not only introduces a fallacy in the reasoning but also seeks to undermine judicial independence by making criteria applicable that are alien to the aspects of the particular case, solely due to the source from which they emanate and regardless of their explanatory correctness. Working democratically with the legal field implies convincing or persuading, not defeating or imposing. Already before, this court (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas and K. Jiménez), in vote number 541-2023, has referred to a thesis that is now shared by this panel:

«…it is advisable to make two additional precisions. i) It is not the first time that this chamber observes the prosecutorial reasoning that claims to be based on votes of the Third Chamber according to which a purpose of sale on the part of the active subject is not required to configure a drug-related crime when the governing verbs of the conduct are those of distributing, transporting, or other similar ones described in the respective criminal offense. Such criterion is not shared by this panel whether it is an incorrect interpretation by the Public Prosecutor's Office or whether it emanates from the Third Chamber, whose jurisprudence is not binding and from which this body can depart by virtue of the principle of higher rank (constitutional and conventional) of judicial independence. It should be remembered that ordinary jurisprudence has only an orienting criterion — except for the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (by effect of Articles 62 and 68.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights and 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, both signed by the country) and of the Constitutional Chamber (by effect of numerals 13 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional) and 10 of the Political Constitution)— and judges and magistrates, as well as prosecutors guided by the principle of objectivity, must rely on the law and the restrictive way of interpreting it. In this case, numeral 58 of the Law on Narcotics, Psychotropic Substances, Drugs of Unauthorized Use, Money Laundering, and Related Activities No. 8204 provides: “Article 58.-A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization (sin autorización legal), distributes, trades, supplies, manufactures, elaborates, refines, transforms, extracts, prepares, cultivates, produces, transports, stores, or sells the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law, or cultivates the plants from which such substances or products are obtained. The same penalty shall be imposed on anyone who, without due authorization, possesses those drugs, substances, or products for any of the expressed purposes, and on anyone who possesses or trades seeds with germinative capacity or other natural products to produce the referred drugs.” (The highlighting is supplied). And from there it could be concluded that the reference to consumption purposes is only circumscribed to possession, but it turns out that to transport, store, supply, or any of the other verbs, one must possess. In other words, possession, which is the having of something, is the basis of any of the other conducts, because one can only do something with a thing if one first holds it.» C.4 It is not legally correct to detach the evidentiary analysis and objective typicality analysis from the manner in which an accusation was formulated, which is a limit to the jurisdictional decision. According to Article 365 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Código Procesal Penal), accusations constitute the factual limit of the sentences. These cannot overflow it, because new facts, due to their surprising nature, can generate defenselessness for the accused party who, from the beginning of the process, has the right to have the facts and evidence set forth in detail. It is of no use if, from the evidence received in a trial, facts emerge that can be subsumed under a criminal offense, if such events were not properly attributed or imputed. In the present matter, the Public Prosecutor's Office attributed to the suspects that, at the hour, date, and place described “on a public road (…) [Name 009] and [Name 016] possess and transported for trafficking purposes 60 doses of cocaine, base crack, one point of drug and twenty-two points of the drug marijuana respectively, wrapped in transparent plastic bags, while walking from one side to another, from East to West.

At that same moment and place, Fuerza Pública officers were conducting a routine patrol when they observed both defendants walking together on a public road, and upon approaching and noticing the police presence they assumed a suspicious attitude, whereupon [Name 016] fled the scene on foot, being closely pursued by Fuerza Pública officers, at which point, barely 10 meters away, he threw a plastic wrapper onto the roof of one of the dwellings, being detained at that very spot and locating the plastic package he had just thrown onto the roof, which contained 22 joints of marijuana. At the same time, Fuerza Pública officers detained [Name 009], who remained still upon noticing the police presence, finding on him 60 doses of cocaine, crack base and one joint of Ketamine, for which reason both defendants were formally detained and the aforementioned drugs were seized.” (Emphasis added). It is important to note that the prosecutorial pleading states a specific purpose for which the drug was possessed (trafficking, not the supply assumed by the majority of the court) and makes no reference to any prior plan or functional distribution that would make the rules of co-perpetration applicable. It should be recalled that action under Criminal Law is strictly personal and this principle can only be broken in cases of perpetration that permit attributing to one person what another did if there is a prior plan and functional distribution which, in this matter, was not charged. This is particularly relevant because it is therefore not possible to attribute to one defendant the drugs and effects that the other possessed and, even less, to combine both quantities of substances to attribute them to both. It is in this context that the dissenting judge —albeit in a terse, underdeveloped manner and interrupted in his thought by a defendant who wished to leave the courtroom while he was speaking— stated that the criminal type was a kind of “catch-all” into which everything fit and, therefore, the charge was not properly formulated. If, as has been explained, it is not true that all drug transport is unlawful nor that there are only two or three exceptions to this, but rather that there are many more authorized ones, it is the duty of the prosecuting entity to stipulate the purpose for which the transport is undertaken, and it was in that context that the judge alluded (at least as this court understands it) to the fact that mentioning “for trafficking purposes” regarding the transport and introducing any of the typical verbs therein was not appropriate, especially when that purpose was later changed to that of “supply.” That is to say, the criticism was directed at a correlation issue that, indeed, was not addressed. Despite the ad hominem and bombastic arguments with which the prosecutor responds to him, the truth is that if the prosecutorial pleading, unnecessarily, alluded to a specific purpose for the individual drug possession of each defendant, the very least the majority of the court should have done, and did not, was to question whether changing that purpose affected the correlation and whether the possession of substances of each defendant could be joined when co-perpetration had not been attributed. By omitting such reasoning, numeral 142 of the Código Procesal Penal was violated.

C.5 It is not legally correct to depart from the content of the evidence to ground conclusions that, therefore, are not derived from those elements. The majority of the court dismissed the defendants’ theory (that they possessed and transported the drugs for personal use purposes) by conducting an indiciary analysis of the statements of the accused. In that exercise, the trial judge —both male and female— found contradictions and inconsistencies in their versions over time. One indication given great weight was that a point of ketamine was seized from [Name 009], but (according to the majority judges) neither of the two said, at any procedural moment, that they consumed that substance. From this, the majority concluded that the presence of that substance among what was seized was indicative that it was not intended for personal use. Likewise, this was weighed alongside the fact that the police officer who testified at trial, Mr. [Name 012], according to the same members of the court, did not see that they were under the influence of any drug, nor that they had signs or behaviors related to drug consumption (see time sequence 37:44 to 38:25 of the file containing the judgment). However, this argumentation falls into confirmation bias, as the judge only recalled information that confirmed their belief or expectation, but set aside other information that disproved it. In audiovisual file 240001051092PE-02022024092111-2_Multi 1 (which contains the data collection of the accused persons before the Ministerio Público) at timer 15:33, when [Name 016] is being asked if he has addictions, he says he consumes drugs of all kinds, and in audiovisual file 240001051092PE-03022024041657-2_Multi --01 (which refers to the initial flagrancy hearing, in which jurisdiction is assumed), Judge Melissa Bogantes reads the defendants that data to verify whether or not they are correct or should be adjusted, and at that moment [Name 009] (minutes 1:31 and 4:32 to 5:15) says that legally he consumes everything, but that “right now,” “in the last year,” “thank God,” what he has consumed the most is weed (marijuana) and crack. On the other hand, on February 6, 2024, the legal medical examination was performed on [Name 016], and there he stated he was an addict, since age 18, to various drugs and mentioned ketamine (thus summarized by the judge at trial at minute 28:10 to 28:11 and it appears on folio 65, in which he referred to the consumption of this drug from age 18 to the present, inhaled every three days). Therefore, the assertion that neither of the two referred, at any procedural moment, to ketamine is not derived from the evidence. On the other hand, police officer [Name 012], when testifying at trial, affirmed (as the majority took up to give credibility to his account) that he knew the defendants from having seen them, together or separately, both at sale points or bunkers, and on corners or wandering about (see audiovisual file 240001051092-PE-28012025065237-2_Multi ). It must be added that, when his oral police report was received, in file 240001051092PE-02022024084517-2_Multi 1, the aforementioned law enforcement agent stated, starting at timer 10:56, that he knew the defendants because he had previously made interventions for drug consumption, since a lot of drug consumption occurs at that location and sometimes there are 9-1-1 incidents involving “certain subjects” selling, without specifying to whom he was referring, statements that the majority of the court did not take into consideration, in a clear pretermission of evidence on essential matters, since these are precisely what support the majority decision. Therefore, if both defendants tested positive for consumption of some psychotropic substances according to the toxicological tests, if in their medical examinations they gave accounts allusive to the consumption of various drugs and one said he had consumed ketamine, if one behaved erratically and under the influence of drugs at the time of the arrest according to the police officer, and if what they were carrying was not a significant quantity, all these elements should have been weighed together by the court (along with others, such as the price of the substance, the occupation and socio-economic conditions of each one, the attitude of one of them upon seeing the police, etc.), which the majority failed to do, proceeding instead to isolate some of those indications and to give them not only greater importance than others but a meaning opposite to what they actually had. This violated the rules of sound reasoning. It must also be borne in mind that, if the person who ran exhibited erratic behavior according to the police, that is relevant not for purposes of culpability capacity under the Theory of Crime (as the prosecutor argues), but to determine whether, under the conditions he was in, it was possible to require of him behavior expected of an average human being, or whether, under such conditions, he could consider that, even though possessing drugs for consumption, these would be seized from him, since it is part of experience that the police seize whatever illicit substance they find on persons, regardless of whether it is a large or small amount. This last point was the argument that the minority judge tried to make explicit. The prosecutor counters by indicating that this defendant was in his “right mind” and fully aware of his actions, but in doing so, he mixes, once again, the analytical planes, since that is important to calibrate not for substantive Criminal Law purposes, but for procedural matters: interpreting whether the indication of running under his circumstances is unambiguous or amphibological. Furthermore, the minority judge rightly states that not all persons act in the same way or rationally in the face of the same event, so the contrary cannot be presumed. None of this can be described as far-fetched or contrived, as the prosecutor states when referring to the minority opinion, although a more extensive explanation would have been desirable, which, due to the circumstances of the case (the length of the oral judgment, the hour at which it was issued, and the fact that a defendant requested to leave, as he indeed did under police supervision, an aspect that interrupted the judge’s narrative) could not be achieved. For all these reasons, concluding that a defendant ran out of a feeling of guilt, and that this is applicable to the other, introduces flaws in the reasoning that render it illegitimate for the intended purposes.

C.6 It is not legally correct to assume that the accused persons (or their technical defense) must prove the facts on which they base their defensive strategy. Despite the onslaughts of punitive populism, the principle of innocence remains a constitutional norm (article 39) that is reinforced with conventional protection, both at the regional level (article 8.2 of the Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos) and the universal level (canon 14.2 of the Pacto Internacional de Derechos Civiles y Políticos). Derived from this, the law (article 9 of the procedural code) adopts the principle of in dubio pro reo. The aforementioned constitutional and conventional principle means that the rules of the burden of proof, the dynamic burden of proof (each party proves what it affirms), or the onus probandi, typical of other areas of law, are excepted for criminal matters. This latter thesis, characteristic of private law or other fields, has been attempted to be uncritically transposed to Criminal Law, forgetting that there is a constitutional norm that prevents it. This translates into the fact that it is the State (or those who exercise private prosecution) that is responsible for proving the crime. A crime is an action that is typical, unlawful, and culpable. Hence, it is erroneous to allude that the Ministerio Público must prove typicality and the defense must prove the rest of the elements, since it is the former that is responsible for proving the entire crime, even though it must avail itself, including, of indiciary elements to dispel the doubts that the defense may raise in the latter segments of the Theory of Crime. It is sufficient that the defense (technical or material) raise a reasonable doubt about the facts for the most favorable outcome for the accused person to prevail. The Constitution, treaties, or law do not require the technical or material defense to prove anything: they only require it to break the certainty of the opposing thesis in the assessment of the material provided, which it can do, including, through argumentation. It is sufficient for doubt to arise for it to be incumbent upon the accuser to demonstrate that such doubt is discarded by another element of proof, including indiciary, thereby reaffirming the certainty of the commission of the attributed crime. Thus, it is necessary to differentiate two distinct analytical planes: on the one hand, whether the prosecuting entity proved, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the seized drugs were for purposes different from those authorized by law (which we have already seen are not just one or two, but several) and, on the other hand, whether an indication used to ground the prosecution’s case is unambiguous or amphibological. Note that indications are valid proof for reaching that certainty, provided they are analyzed as a whole and are unambiguous, not amphibological. The prosecutor, in responding and referring to the minority judge’s argument, makes this overlap of analytical planes. The minority judge indicated that the fact that one of the defendants ran was not indicative that he was transporting drugs for trafficking purposes, since he could have done so for multiple reasons: because each person’s reaction varies, because he intended not to have the substance taken from him, etc. In this exercise, the minority judge sought to demonstrate that the indication was not unambiguous and that, therefore, the argumentation was not solid. The prosecutor responds by indicating that these possibilities do not derive from any proof, and although this is so, that argument is not capable of distorting the probative value of the indication: weak from the moment its mere presence does not lead to a single conclusion but rather admits other analytical possibilities. When the defendants testify and allude to their consumption and provide evidence (medical-legal and toxicology reports in that regard), they are introducing fissures into the opposing thesis, and it is the Ministerio Público that is responsible for dismissing them by any lawful means, without it being valid to conclude that, since their version was not as conclusive as intended (because the statements had some inconsistencies), they should undertake a greater evidentiary effort. The majority should have, rather, asked themselves whether those statements from both defendants, even with the said inconsistencies, generated cracks in the prosecutorial theory of the case. If the answer was positive, there was doubt, and the consequences of that are set by the legal system. It is not acceptable to convict based on dubious judgments. The majority, at timer 34:55 of the file containing the judgment, stated that the way in which the drugs were individualized (22 joints of marijuana, 60 doses of crack, and the point of ketamine) shows that they were not intended for personal consumption, but rather could be taken for distribution or commercialization. That “could” is probabilistic and not a judgment of certainty such as that required for a conviction.

C.7 It is not legally valid to incorporate the private knowledge of legal operators if this does not derive from the evidence. The prosecutor attempts to support the majority’s conclusions based on elements that not only substitute or complement the arguments stated by the deciding body, but that emanate from private knowledge and were not able to be subjected to cross-examination. In his brief before this court, the prosecutor makes a series of assertions regarding the time window in which, according to gas chromatography, the presence of drugs in a person’s body can be detected and argues: “…on folio 65, [Name 016] relates having consumed ketamine on the very day of his arrest, February 2, 2024. But, in report DCF 2024-00546 TOX, performed with samples taken just on February 6, 2024 at 13:11 hrs (and not a year later, as the public defender falsely states), it is reported that no ketamine was detected in that defendant’s urine —see folio 80—. Here it is important to say that to detect ketamine in urine in this case, gas chromatography was used, this method being capable of detecting amounts of 0.1 mg/ml of the compound, according to toxicological literature. According to that same medical-legal literature, the maximum detection time is situated at approximately 72 hours for a single dose. However, it is noted that in users with habitual or addictive consumption, as defendant [Name 016] claimed to have, ketamine can take up to more than 7 days to be eliminated [The nonmedical use of ketamine. Part two. A review of problem use and dependence. J Psychoactive Drugs 2001 (…) cited in J. Royo “La “keta” (ketamine), del fármaco a la droga de abuso. Clínica biopsicosocial del consumidor y algunas propuestas terapéuticas, in Revista Elsevier Nº 34, volume 3 (…)] a situation that, equally, makes it hardly credible that the drug of interest had been consumed by the defendant with the regularity or habitualness to which he referred, on the date he stated, and that the carrying of that substance was also for a true purpose of personal use (…)”. Although this may be so in the literature, it turns out that it does not derive from any evidence (the prosecutor did not request an extension of the reports in that regard) but rather arises only from the officer’s private knowledge, not subject to the filter of orality, immediacy, and cross-examination, and, most relevantly, it was not an argument used by the majority. As if that were not enough, the prosecutor introduces an item of information which also does not derive from the defendant’s various statements (that he had a habitual consumption of ketamine that would permit detection in urine 72 hours prior, that is, three days before), since what [Name 016] said in his initial data was that he consumed all types of drugs, and on February 6, 2024, when the medical-legal examination was performed on him, [Name 016] stated he was an addict, since age 18, to various drugs and mentioned ketamine (on folio 65 he referred to the consumption of this drug from age 18 to the present, inhaled every three days). Thus, the prosecutor invests the concept of “habitualness” with a content different from what the defendant stated and from what the medical literature mentions. On that would depend whether the substance appears in urine at three days or at seven days from the sample (in this case there were four days from the arrest until the sample was taken).

C.8 It is not legally procedurally proper to defend a judgment with arguments that it does not contain, except when performing exercises of hypothetical incorporation. Much has been insisted that nullity is not applicable for its own sake if it does not violate substantial rights or guarantees that cannot be remedied or validated by another means, since the principle pro sentencia (which, according to ruling number 1739-92 of the Sala Constitucional, forms part of due process) and the constitutional principle of swift and effective justice (article 41) prevent it. In that line, it is the duty of every legal operator who analyzes an act and notices defects or omissions to perform exercises of hypothetical inclusion (of preterited evidence or arguments) or hypothetical exclusion (of improper evidence or arguments) to verify whether the adopted conclusion is changed in any way. However, that exercise is very different from attempting to sustain a decision with arguments that it did not use in its adoption and exposition, and without noting anything in that regard. The prosecutor points out that the defendants’ version is not credible because “Another aspect that equally, and with good reason, cast doubt on the allegation that the drugs carried by the defendants were for personal use, was the detail expressed by [Name 009] in the sense that he and [Name 016] had opened a small bag of cocaine and both had consumed from it shortly before the arrest. However, [Name 016] did not present cocaine metabolites in his blood (see report Nº 2024-0546 TOX, folio 80), and no powder cocaine was seized from either of the accused, so once again the version of ([Name 009]) is hardly credible.” (Cf. prosecutor’s response). That version does not derive from the summary the court makes of the defendant’s statements, nor was it considered by the majority judge —male and female—. Nor could this chamber introduce it hypothetically into the decision, because it is not the only aspect omitted in the judgment, but there are others, equally relevant, to the decision to be adopted. Note that in toxicology report 2024-544-TOX performed on [Name 009] (folios 72-73) it is recorded that on the date the sample was taken (February 6, 2024) “there was exposure to cocaine in the person’s organism,” and in the medical-legal report performed on him on a similar date it is recorded that “…no clinical signs compatible with acute consumption of drugs of abuse were found, but there was a brown stain on central and lateral incisors of the upper and lower dental arch and a brown stain and hyperkeratosis at the level of the pulp of the first and second fingers of the right hand; which is a chronic and non-specific sign compatible with the chronic consumption of marijuana and tobacco, and of crack, respectively” (report 2024864 on folio 36, emphasis added). Finally, in the extension of the medical-legal report on [Name 016], it is recorded that “it is possible for a person who has been a drug user since age 11 (13 years of consumption in the evaluee’s case) not to present clinical signs of chronic or acute drug consumption, since these are not pathognomonic signs, but compatible findings (…) therefore, they are not determinative to conclude whether the evaluee is a chronic user of some type of illicit drug” (folios 146). The majority made absolutely no reference to any of this. Therefore, attempting to hypothetically introduce the aspects mentioned by the prosecutor would also require introducing the others, preterited in the judgment, and everything together could modify what was resolved and generate a decision in a single instance, such that the exercise cannot be performed because it is only valid when the adopted conclusion stands. This highlights, once again, that there was a biased selection process of information to evaluate and that important material was preterited.

C.9 It is not legally acceptable that, in the act of weighing oral evidence, greater weight be given to what a person stated many years after an event occurred, despite the fact that, at the very moment it happened, that person gave a different version of what occurred and without there being a weighty reason for the change: According to the rules of psychology explained above, memory tends to deteriorate as time passes between an event and the recollection, barring cases of amnesias or traumatic blocks and other memory disorders which, for this matter, have not been either discussed or accredited. That is, the closer to the event one testifies, in principle, the more details and fidelity of the statement; memories tend to fade with the passage of time, especially in persons like law enforcement officers, exposed to many similar situations, which can generate mix-ups of data from one similar matter to another. Therefore, if in the written report submitted and signed by officer [Name 012] and at the reception of the oral complaint it is recorded that only [Name 016] ran (and two officers after him) but [Name 009] remained still (and accompanied by the other police officer); if those were elements of proof admitted and incorporated at trial; if this same is what officer [Name 012] said at the first hearing held in mid-2024 —which, although it is true was annulled, does not make the recordings of it disappear, which thus become documents solely for purposes of assessing the credibility of a deponent— and if there is no valid reason to understand why the change of position occurred, if all of that is so, the majority judge —both male and female— erred in giving greater value to what the police officer said at the last trial than to what he expressed at other moments, since, in doing so, they violated the rules of psychology that form part of sound reasoning. Of course, this also implies that the parties assume their role in the cross-examination in the terms indicated in rulings of this chamber number 1247-2015 (R. Chinchilla, L. García and A.L. Jiménez) and 014-2015 (R. Chinchilla, L. García and J. Campos) in which it was stated:

«(A) Is it possible to incorporate, and weigh, the statements given in an annulled hearing or in an audiovisually recorded interview, without the formalities of a jurisdictional advance of evidence? (...) with the Código Procesal Penal, in force since 1998, the norms were modified to expressly prohibit actions from the investigation phase from having probative value (article 276 of the Código Procesal Penal), unless they had been received under the rules of definitive and irreproducible acts, of the jurisdictional advance of evidence, or involved cases provided for by law as exceptions to orality (see numerals 276, 277, 293, 327 and 334 of the Código Procesal Penal), without, in any case, some of those possibilities being beyond criticism, especially when, for reasons of urgency, the parties do not participate in the acts, an aspect that currently lies outside the scope of the issue to be resolved in this matter. Parallel to this, a shift was occurring in jurisprudential practices, to the point that the thesis became established that, although the complaint, expert reports, and reports are exceptions to orality susceptible to being incorporated into the hearing by reading (article 334 of the Código Procesal Penal), it was impossible to refer to the content of such documents, insofar as they reproduced testimonial statements, since it was a way of circumventing the aforementioned guarantee and, thereby, those principles were infringed. It was in that context that, for instance, this Chamber (…), under the name of Tribunal de Casación Penal de San José , through ruling number 2007-844 bis, stated: "In the first place, it must be pointed out that under no circumstances can what a person states before a medical examiner or some other professional who intervenes in the preliminary investigations, at the time of drafting a report or statement on some circumstance, be understood to constitute, in a formal sense, a “declaration” or “testimony,” since it is not rendered even with the prescribed formalities. It has already been insisted that, under the new procedural scheme, it is undeniable that testimonial evidence is only that which is received at the hearing, save for the exceptional cases of evidence of that nature, received by jurisdictional advance, where witnesses are heard under the conditions proper to the trial, that is, with compliance with the principles of immediacy, orality, concentration and, very particularly, cross-examination. This testimony, which is received exceptionally in that manner, may be incorporated at the hearing. Prior to that, one cannot speak, formally, of a statement but rather of simple references. The only possibility legally provided for the witness to refer to or even be expressly questioned about those “informal” versions is provided by the third paragraph of article 352 of the Código Procesal, when it states that the prosecutor may question the witness about statements made in the investigation phase. The legal authorization for such prosecutorial conduct is granted because it primarily attends to facilitating the process of ascertaining the material truth, as well as the principle of freedom of proof. These referential elements may be brought into the cross-examination for the purpose of clarifying certain aspects of the statement at the hearing, but such action does not imply that they are being given the value of testimony" (bolding supplied). (...) In that vein... could the exercise of cross-examination, of attacking the credibility of a deponent, be limited by the fact that the version considered modified is contained in a document for the reception of which the principles of the hearing were not observed? Can a witness who states “x” at trial, but who spontaneously said “-x” on a radio or television program, that is, the opposite, not be questioned, after that document is incorporated, about that variation, under the pretext that, in the radio program, he did not testify under the principles of the hearing? It would seem that there is no norm, or legal principle, that enables such a limitation, since, proceeding in that manner, supposedly to respect the principles of immediacy and cross-examination, would disrespect others, equally part of constitutional due process and, perhaps, of greater weight, such as cross-examination, freedom of proof, and the right of defense. Therefore, pursuant to the interpretive rule contained in numeral 2 of the Código Procesal Penal, a broad exercise of those powers must prevail, consequently accepting the incorporation of any document containing a different version and permitting cross-examination on such points. It is true that the recording (of the interview in the Gesell Chamber or of the annulled hearing), which is a document in the broad terms established by numeral 368 of the Código Procesal Civil (a movable object with representational value), contains a statement that, in the first case, was not collected under the principles of cross-examination and immediacy, that is, it is not a jurisdictional advance of evidence. However, it is not that document, so understood, that is the probative element to consider, but rather the latter will be the witness’s statement at trial, whose veracity is sought to be upheld, or undermined, through cross-examination. In other words, to the extent that a document (in the broad sense, including recordings) is used in plenary to question a witness and, in that manner, support their credibility, or lack thereof, no legal violation is observed; such a violation will occur if the aim is, without performing that cross-examination exercise, to give that document value above the statement at the hearing. The documentary value is limited to upholding, or not, the witness’s credibility, since, otherwise, we would place ourselves with our backs to reality if we indicated that any prior-to-trial reference by the deponent could not be weighed, even though the reliability of the witness or the verisimilitude of their statement might depend on it.

It should be borne in mind that, in this way, orality and the adversarial process are enhanced, which would not occur if the contrast is attempted at times other than the examination, such as in closing arguments or through the appeal route, preventing the witness from giving explanations of what happened" (...). All of this must be weighed, in due course." (Some highlights are from the original and others added).

In any case, in this matter, in addition to the statement of officer [Name 012] in the annulled hearing (in a sense different from that given at this trial regarding whether one or both defendants ran upon noticing his presence at the scene), there was the police report and the oral complaint in which he recorded that only one of them ran. Why is this relevant? Again, here the parties and judges are mixing analytical levels. Of course, the fact that only one person fled gives rise to a psychological indication that enables police action. That is to say, even if there were no news of a crime regarding them nor any operation to justify the detention and search, that act of running upon the presence of the police allowed the authorities to intervene, detain, and validly seize objects, and that makes the evidence obtained lawful. This level of evidentiary lawfulness (which was the one emphasized at other times) is different from other analytical levels: whether the psychological indication of running is unequivocal regarding the purpose for which the substance is possessed and whether the fact that only one person ran can be transferred to the other defendant as an indication against him. It should be recalled that, as already anticipated, the accusation was not formulated in terms of co-perpetration, with a prior plan and functional distribution between the two. Such co-perpetration could have existed, but the accusation did not formulate it in that way and that created a limit to that pleading given the principle of correlation (Article 365 of the Ritual Code). Therefore, the fact that one ran cannot be attributed to the other as an indication (unequivocal or amphibological) because the accusatory pleading was not formulated in that way and co-perpetration is one of the legal institutes that allow breaking the principle of personal nature of the action. Nor is it acceptable to consider that content of the policeman's statement irrelevant (whether one ran or both did) because, although it may be so for the purpose of defining the lawfulness of the police intervention, it is not so for the purpose of establishing the historical fact actually occurred and extracting from it elements of intent and co-perpetration of the defendant who did not run. Yes, the police approach is lawful, even if only one of the subjects ran, and therefore the evidence obtained is lawful and does not contradict what is indicated in the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case Fernández Prieto and Tumbeiro vs. Argentina (judgment on merits and reparations of September 1, 2020) which indicated:

"79. The Court notes that (...) temporary detention for identification purposes must be duly based on circumstances that 'lead to presume that someone has committed or could commit some criminal or contraventional act.' In that sense, in the specific case, the Tribunal considers that none of the reasons given by the police to detain Mr. Tumbeiro and request his identification constituted, in themselves or together, sufficient and concrete facts or information that allow a reasonable observer to objectively infer that he had probably committed or was about to commit a criminal or contraventional act. On the contrary, the reasons that motivated the detention for identification purposes of Mr. Tumbeiro seemed to respond to preconceptions about how a person transiting in a certain place should look, how they should behave in the presence of the police, and what activities they should carry out in that place. 80. (...) The Court recalls that stereotypes consist of preconceptions of the attributes, behaviors, roles, or characteristics possessed by persons belonging to an identified group. The use of stereotypical reasoning by security forces can give rise to discriminatory and, consequently, arbitrary actions. 81. In the absence of objective elements, the classification of certain conduct or appearance as suspicious, or of a certain reaction or body expression as nervous, obeys the personal convictions of the intervening agents and the practices of the security forces themselves, which entails a degree of arbitrariness that is incompatible with Article 7.3 of the American Convention. When additionally these personal convictions or assessments are formulated based on prejudices regarding the characteristics or conduct supposedly typical of a certain category or group of people or their socio-economic status, they can lead to a violation of Articles 1.1 and 24 of the Convention. (...) 82. The use of these profiles supposes a presumption of guilt against any person who fits them, and not a case-by-case evaluation of the objective reasons that effectively indicate that a person is linked to the commission of a crime. Therefore, the Court has indicated that detentions carried out for discriminatory reasons are manifestly unreasonable and therefore arbitrary. In this case (...), the lack of explanations about the suspicious character attributed to Mr. Tumbeiro beyond his nervousness, his way of dressing, and the explicit indication that this was not proper to the 'humble people's' area through which he was walking, show that there were not sufficient and reasonable indications about his participation in a criminal act, but rather that the detention was carried out prima facie due to the sole circumstance of not reacting in the way the intervening agents perceived as correct and using attire judged by them as inappropriate based on a subjective preconception about the appearance that the inhabitants of the area should maintain, which constitutes discriminatory treatment that makes the detention arbitrary." Unlike that scenario, running merely from encountering a patrol vehicle head-on enables the police intervention regarding that subject, but, unless a co-perpetration is attributed with the person accompanying him who does not run (which was not the case in the case file), it would not enable it for the person who is alongside and remains unaltered. Nor can that subjective indication (unequivocal or amphibological) be transferred to such a companion. None of that was analyzed by the majority.

C.10 It is not legally acceptable to assess the indications in isolation and not as a whole. It has already been pointed out that not only were the words of officer [Name 012] distorted (regarding the state of one of the defendants and the previous interventions he had made with them) and of the defendants (regarding the type of substances they consumed and their frequency) but also, the content of the medico-legal and toxicological expert reports on the exact meaning of the findings documented on the body of the accused was not taken into account. The evidence regarding the meaning of running in the presence of the police and its attribution to the one who did not do it (according to the first version given by the intervening police officer) and the form of packaging of the substances was also poorly assessed, since it was assumed that, because they were individually dosed was presumptive of distribution or sale, but not of self-consumption, an assertion that is not accurate since a consumer person, when acquiring, does so by dose according to their economic possibilities or consumption habits, in order to have the substance divided to ingest at each moment. If a person acquires drugs for consumption, they may do so dosed for the purpose of measuring their own consumption over time, since the acquisition continues to be a risky activity precisely because of the thin line that separates it from illicit activities with which it can be confused, hence it is usually acquired for longer time units (weeks, months) according to the economic possibilities which, in this case, were not analyzed. That is to say, the indication of individual packaging is also not unequivocal for the conclusion affirmed. In the dissenting opinion, issues not addressed by the majority were mentioned, such as that the policeman did not remember if the accused had items for consumption at the time of their detention and the statement by the trial prosecutor (that this must be somewhere like the intake logbook or the Officer's book) is not valid because these are not elements introduced at trial, given that the accused would have said that they did carry lighters. This implies a lack of reasoning of the majority opinion in terms of numeral 142 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

C.11 It is not legally acceptable to distort the arguments set forth by the dissenting opinion to extract other conclusions. The dissenting judge implied (because certainly his arguments were not extensive and he had interruptions in issuing his argumentation) that, in the face of an event punishable by such a high penalty, greater precision in the drafting of the accusation and a more solid investigation of the purposes for which the drug was possessed was required, since, even though it involved a case in flagrante delicto, some investigation, however brief, should have existed. That is extracted from the context of his argumentation. The prosecutor indicates, instead, that if the aforementioned judge had doubts about the constitutionality of the penalty he should have made the consultation, but by responding in this way he not only transmutes the meaning of that judge's words to an issue that was not the one invoked but also makes use of the tu quoque fallacy explained above by pointing out the inconsistency of the supposed argumentation. Although, this chamber considers, the doubt is legitimate about such a high punitive reaction for illicit activities of drug dealing that are equated, in the sanction, to the trafficking of large quantities of drugs, the truth is that the constitutionality consultation was already an exercise carried out previously by this tribunal (under the name of Criminal Cassation Tribunal of San José) through vote number 2011-742, composed of R. Chinchilla, L. García, and E. Salinas) and by which the Constitutional Chamber, by majority, issued vote number 2011-11697 according to which: "The consultation formulated is resolved in the sense that Article 58 of the Law on Narcotics, Psychotropic Substances, Drugs of Unauthorized Use, Related Activities, Money Laundering, and Financing of Terrorism, number 7786 of April 30, 1998, and its reforms, is not contrary to the principle of proportionality. Magistrates Armijo and Cruz dissent and declare that the consulted norm is unconstitutional." That pronouncement is binding according to the rules referred to above (Article 13 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction). However, the issue raised by the dissenting judge was not that, but rather he sought to show that if criminal judgment always requires a restrictive interpretation of substantive and procedural rules, unequivocal indications as well as certainty and not probability, in cases where the reaction was so high, that analytical and argumentative exercise had to be maximized to avoid errors. This proposition, which is what this chamber infers from the dissenting opinion, is, in our understanding, an adequate positioning in the face of the responsibility that the judging of human beings entails. Acting accordingly is not, as the prosecutor says, extrapolating the law. On the contrary, it is extrapolated when, in procedural terms, the testimony of the declarants is distorted, when the indications are not analyzed as a whole or are amphibological, or when, in substantive terms, the criminal type is filled with circulars from the Ministry of Health in response to which state agents do not react with the functions that the law entrusts to them (objectivity and impartiality). Nor is it entirely accurate to state that the dissenting judge said that a "penal transport figure without content" has been created, as the prosecutor set forth in his response, because although he used that expression (which he later corrected to "or with indiciary content"), from the context of that intervention what is extracted is that the judge was trying to indicate (although certainly it was not as explicit as one would wish) that mere transport was not enough for there to be a crime, but rather the illicit purposes established in the legal system had to be accredited and that it was not sufficient to allude, in an accusation, to "trafficking purposes," to incorporate therein any of the other purposes mentioned in the article, a topic that, as explained in the first sections, is correct based on the objective elements of the criminal type in question.

C.12 Other biases in the presentations. In addition to those already indicated in the majority opinion, the parties have also resorted to inadequate arguments. The defense attorney, for example, assumed that this tribunal knew the context to make an argumentation that was initially incomprehensible and only made sense when the tribunal became steeped in the points of the case (curse of knowledge bias). For its part, it also implies a cognitive bias to try to appeal to the meaning of words and the rules of semantics or those that govern the Spanish language for issues of convenience to a thesis, but not to do so for those that the same presenting person dislikes. The prosecutor has attempted, against the systematic interpretation (which, as such, is not extensive, since it alludes to understanding the date of the law and the existence of other regulations of that rank that support the permit that defines the criminal type) to convince this chamber that transport is understood only as the transfer from one point to another and for this he appeals to the rules of the Spanish language (leaving aside the complete interpretation of the criminal type), but he attempts to disregard the norms of international treaties and not to stick to the grammatical sense of "judges" when he alludes to the composition of the trial court. This is also an argumentative bias. Nor is it legally acceptable to use effectist or sociological arguments from other historical contexts, when the rules of law, by virtue of sovereignty, are exclusive to a territory. Therefore, from one place to another and from one moment to another, regulations can change, so setting forth emotional arguments or those from other contexts is to depart from the legal rules. This is what the prosecutorial representation does by stating: "the normalization and generalization of acts of exchanging drug for drug or supplies or distributions of drug among a community can endanger the very stability of the economic and social system, as happens, for example, in cities like Los Angeles in California or in the drainage channels of Las Vegas, Nevada, where the diffusion of highly addictive drugs such as ketamine, cocaine, and fentanyl not only cause growing labor absenteeism, but also uncontrolled expenses in the health system, an increase in violent crime, premature deaths, and increases in premiums for unemployment and life insurance policies, while growing slums of fentanyl zombies and mental (sic) disabled persons who must be maintained by the rest of the population are created." (Cf. reply brief). Even if the above is true, it turns out that our legal system is not the same as that of those places and such sociological context is valid only for purposes of criminal policy, lege ferenda or primary criminalization, but not for the judging of a case with specific rules.

All the foregoing has had the purpose of highlighting the need to refine legal argumentation in the approach to cases. Certainly, this very resolution will not escape, much as we have tried not to fall into such biases, incorporating those or many others, but it is the task of the parties to highlight them through appeals and with legal arguments. Doing so in that manner will allow the gap between what should be and what is to be shortened and, without a doubt, will strengthen the Rule of Law in the sphere of the "administration" of justice. For all the foregoing, the appeals must be upheld and the appealed sentence annulled, ordering the referral for new trial before a panel that has not intervened before and with respect for the principle of prohibition of reformatio in peius to the defense, as the sole appellants.

III.- In the second argument of the public defender's appeal, the insufficient reasoning of the penalty imposed (one year more than the minimum) on [Name 016] is reproached for using, as the sole criterion in this regard, the existence of criminal records for illegal possession of a weapon and aggravated robbery, both sentences served by the defendant and which have no relation to the illicit act for which he is now sentenced. It says that imposing nine years for transporting 22 marijuana cigarettes is disproportionate. When replying to the appeal, the prosecutor said he was not going to contest that argument since, in the jurisprudence, there have been "two opposite poles" (thus in the reply) in this regard, to which he alludes, and therefore the Third Chamber has assumed an eclectic position (for which he partly transcribes vote number 763-2014 which he says he shares) according to which prior records cannot be the sole criterion for increasing the penalty, so if the nine-year penalty were endorsed, this would give legitimacy to the defense to file a cassation appeal for contradictory precedents. To this he adds that the prosecutor requested, in his closing arguments, for both accused, eight years of imprisonment and concludes that he will not contest the ground provided the sanction is that. The complaint is upheld. Although, by virtue of what was decided above, it may seem unnecessary to resolve this issue, it is not, to the extent that what is decided here will determine whether, in the retrial, in the event a conviction is reached (a matter on which no prejudgment is made), the same penalties already used may or may not be imposed, or whether there is a further or additional limit given by this pronouncement. This latter scenario applies here, as will be stated. It is clear that the defendant ([Name 009]) was imposed the minimum penalty established in the criminal type and this aspect is not appealed by the public defense, whence, by the principle of prohibition of reformatio in peius (Article 447 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), that will be the ceiling to consider in the retrial in the event of a possible conviction. It should be taken into account that —even though the minimum penalty is high and may seem disproportionate compared to the amount of drug found, the role of the persons in the eventual distribution chain and, comparatively, because it is the same punitive reaction as for much more harmful conduct such as large-scale international trafficking— before a consultation made by the formerly named Criminal Cassation Tribunal of San José (vote number 1034-2007; R. Chinchilla, A. Chirino and S. Zúñiga) regarding whether, in the face of a conflict between the constitutional principles of culpability and legality, the courts could make balancing judgments to depart from the minimum limits for the purpose of reducing them if these exceeded the culpability of a subject (thesis sustained by commentators such as Roxin and Binder), the Constitutional Chamber, evading the point, upheld the constitutionality of the minimum extremes of the penalties (see vote number 2008-2124). Likewise, before a consultation made by the Criminal Cassation Tribunal of San José, in vote number 742-2011 (R. Chinchilla, L. García and E. Salinas) regarding whether such high penalty amounts were proportional to sanction persons with a low role in the drug trafficking chain and from whom a small quantity was seized, the majority of the constitutional body found no irregularity on the point, this in vote number 2011-11697 mentioned above. Therefore, if that sanction was applied, no other, not even a lesser one, could be used.

However, in the case of [Name 016], alias [Name 016], the situation changes, since he was given one year more than the minimum. In this regard, it must be indicated that any increase in the minimum penalty established by the legislature must respond to objective reasons, unrelated to the same elements of the criminal type, which must be sufficiently explained by the a quo and in whose argumentation it is not possible to transgress the limits derived from constitutional norms and principles, including material res judicata and the Criminal Law of Act proper to a democratic system. In this way, increasing the minimum penalty due to recorded convictions is unconventional and unconstitutional, as this tribunal, with different panels, including since it was called the Criminal Cassation Tribunal of San José, had occasion to state, among others, in vote number 2015-1120 of this chamber (with another panel: García, Wittmann and Obando). The precedent is invoked not for reasons of authority but for ease in explaining the reasons previously given to reach that conclusion, namely:

"...the Sentencing Tribunal justified the penalty imposed based on different circumstances, such as (...) that the accused had trials, which this Chamber does not share, because it exceeds the culpability specific to the sanctioned act. In this regard, resolution 0934-15 of this Tribunal, with a panel partially subscribed to here, stated: '...Regarding the issue of prior records, this type of argument implies using a Criminal Law of Author and not of Act. It should be taken into account that, as the Constitutional Chamber has stated in various votes, the penalty cannot exceed the culpability of the subject, a thesis in accordance with what was resolved by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in the case Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin et al. vs. Trinidad and Tobago, issued on June 21, 2002 (No. 102) and the same constitutional jurisprudence has indicated that the penalty cannot be increased based on the existence of prior records (Vote No. 5746-93) because this implies a violation of the principle of res judicata, by judging the person again (to increase the sanction) for events for which a final judgment already exists. Furthermore, when a Criminal Tribunal increases the prison sentence taking, as a criterion, that the person has a criminal record, it fails to consider that the Penal Code already provides, for these cases, a consequence, namely, that the person cannot obtain certain benefits, among them that of a suspended sentence (Article 60); the commutation of the sanction (Article 69) or substitution by electronic monitoring (special law), among others. In other words, if what is intended is greater rigor for subjects subjected, more than once, to Criminal Justice, it will be those measures, previously established by the legislator, that fulfill that function.'" (highlighting supplied).

If the above is true in any case, even more so when the crimes whose conviction was recorded lack any relationship (or at least this is not explained) with the crime of the conviction in which the sanction is increased, as happens in this case, in which the nomen iuris (illegal possession of a weapon, aggravated robbery, and drug transport) is different and the majority of the sentencing tribunal made no minimum argumentative effort to establish any relationship. All of this must be considered, if applicable, in the ordered retrial in which the issue of prior records may not be considered to set a punitive consequence, in case this is applicable, a matter on which, it bears repeating, this tribunal does not prejudge, but only on the need that, whatever the decision adopted, all the factual and legal topics previously developed must be analyzed.

IV.- On the precautionary measure and warning for previous annulments. (A) In this matter, the majority decision, in its recitals section, limits itself to enunciating the extension (later corrected to ordering for [Name 016] and extension for [Name 009]) of the precautionary measure. Nowhere are issues of probability of criminal commission mentioned (which can be remedied because it has been assumed, in prior moments of the judgment that must be integrated into this section, of certainty, for the majority in this regard) and even less is it indicated what the procedural danger is and for what reason the measure is ordered or extended. It is convenient, once again, to reiterate that the precaution is not automatic by the mere issuance of the judgment and that the I/A Court H.R. (judgment in the case López Álvarez vs. Honduras, among many others) has indicated that the amount of the penalty or the conviction alone is not sufficient to issue it: "69. From Article 7.3 of the Convention derives the state obligation not to restrict the liberty of the detainee beyond the limits strictly necessary to ensure that they will not impede the efficient development of the investigations nor evade the action of justice. The personal characteristics of the alleged perpetrator and the gravity of the crime attributed to them are not, in themselves, sufficient justification of pretrial detention. Pretrial detention is a precautionary measure and not a punitive one. The Convention is infringed when persons whose criminal responsibility has not been established are deprived of liberty, for an excessively prolonged, and therefore disproportionate, period. This is equivalent to anticipating the penalty." It is clear that the decision on the precautionary measure, for practical reasons, is inserted into the judgment, but it is not necessarily part of it (since the decision, equally, can be adopted in a separate order, before or after said decision), but, in any case, that does not eliminate the jurisdictional obligation to reason it, as required by numerals 142 and 257-258 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Not having done so constitutes one more defect in the process, even challengeable before this venue (thus the vote of the Constitutional Chamber number 202120046).

Given that in the case of [Name 016], the ordering of the measure was only made in the now-annulled conviction since he faced the process in liberty and his provisional detention was imposed solely due to the amount of the sanction, his immediate release must be ordered, if no other cause prevents it and without this affecting the possibility that the parties have —if they deem it appropriate and if the prerequisites for it exist— to request, before the competent body (which is not this one), any other precautionary measure, different from the one indicated, or to request pretrial detention for supervening causes different from the one already referred to. In other words, for [Name 016] the only basis existing until now for the precaution has been the sentence, and since this is rendered ineffective, the base on which that measure rested loses support and it cannot be validly sustained, so that release must be executed by the authority that has him at its order, the only one legitimated for this purpose.

As for [Name 009], the situation is different, since he was declared a fugitive from before (and his pretrial detention was ordered by the same majority judge in a resolution prior to the sentence, although it was extended in it) so the flight risk remains and it is a procedural cause, therefore, for him, the precautionary measure must be maintained in the terms ordered by the trial court, that is, to expire on August 2, 2025, since in order 184-2025-B of 2:37 p.m. on January 27, 2025 (see folio 574 of volume II) the judge analyzed the flight risk due to the declared default and the probability of commission of the act arises from the very accusation in dispute (Article 303 of the procedural legislation). Therefore, the measure must be maintained for the period decreed by the a quo (the only part in which the decision remains in force since, although it was resolved in the judgment, it can be a separate order), a period during which the ordered retrial must be held and without prejudice that, sua sponte or at the request of a party, if deemed appropriate, the measure may be varied. (B) Finally, in this matter, the retrial is being ordered for the third time, an aspect mentioned so that the trial court may grasp the level of responsibility that falls upon it, as it is unacceptable that an in flagrante delicto matter has been in process for over a year, has two volumes of the case file (due to the numerous copies made), and three retrials to its credit, and the case has not yet been duly concluded. Likewise, bear in mind that an acquittal has been issued before, so that, if a second one is issued in that sense (an aspect only mentioned as being one of the possible outcomes, without prejudging the final decision to be adopted), it would close the possibilities of criminal challenge due to the double conformity (Article 466 bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure) and, in such case, the final responsibility for any jurisdictional error would fall exclusively on the deciding entity. Therefore, whatever the decision adopted, the new panel must endeavor to do so without committing any error because if it convicts and errs it will be the fourth retrial and if it acquits and errs it will fully assume responsibility for the decision in the absence of a further appeal.

THEREFORE:

The appeals filed by licensed attorney Esther Salazar Rojas as public defender of the defendants and by licensed attorney Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, private defender of the accused ([Name 009]), are formally declared admissible and with merit. The trial judgment is annulled (except for the precautionary measure of [Name 009] inserted in that decision) and the referral for retrial is ordered before an authority that has not intervened before and with respect for the principle of prohibition of reformatio in peius. The pretrial detention of [Name 009] is maintained until August 2, 2025, without prejudice to any change that may be decreed. The immediate release of [Name 016], alias [Name 016], is ordered.

**Resolution: 2025-0619** **Expediente: 24-000105-1092-PE (7)** **CRIMINAL SENTENCING APPEALS COURT**. Second Judicial Circuit of San José. Goicoechea, at seven hours and fifty minutes on the twenty-first of April, two thousand twenty-five.

**APPEALS** filed in the present case against [Name 009], who is of legal age, Costa Rican, with identity card number [Value 001], born on December 30, 1998, 25 years old, son of [Name 002], in a common-law relationship, father of two minor daughters, construction helper, resident of Tirrases de Curridabat, and against **[Name 016]** (cc. **[Name 016]**) [Name 016], who is of legal age, Nicaraguan, in irregular migration status, born in Managua, Nicaragua, on November 11, 1999, with Nicaraguan passport number [Value 002], 25 years old, son of [Name 006] and [Name 007], in a common-law relationship, father of one child, completed incomplete secondary education, works as a mobile hairdresser, resident of Dos Cercas de Desamparados, for the crime of **DRUG TRANSPORTATION** to the detriment of **PUBLIC HEALTH**. The judges Rosaura Chinchilla Calderón, Kathya Jiménez Fernández, and Ivette Carranza Cambronero participate in the decision on the appeals. Appearing at this venue were licensed attorney Esther Salazar Rojas as public defender for the accused; licensed attorney Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, private defender for the accused ([Name 009]); and Master Héctor Chacón Chang as prosecutor for the Public Prosecutor's Office and, **WHEREAS:** **I.-** That by judgment number 122-2025 of 4:00 p.m. on February 2, 2025, the Flagrante Delicto Criminal Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José, by majority, resolved: "*THEREFORE: In accordance with Articles 39 and 41 of the Political Constitution; Articles 1, 11, 14, 18, 19, 20, 30, 31, 45, 54, 59, 60, 62, 63, and 71, all of the Criminal Code; Article 58 of Law No. 8204, Articles 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 239, 249, 258, 265, 266, 360, 361, 363, 364, and 367, all of the Criminal Procedure Code; by a majority of judges CARLOS NÚÑEZ NÚÑEZ and SHIRLEY MAYORGA ESPINOZA, the accused [Name 009] AND [Name 016] [Name 016] are declared criminally liable as perpetrators of ONE CRIME OF DRUG TRANSPORTATION, for which the following sentence is imposed: on the convicted person ([Name 009]) EIGHT YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT and on the convicted person [Name 016] a sentence of NINE YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT. As it is inadmissible, the benefit of conditional execution of the sentence is NOT granted to the convicted persons, nor is it substituted by house arrest with electronic monitoring or the provision of community service. It is ordered that the Judicial Registry be notified for its corresponding actions regarding (sic) the revocation of the conditional execution benefit for the convicted person [Name 016], which was carried out by judgment No. 625-24 at 4:25 p.m. on July 23, 2024, of the Flagrante Delicto Criminal Court of the II Judicial Circuit of San José, in case No. 24-000685-1092-PE, which is also not registered. The pretrial detention of the defendant [Name 016] is ordered for a period of SIX MONTHS from today and until AUGUST 2, 2025, and the detention of the defendant [Name 009] is extended for a period of SIX MONTHS, from today and until AUGUST 2, 2025. It is ordered that the resolution be communicated to the General Directorate of Migration and Immigration, for its corresponding actions, regarding (sic) the convicted person [Name 016]. Judge WARREN JUGO MADRIGAL dissents, acquits both accused of all punishment and responsibility, and orders their immediate release, if no other cause prevents it. By virtue of having been resolved orally and comprehensively, all parties are duly notified in the act and this resolution is available to them in digital format. Carlos Núñez Núñez. Shirley Mayorga Espinoza. Warren Jugo Madrigal.*" (sic, folios 600-602).

**II.-** That, against the preceding pronouncement, licensed attorney Esther Salazar Rojas, as public defender for the accused, and licensed attorney Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, as private defender appointed by the indictee ([Name 009]), filed appeals.

**III.-** That, after verifying the respective deliberation in accordance with the provisions of Article 465 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the court considered the issues raised in the appeals.

**IV.-** That the pertinent legal prescriptions have been observed in the proceedings.

Drafted by Judge *Chinchilla Calderón*; and, **WHEREAS:** **I.- Procedural Matters. (A) Admissibility.** Licensed attorney Esther Salazar Rojas, as the public defender for both accused, filed an appeal against the judgment rendered in the case record, a decision that is challengeable by said procedural subject (subjective strict legality) and through this avenue (objective strict legality). This challenge was raised by means of a reasoned brief, submitted before the court of instance and within the legal deadline, as it was delivered on *February 21*, 2025, at 6:00 p.m., according to the received stamp on the document attached to the case file (folios 611 to 617). Likewise, on that same February 21, 2025, the private defender—appointed on February 3, 2025, by the accused ([Name 009])—licensed attorney Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, submitted a written appeal (folios 607-610). Given that the full judgment was issued orally on February 2, 2025 (see folio 598), the 15-business-day deadline did not expire until February 22, 2025, and, therefore, the appeals must be admitted, without further formalities being necessary, since otherwise, the mandate established in Article 8.2.h of the American Convention on Human Rights and the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Mauricio Herrera Ulloa vs. Costa Rica, judgment of July 2, 2014, would be breached. The prosecutor details that the accused [Name 009], as of February 3, 2025 (folio 599), terminated the representation exercised by the Public Defender's Office and appointed licensed attorney Rafael Jenkins Grispo as his chosen defense counsel, so, in the opinion of Master Chacón, the defender lacked standing to act on his behalf. Although, in effect, the data provided by this professional corresponds to what occurred in the case record, what he does not take into account is that the rule is that any change in legal representation takes effect once the change is accepted by the court and not when it is made by the accused, without prejudice to the fact that, even after resignation, the previous professional continues to attend to the interests of their client for up to 10 additional business days (Article 46 of the *Code of Legal, Moral, and Ethical Duties of the Legal Professional*), this is because the appointed person may not be a legal professional, may be suspended, or the accused may have debts to honor with another previously designated legal representation (as occurred with this professional in this same case, in which there was his resignation and non-payment of fees as stated in folio 574 verso). That jurisdictional acceptance of the substitution of the defense did not take effect until *February 21, 2025* (by resolution of the *a quo* body at *8:01 p.m.* visible in folio 618, a decision notified to all parties on that same date, as stated in folios 619 to 621), so at the time the public defender filed her brief, she had not been formally released from the post and in accordance with Article 102 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which obligates the removed defense counsel to remain in the position until the substitute intervenes, her brief is admissible, as is that of the private defender filed on that same date, before the substitution (at 4:10 p.m.), but after having been formally appointed by the accused. In any case, as will be seen, both appeals address similar issues for this accused. **(B) Procedural History.** The judgment issued stems from a remand ordered by this court (with the panel of M. Escalante Quirós, R. Badilla Rojas, and E. Montero Mena) in Vote No. 2024-1882 (Volume I, folios 192 to 196) where, upon hearing a prosecutorial appeal against a first acquittal of both accused (issued by judges A. Sobrado, M. Salas, and judge K. Durán), it fully annulled that pronouncement and ordered a new trial. Therefore, it has been verified that in the processing of the case there are no violations of the principle of impartiality in the composition of this chamber, the competence of the remand has been respected, and neither finality of judgment (*res judicata*) nor the principle of double conformity has been violated. **(C) Procedural Matters.** *(i)* In this matter, both due to the aforementioned remand and ordered certified copies of case records, the same proceedings have been duplicated and accumulated, to the point that "the flagrante delicto summary" has more than 600 folios distributed in two volumes. In folio 501 (which heads Volume II), the creation of Volume II was ordered, and from there an erratic foliation is noticeable because it first followed the previous consecutive numbering (albeit making inexplicable jumps in numbering), then this was crossed out and a new numbering starting from 1 began, then, finally, this chamber renumbered everything to strictly respect the consecutive numbering. This last digitization is what will be referenced in this judgment, so it is not necessarily the one cited by the parties. *(ii)* Finally, the name of the accused appears in official documents spelled in two different ways; "[Name 016]" and "[Name 016]", so the reference to the name made in each case will be respected, noting that this situation caused, at another time, the accused's criminal record to be kept separately, one for each name, but it concerns the same person.

**II.-** In the **first ground of the challenge by the public defender**, the complaint is set forth regarding the determination of facts because, she argues, this was the product of an erroneous assessment of the evidence and inadequate intellectual evidentiary reasoning. After describing the facts accused (transportation of 22 doses of marijuana by [Name 016] and 60 pieces of *crack* and one dose of ketamine by [Name 009]) and the manner of police intervention (the accused were walking and, upon seeing the police presence, one ran and threw the bag and the other remained at the site, and upon being searched, the total amount referred to was found, distributed between what each was carrying), the defense affirms that the drugs were carried for personal consumption, that the toxicological expert reports denote that both are consumers, and that the fact that one of them ran is not a univocal element to establish the purpose of trafficking, as it could have the objective of avoiding his arrest and the suppression of the substance on which he depends. She states that the amount seized is not significant and, in the absence of other elements (for example, operations or sales), acquittal due to doubt was required. She considers the analysis of the sentencing court biased as, in her opinion, it reversed the burden of proof regarding whether the accused had to prove that the drug was for their consumption, when it was the prosecutorial entity that was responsible for proving that the transportation was carried out for sale purposes. She adds that the account of the sole witness received at trial, the police officer (who said he saw the accused consuming drugs), was not controversial, but rather the important issue was whether the seized drug was intended for trafficking or not, and, based on this, the majority vote uses the statements of her clients to affirm this point. Thus, it is affirmed that the accused did not agree to engage in joint consumption but rather each went to make individual purchases and met on the way and there decided to consume together, mutually supplying each other with drugs, which, while illicit, was not accused in that manner nor mentioned in the proven facts. By assuming a different purpose in the judgment, the appellant affirms that the correlation was violated. She criticizes that, in the majority vote, the defendants were not given credibility under the argument that the toxicological report does not mention ketamine consumption, when the presence of drugs in the body depends on many factors, including the days elapsed between consumption and the examination. She affirms that it is the dissenting vote that correctly resolves the point. She alludes to the fact that the two toxicological expert reports show consumption by both defendants and that in the medical-legal history of [Name 016] it is recorded that he stated he had consumed ketamine since he was 18 years old and his last intake was on February 2, 2024, which explains why no evidence of the substance appeared in the toxicological report. She requests the ineffectiveness of what was resolved. In the **sole ground of the appeal by licensed attorney Jenkins Grispo**, he alleges a lack of intellectual reasoning and an erroneous assessment of the evidence regarding ([Name 009]). He states, in a somewhat confusing way (for someone who does not know the context), that between one trial and another, an officer of the Public Force changed his version: *"...in the first trial that was annulled, the Public Force officer tells us that it was that he ran and that his companion stayed with my client, and my client states that they never took the drugs alleged in the police report, and that later appear as evidence; in the second trial, the police officer changes that version, not only in a summary manner, that is, he changes it in a way that gives it a 180-degree turn, managing to correct the error that resulted in the judgment of the first annulled trial. The sole trial witness, the officer, relates under oath something that later varies in the second trial, that is, what happened, in which one he failed his truth, in which one the perjury occurred, in the first trial or in the second*." (Cf. appeal brief). Furthermore, while the Public Prosecutor's Office, in the accusation, referred that only one accused ran and [Name 009] remained still, the police officer, in his sworn testimony, stated that both individuals ran, which generates doubts about the real truth of what happened. He adds that the purpose is not mentioned in the accusation and this was not demonstrated at trial, so the judgment places this point on the accused, reversing the burden of proof. He adds that the total amount of the drug divided in two does allow one to consider that it was for personal consumption and that the fact that ketamine did not appear in his client's body does not mean that he did not want to try it that day. He considers that what was resolved by the dissenting judge was correct because there is no harm or injury to third parties from their consumption and requests that the judgment be annulled with respect to [Name 009], his freedom be ordered (since he was detained due to the conviction), and a remand be ordered. *Upon answering the arguments*, the counterparty requested that they be rejected. It made a summary of what happened at other times (acquittal of both accused), of the proven facts by the majority, the evidence incorporated (the statements of [Name 012], of both accused who did not deny possessing the substance that was seized from them, the seizure reports and the analytical chemistry report, the toxicological analyses of the defendants, and the medical-legal report of one of them), and of the reasoning set forth in the vote, both majority and dissenting, to evidence what it describes as the "intersubjectivity" of the point at issue. It describes that, although there is a difference between the oral complaint of the police officers and their account at trial regarding whether one or both subjects ran, the fact that only one did so makes the police intervention lawful, which was not questioned, and that the issue under discussion is the purpose of possession.

In this regard, the prosecutor notes that, in the majority vote, the judges —thus in the brief, although the jurisdictional body to which he alludes is composed of a man and a woman and despite the fact that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, for its acronym in English), an instrument duly signed, ratified, and in force in the country, obliges, in its article 2, paragraphs d), e) and f), public officials to eradicate patterns of discrimination that include the sexist use of language— analyzed that none of the defendants said they consumed ketamine, nor did this substance appear in the toxicological reports performed on them: ([Name 009]), in his initial investigative statement, said he consumed only marijuana, but later added that he also consumed *crack* or cocaine, and although [Name 016] claimed to consume both substances, he only presented traces of marijuana in his urine. The prevailing ruling indicated that if one were to transport drugs to supply the other, that was a typical act, the ketamine found no basis in the defense theory, and the way the 66 doses of *crack*, the 22 marijuana joints were packaged, and [Name 016]'s flight upon the police presence were indications of the purpose of trafficking. The prosecutor describes the minority vote (which is based on doubt as to whether the drug was for personal consumption) and states, with support from votes of the Third Chamber, that for the crime to be constituted, it is sufficient to merely transport drugs from one point to another and that it not be for personal consumption. He adds that: "…*the possession and transport of this latter drug by* [Name 009]*, which was objectively demonstrated, is relevant, since the ketamine seized under the demonstrative conditions of the case sub examine presented a clear impossibility of being plausibly associated with a purpose of personal consumption for* ([Name 009])*. Unlike* [Name 016] [Name 016]*, the accused* [Name 009]*at no time claimed to be addicted to ketamine, and his defense allegation was limited to saying that his and* [Name 016]'*s intention was to make bazuco with the marijuana that* [Name 016]*was carrying and the crack rocks that* [Name 009]*was carrying. Neither did the accused* [Name 009]*claim at trial that, when arrested, he was carrying that drug in order to 'use it for the first time.' For this reason, the allegation made in that sense by esteemed lawyer Jenkins Grispo comes from the mere imagination of the cited colleague, which lacks all evidentiary support and is purely conjectural.*" (Cf. prosecutor's response, the improper use of generalized capitalization in proper names is corrected, but the spelling used by the appellant for these is maintained). He adds that the indictees incurred in contradictions throughout the process regarding their condition of addiction, which reduced their credibility: "*[Name 009]*asserted that he only consumed marijuana and told the court this in the presence of his defense. He did not state that he primarily consumed bazuco, which is a mixture of crack and marijuana. Nor did he say he was addicted to cocaine. Nor did he assert that he consumed ketamine. And this is relevant, since at no time was marijuana seized from* [Name 009]*. What was seized from him and what he was transporting was crack -cocaine- and ketamine. Ergo, if* [Name 009]*was not transporting drugs to which he stated he was addicted at the time of the initial hearing, it is highly logical that* [Name 009]*could not have been transporting those substances for personal consumption before that initial hearing* (…)*In relation to the* (sic) *accused* [Name 016] [Name 016]*, neither can the finding of ketamine be associated with a purpose of personal consumption. Certainly, when interviewed by the forensic doctor, this accused said he consumed ketamine, inhaled, every 3 days, and this was recorded in the legal medical report 2024-000918. Although this expert opinion is dated February 7, 2024, the assessment was performed the day before. In it, as recorded on folio 65,* [Name 016]*recounts having consumed ketamine the very day of his detention, February 2, 2024. But, in report DCF 2024-00546 TOX, performed with the samples taken barely on February 6, 2024, at 13:11 hrs (and not a year later, as the public defender falsely claims), it is reported that* **no ketamine was detected in the urine of that indictee** *-see folio 80-. Here, it is important to say that to detect ketamine in urine in this case, gas chromatography was used, and by this method, quantities of 0.1 mg/ml of the compound can be detected, according to toxicological literature. According to* (sic) *the same medico-legal literature, the maximum detection time is situated at approximately 72 hours for a single dose. However, it is noted that* **in users with habitual or addictive consumption, as the accused** [Name 016] **claimed to have, ketamine can take up to more than 7 days to be eliminated** *[The nonmedical use of ketamine. Part two. A review of problem use and dependence. J Psychoactive Drugs 2001* (…) *cited in J. Royo “La “keta” (ketamina), del fármaco a la droga de abuso. Clínica biopsicosocial del consumidor y algunas propuestas terapéuticas, in Revista Elsevier No. 34, volume 3* (…)] *a situation which, likewise, makes it barely credible that the drug of interest had been consumed by the accused with the assiduity or habitualness he referred to, on the date he stated, and that the carrying of that substance was also due to a true purpose of personal consumption* (…) *Another aspect that also, justifiably, called into question the allegation that the drug the accused were carrying was for personal consumption, was the detail set forth by* [Name 009]*to the effect that he and* [Name 016] [Name 016]*had opened a bag of cocaine and both had consumed from it shortly before the arrest. However,* [Name 016] [Name 016]*did not present cocaine metabolites in blood (see report No. 2024-0546 TOX, folio 80), and no powder cocaine was seized from either of the defendants, so the version of* ([Name 009]) *is again barely credible. Likewise, it is also not possible to believe that what the accused supposedly consumed was ketamine and not cocaine, confusing the latter with the former, since from an objective point of view, neither of the two tested positive for traces of ketamine in urine*" (Cf. prosecutor's response, the improper use of generalized capitalization in proper names is corrected, but the spelling of these is respected). Due to these inconsistencies and because the indictees varied the purpose from personal consumption to supplying the other, and "…*[Name 016]*, *in a sign of guilty conscience, took to his heels when he noticed the police presence and tried to hide the drug by throwing it onto a neighbor's roof*" (Cf. prosecutor's response, the improper use of generalized capitalization in proper names is corrected, respecting their spelling), the prosecutor deems that the conviction was correct. Subsequently, the representative of the prosecuting body makes an extensive disquisition on the criminal policy and criminal dogmatic reasons for not pursuing or penalizing personal consumption, an action different from supply. He affirmed that it is not essential whether both indictees ran or if only one did, according to the change in the police officer's version, as it is understandable that this varies due to the time elapsed and the various existing trials, and that the fact that [Name 009] did not flee upon seeing the police does not exclude his knowledge that he was moving 66 rocks of *crack* and a ketamine package from the purchase site to the arrest site, and that the purpose of that transfer, with respect to at least part of that stash, was not personal consumption, as he admitted in his account. He affirms there was no reversal of the burden of proof but rather an analysis of circumstantial evidence, that being a drug user does not grant a license to carry out the typical conducts, that even though the indictees were approached without a prior investigation to demonstrate the purpose of their possession, this does not generate grievance because each of them, duly advised, accepted that the drug each was transporting was destined for mutual barter, and that the defender's explanation of the reason why [Name 016] ran in the presence of the police is a simple conjecture that does not derive from the evidence, as the officer stated that he failed to detect that, at that moment, he was under the influence of the substance. He argues that the non-seizure of money or the small quantity of the substance is superfluous, since the accused accepted that they were going to barter drugs where, according to article 1100 of the Civil Code, money is substituted, and that, although it is mentioned by the appellant that there are biases in the majority vote, these are not explained. He accepts that the accusation does not mention the purpose of supply or distribution, but he sustains that for the configuration of the illicit act, only common intent, which is to transport, is required, and it was ruled out that it was for personal consumption, all of which was charged and therefore no correlation is transgressed, from which everything else is peripheral. He adds that "…*the accused themselves, freely and voluntarily, once they were warned of their right to remain silent and knowing that anything they said could be used against them, tried to create an argument of personal consumption, without success, since the material defense argument of* [Name 009]*and* [Name 016] *ended up degenerating, degrading, and foundering on the admission of a partial purpose of supply or distribution to a third party on account of the barter of drugs that each one transported individually, which, whether the appellant likes it or not, and whether the respected dissenting judge likes it or not* (…) *clearly distorted the thesis of transport supposedly for the mere individual personal consumption of each accused. It is also worth saying that this misguided defense was carried out by means of respective declarations of the accused, rendered with all procedural guarantees and which, moreover, were not the responsibility of the Court* (…) *nor of the Public Ministry, which should be considered for the purposes of the principle nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem (no one can allege his own turpitude), which is contemplated in art. 439 of the CPP.*" (Cf. prosecutor's response, the improper use of generalized capitalization in proper names is corrected, although their spelling is respected). He explains why, in his opinion, the principle *in dubio pro reo* was not violated and descends into the analysis of the minority vote, criticizing several fundamental themes: one, that doubt should not fall upon essential matters or matters not explainable by the rules of psychology, and that, in the case of the variation in the officer's version about who ran, this could be explained by the passage of time; a second topic, relating to the fact that a conjecture is taken as a starting point when mentioning the possible reason for the flight, since the indictee did not say he did it so they would not take the substance away, and besides, although the police officer stated that [Name 016] was "attacked" or emotional, the officer did not describe conduct that evidenced his consciousness was altered, so it is not rational that, if he only intended that they not take the drug away, he threw it onto the roof where others could take it or from where it was difficult for him to recover it. For this reason, he qualifies this doubt as "*far-fetched and contrived* (…) *markedly absurd and even contradictory*". The third criticism the prosecutor makes of the minority vote is that it is irrelevant to indicate in the accusation whether the purpose is trafficking, as the criminal type only requires knowledge and intention to transport drugs, and what the indictees were carrying (ketamine, cocaine base *crack*, and marijuana, they were) and personal consumption was ruled out because barter falls outside that sphere. In the fourth place, the prosecutor criticizes that "drug trafficking" is a "catch-all concept," as the dissenting judge indicated, in which everything fits, for which he alludes to the treaties on the matter ratified by the country and to the content of the article: "*It is not true that the majority vote stated in its reasoning that once transport is demonstrated, any destination would be an act of drug trafficking. What the Court pointed out in its majority vote was that given the inconsistencies and contradictions between the statements of the accused throughout the process about the substances to which they claimed to be addicted and the results of the toxicological tests, and the manner in which the accused carried drugs of different types, in doses packaged for retail sale, together with the very statements of the accused about the intention they had to supply and distribute the drugs by means of barter, it had to be categorically excluded that the transport of drugs was for a true purpose of individual personal consumption.*" (Cf. prosecutor's response, the original spelling is respected). In the fifth term, he also does not share the minority vote's argument that it is important whether the investigation was limited or non-existent to prove other purposes.

The prosecutor relies on the criterion of the “Criminal Cassation Chamber” —whose name is recorded using the grammatically incorrect use of generalized capitalization, despite the fact that the name provided in the special law, Article 56 of the Organic Law of the Judicial Branch, which prevails over the general one, is different— to stipulate that this body has indicated that nothing more is required than to demonstrate the transport and simple intent (dolo simple) and that the requesting entity has investigative autonomy, so that the rest of the judge's assertions are, he claims, only opinions. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Nor is it true that the majority opinion convicted the defendants because they did not demonstrate a purpose of personal use (autoconsumo). It was rather that the statements made at trial by the accused, added (sic) to the rest of the evidence</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;"><span style="font-style: italic;">previously set forth allowed the exclusion -entirely independent of the quantity of seized drugs- of the purpose of individual personal use (autoconsumo individual) of each defendant. Ergo, there was no reversal of the burden of proof, as the minority opinion carelessly asserted. It is worth emphasizing that it does not depend on the Public Prosecutor's Office or the judges of the Judicial Branch that a typical figure of abstract danger such as the crime of drug trafficking has a minimum penalty of 8 years in prison (...) That is a decision belonging to the Legislative Branch. If the judge (...) has or had doubts about the proportionality of the minimum penalty, the correct course was to make a constitutional inquiry or to propose, de lege ferenda, a legislative reform, giving his personal reasons of "concern" to the Legislative Branch, like any other citizen (sic). What is not possible is to demand requirements that the law does not expressly impose on the prosecuting body or the other judges (sic) of the collegiate chamber, as a pretext for the law not to be applied, or for it to be applied only according to the personal leanings and phobias that can be intimated in the minority ruling. It is not true that a figure of drug trafficking "without content" has been created as an activity penalized with 8 years in prison as a minimum penalty. It is an abstract danger offense that is consummated by the mere fact of moving, from one place to another, pharmaceuticals capable of producing physical or psychic dependence, according to the international Conventions signed and ratified by Costa Rica. </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The criminal figure has a specific, concrete content clearly derived from the wording of the offense, according to the proper meaning of the words used in the legislative drafting and according to the meaning of the rules of semantics and syntax that govern the Spanish language</span><span style="font-style: italic;">. It is not appropriate for the minority ruling to seek, by itself, before itself, and for itself, to impose additional content on the criminal offense, on the Prosecutor's Office, and on the judges (sic) who drafted the majority ruling, based on a mere individual opinion about what the figure of drug trafficking "should be" stemming from an idealized vision of the right to the presumption of innocence or the principle of last resort (última ratio) (...) the action of one who moves the same drugs they are going to consume from the place of purchase to their home is not the same as that of one who moves drugs from the place of purchase to another place for the purpose of supplying or distributing them to a third party, even when the latter pays for the drugs with another type of drug reciprocally. It is clear that the minority opinion inadvertently confuses the general concept of drug consumption with the more restricted concept of individual personal use of drugs. Drug consumption corresponds to a more general concept than that of individual personal use and encompasses any use of psychoactive substances, regardless of quantity, frequency, or motivation. It can include both personal use and distribution to third parties, and does not specify the purpose of the consumption. Individual personal use, on the other hand, refers specifically to the consumption of psychoactive substances for personal and exclusive use (in this case, of the person transporting the drug). It implies that the substance being possessed or transported is destined solely for the individual's own consumption who possesses or transports the drug, without intent to sell, distribute, or supply, totally or partially, to third parties. Personal use is characterized by the will to use the drug only by the individual who possesses or transports it. Whereas generic consumption can involve distribution or supply as a mode of disposing of the drug. And it is only the purpose of individual personal use that generates the non-prosecutability of the possession or transport of drugs. That is the epistemological foundation that the minority opinion obviates, conceals, and ignores when equating a purpose of personal use with a purpose of transporting drugs to barter for another drug used as currency. Our liberal, democratic, and republican State tolerates (does not legitimize) that someone transports drugs to endanger their own health, but it is not obligated to tolerate citizens (sic) commercializing drugs through barter agreements of drug for drug, where substances capable of producing physical or psychic dependence, according to the international conventions signed and ratified by Costa Rica, pass from hand to hand, extending the risk that the promotion or maintenance of addictions causes to society beyond the sphere of an individual's health. In the first case, that of personal use, we are in the presence of a matter of personal self-determination, but in the second case, we are in the presence of conduct that, according to the abstract danger figure created by the legislator (sic), endangers public health, since it is understood that the normalization and generalization of acts of bartering drug for drug or supplies or distributions of drugs within a community can endanger the very stability of the economic and social system, as happens, for example, in cities like Los Angeles, California or in the drainage channels of Las Vegas, Nevada, where the spread of highly addictive drugs such as ketamine, cocaine, and fentanyl not only cause increasing workplace absenteeism, but also uncontrollable health system expenses, an increase in violent crime, premature deaths, and increases in premiums for unemployment and life insurance policies, while creating growing neighborhoods of fentanyl zombies and mentally disabled persons (sic) who must be maintained by the rest of the population. For the aforementioned reasons, this representation vigorously disagrees with the arguments for which the honorable judge (...) chose to acquit.</span>" (Cf. prosecutorial response). He ended by requesting the rejection of the appeal by attorney Jenkins and the first ground of the appeal by attorney Salazar. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The arguments must be upheld, and due to the connectedness of their reasoning, are considered jointly. </span>To understand why this must be so, it is appropriate to begin by making a simple description of what happened in the trial phase, <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt;">an aspect that is most useful if one takes into account that the judgment was delivered entirely orally so that, to delve into the analysis of its content, it is convenient to capture it (albeit in summary form) in a more easily manipulated medium such as written text. Then, in another section, an analysis will be made of the arguments presented there against those of both parties, not without first, in this second moment, making an introduction about what is expected in a jurisdictional decision in light of the rules of legal argumentation, leaving aside opinions or personal pretensions not derived from documents, evidence, or legal rules, conclusions not derived from the premises used, or personal or ideological attacks.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.05pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">(A) Procedural Summary.</span> The <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">prosecutorial accusation</span> attributed the following to the defendants: “<span style="font-style: italic; color: #323130;">O</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: #323130;">n the 2nd day of February 2024, at approximately 2:30 p.m. in San José, </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">Curridabat, Tirrases, in front of Barrio Colonia Cruz, Calle El Mirador, on a public thoroughfare, the accused [Name 009]</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> and [Name 016]</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">possessed and transported for trafficking purposes</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> 60 doses of cocaine, crack base, a point of a drug and twenty-two points of the drug marijuana </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">respectively</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, wrapped in transparent plastic bags, while they walked from one side to another, from East to West. At that same time and place, officers of the Public Force were conducting a routine patrol, observing both defendants walking together on a public thoroughfare, it being (sic) that upon approaching and noticing the police presence they acted suspiciously, it being (sic) that </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline; color: #323130;">[Name 016] fled</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> running from the site, being closely followed by Public Force officers, at which moment barely 10 meters away </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline; color: #323130;">he threw a plastic package</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> onto the roof of one of the dwellings, being arrested at that very spot and locating the plastic package he had just thrown onto the roof, which contained </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline; color: #323130;">22 joints of the drug marijuana</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">. At the same time, Public Force officers arrested [Name 009], who remained still upon noticing the police presence, finding on him 60 doses of the drug cocaine, crack base and a joint of Ketamine, for which reason both accused were formally arrested and the previously described drugs were seized</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">.”</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">(The highlighting is added, see folios 88 to 89 of the physical case file).</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt;">At the retrial (juicio de reenvío) —ordered by a different panel of this court (M. Escalante Quirós, R. Badilla Rojas and E. Montero Mena) after a first unanimous acquittal appealed by the prosecutorial representation and whose appeal was upheld per opinion number 2024-1882, completely annulling what was then decided— the officer [Name 012] appeared as a witness and the documentary and expert evidence was incorporated, consisting of the police report or statement, the drug seizure record and field test result, two medico-legal and two toxicological reports on the defendants and their addendum, analytical chemistry reports on the seized substances, identification data of the defendants, and certification of their criminal records. The decision was issued orally, by majority, and is backed by an audiovisual file with a total duration of 1:03:54. Formally, in the section so named, <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">the following was deemed proven</span>: “<span style="font-style: italic;">SOLE: On the 2nd day of February </span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt;"><span style="font-style: italic;">2024, at approximately 2:30 p.m., in San José, Curridabat, Tirrases, in front of Barrio Colonia Cruz, Calle el Mirador, on a public thoroughfare, the accused [Name 009]</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> and [Name 016]</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> possessed and transported, for trafficking purposes, 60 doses of cocaine base crack, </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">one point of ketamine and 22 joints of marijuana</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, wrapped in transparent plastic bags, while walking from East to West.</span>” (Written summary of judgment and time marker 12:42 onwards of the audiovisual file containing the oral judgment, the emphasis is added). Nevertheless, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">the construction of that section denotes that</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">it was not as exhaustive as it should have been</span> (for which reference is made to the opinion of this court, with a partially similar make-up to the current one: R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas and K. Jiménez, <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1099126"><span style="color: #0563c1;">number </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1099126"><span style="color: #0563c1;">830</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1099126"><span style="color: #0563c1;">-</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1099126"><span style="color: #0563c1;">2022</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1099126"><span style="color: #000000;">,</span></a> in which, among other similar ones, the meaning and purpose of the procedural forms that a criminal judgment must meet are explained), <span style="text-decoration: underline;">since from the presentation of the judgment by the majority, understood as a unit of logical-legal meaning, it is inferred</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">that it deemed additional events proven, such as those that will be listed below</span>, not without first clarifying that the union of ideas will be made by this chamber, since the exposition of those events was dispersed throughout the entire ruling, an occasion on which the co-judge (off-microphone) complemented the presentation of the majority reporting judge (who added the data that the former gave him).

Nor were the same words used to describe these events: <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">a)</span> While the police unit was circulating, they came across the defendants, who were walking on the public road, at which moment [Name 016] ran and threw a bag onto a roof, was chased and detained by two officers ([Name 012] and [Name 017]) and it was determined that said package contained 22 joints of <span style="font-style: italic;">cannabis sativa</span> or marijuana with a mass of 6.17 grams (time counter 13:54 to 16:12 of the audiovisual file containing the oral judgment).</p>\r\n<p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 1.4pt;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">b) </span>Upon searching, the third officer, [Name 018], found on [Name 009] 60 doses of <span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span> (of which 45 were analyzed at random, with an estimated mass of 105.40) and a point of solid powder of something that turned out to be ketamine and not cocaine, as initially thought. [Name 016] narrated that to officer [Name 012]<span>, who was the only one who testified</span><span> at trial (time counter </span><span>16:38 to 19:17 of the same aforementioned file). </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">c) </span>On February 6, 2024, the forensic medical examination is performed on [Name 009] and there he said he was addicted to <span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span> and marijuana, that he consumed the <span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span> (in the amount of eight rocks) six days before (which would be January 31) and the marijuana five days before that date (February 1). The medical assessment indicates that he shows clinical signs compatible with habitual drug use. Later, in the toxicological report, which analyzes a sample taken on the same date, it was determined that he tested positive for <span style="font-style: italic;">cannabinoids</span>, that is, for marijuana use; negative for ketamine and confirmatory in urine for the cocaine metabolite benzoylecgonine (counters 26:44 to 27:13 and 28:39 to 29:08 <span style="font-style: italic;">ibid</span><span style="font-style: italic;">em</span>). <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">d) </span>On February 6, 2024, the forensic medical examination is performed on [Name 016] and there<span> he said he had been addicted, since the age of 18,</span><span> to various drugs: cocaine</span><span> (he said he had consumed it inhaled three days</span><span> before,</span><span> that is, on February 2), </span><span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">ketamine </span>—<span style="font-weight: bold;">28:10 to 28:11</span>—, clonazepam, tusi, tabs, etc. In the medical examination, no signs of addiction or prolonged drug use are found. However, in a subsequent clarification of the expert opinion, it is indicated that this could vary between individuals and that there could be other signs not contained in the report. The toxicological test was negative for <span style="font-style: italic;">cannabinoids</span>, ketamine, and cocaine metabolite (counter 27:39 to 29:08 and 29:33 <span style="font-style: italic;">ibid</span><span style="font-style: italic;">em</span>). <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">e) </span>The defendant [Name 009] has no criminal record and [Name 016] has one for <span style="color: #323130;">illegal </span><span style="color: #323130;">carrying</span><span style="color: #323130;"> of a permitted weapon (he was sentenced to two years</span><span style="color: #323130;"> and six months with the benefit that was later revoked) and for aggravated robbery (sentence of seven years</span><span style="color: #323130;"> of imprisonment). </span><span style="-aw-import: spaces;">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt;">Although the judgment does not expressly set out any section on "<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">facts not</span> <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">proven</span>", it is derived from its content that, for the members forming the majority of the tribunal, there was one of that nature since it was deemed not proven that the defendants possessed or transported the substances found on them for personal use.<span style="-aw-import: spaces;">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt;">Regarding the <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">intellectual analysis and grounds for the</span> <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">appealed </span><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">decision</span>, this, which was one of conviction, was adopted, as already stated, <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">by majority</span> —with the dissenting vote of one judge who acquitted—. Nowhere in the resolution is the deliberation method used explained (staggered or total: for which reference is made, among others, to the vote of this same panel <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1242504"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">number 2024</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1242504"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">-</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1242504"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">1233</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1242504"><span style="color: #000000;">)</span></a>, so this tribunal must infer that it was the latter given that, regarding the penalty, nothing is recorded. The majority's arguments for conviction were explained starting from the time marker 13:50 in the following terms, which are now simply summarized, respecting the meaning of what was indicated, although without necessarily using the same words: <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">i</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">.</span> The patrol, according to what the officer said, goes in the opposite direction to that in which the two subjects (who, ultimately, are identified as the defendants herein) walk together. Upon being next to them, the vehicle stops and it is at that moment that [Name 016] <span>ran out toward the street where he was detained. Two officers follow him and see him throw a bag onto the roof of a house; they detain him, look for a ladder</span><span> and bring down what was thrown, </span><span>determining it was marijuana. The police report says that [Name 009] stayed</span><span> still</span><span> and that is why officer [Name 016] guarded</span><span> him, but at trial the officer </span><span>who testified</span><span> (</span>[Name 012]<span>) said that he </span><span>also ran</span><span> and that that officer</span><span> detained him</span><span>. </span><span>That contradiction</span><span> </span><span>—</span><span>says the judge relaying the majority vote</span><span>—</span><span> is not serious nor does it affect the decision</span><span> to consider that the police approach and the detention</span><span> were legitimate</span><span>, because one runs and substances are seized from both which, in the field tests, </span><span>are identified as drugs. Regarding these events </span><span>—</span><span>date, time, manner and place of the detention</span><span> and of the seizures, as well as</span><span> the individuals involved</span><span>—</span><span> there was no dispute, as the police reports and the records coincide with the statements of the defendants and of officer </span>[Name 012]<span>, who is deemed credible as he is not an enemy of the accused, but only knows them from having seen them, together or separately, both at points of sale or </span><span style="font-style: italic;">bunkers</span>, as well as on the corners or wandering about, but the intervention was almost random, due to them running away. <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">ii</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span>There was no break in the chain of custody and what was analyzed in the laboratories was the same as what was seized, determining that it was drugs: marijuana, <span style="font-style: italic;">crack </span>and ketamine (the latter originally mistaken by the police for cocaine). <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">iii</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span>The discussion lies —the judge relaying the majority vote continues— in the purpose of the transport (accepted by both) of those substances. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The only lawful</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> purpose of transport is that it be for personal use, an eminently personal act, any other is </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">prohibited by law</span>. The accused, in the debate, say they are users, that they did not agree on any drug purchase, but rather that they just met at the exit of the <span style="font-style: italic;">bunker</span> when they had already purchased and made the decision to use together. [Name 009] had bought <span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span> (with a value of 30 thousand colones) and ketamine; he said that he uses <span style="font-style: italic;">crack </span>"bathed", pressed or in a bazuco (on the record, he puts four or five rocks with chopped marijuana), not in a pipe or rock but in the identification data he stated that he only smoked marijuana (at trial he adds that he also uses <span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span>). [Name 016] alluded to using <span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span> and marijuana (at trial he added cocaine). <span style="font-weight: bold;">Neither said, then, that they used</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> ketamine</span>. From the medical and toxicological reports it is inferred that</p>\r\n<p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5pt; margin-bottom: 0.05pt; text-indent: -0.5pt; line-height: 150%;">"…<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">there was confirmatory cannabinoid use for both: confirmatory in urine for [Name 016] and presumptive positive for the case of [Name 009]. But none, all negative, for the matter of ketamine </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">Here</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, then, what we have here</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> is an indication that, although it is true both could</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> use drugs, ummmm, of unauthorized use, according</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to these toxicological tests, the truth of the matter is that you were carrying that day</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> a drug under the conditions in </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">which you were carrying them, one on one side, ummmm, in these crack rocks and a point of ketamine, of which neither of you appears to be a user of that type of drug, and on the other side the marijuana that Mr. [Name 016] was carrying</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">"</span> <span style="color: #323130;">(see time sequence 29:58 </span><span style="color: #323130;">to 30:55). The statements of the defendants lose credibility and the weight that they were going to use for "…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">the possibilities that </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">)</span> <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">at least the point of ketamine was intended for use </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">in the first place</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, and that the marijuana alone was going to be intended for use, given the ways in which you say you use it, according</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to the statement</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;"> (…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">that at that moment you were carrying that drug to then go and use it in the way you indicated here</span> <span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">even if we were to </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">say that, well, that you <span class=""><span class="">were going</span></span> to </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">use this drug, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">that there was going to be a joint use of this drug, that it was only for personal use and had no </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">other purpose, another distinct from that established for personal use</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, that is </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">any other purpose that is </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">prohibited for its transport</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, then we would have </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">to accept that both of you, upon meeting on the street and deciding </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">—</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">just as you accept</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">—</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> meeting each other</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, <span class=""><span class="">were going</span></span>, among you, to </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">distribute</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> drugs that you did not purchase by prior agreement. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">That is, you went to a point of sale, each one bought</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> individually</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> or acquired</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> or became</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> the individual possessor of different types of drugs, and if your thesis of joint use were really true, in the way you both said you <span class=""><span class="">were going</span></span> to use it, which was a bazuco that re</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">quired </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">the combination</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> of both drugs, it means that [Name 009] </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">would have</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;"> had to distribute</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> and that was his purpose (the purpose believing the defense thesis), his purpose would be</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to distribute crack to [Name 016] so that he could use crack and the purpose of [Name 016]</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> would be</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to distribute, supply, even if free of charge, supply marijuana to [Name 009] so that he can use a bazuco. And that activity is </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">illegal</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, it is an illegal activity</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, it is a prohibited activity, personal use is own, it is eminently personal, </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline; color: #323130;">any other supply, any other delivery of the drug is prohibited</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline; color: #323130;">by law</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> So, even though the tribunal considers, in any case, that that drug was not for personal use, at least not in the way you indicated it was going to occur, there was not </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">even, including your own statement</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> banishes the possibility that</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> you two have come to a common</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> agreement, to pool resources, to start</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> using the drug that both had</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> bought, the truth of the matter is that the tribunal, not even having deemed that point, that aspect, proven as unlawful transport, the truth of the matter is that the other thesis put forward by you also </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">leads you</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to a criminal offense, which is the transport of drugs for the distribution</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> and supply of the drug, yes, to supply</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> it to each other.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">"</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">(See time sequence 30:54 to 34:19). </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline;">iv</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">The way in which the drug was individually packaged (22 joints of marijuana, 60 </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">doses of </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic;">crack</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> and the point of ketamine) shows that it was not intended for personal use, but rather that it </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic;">could</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic;"> have been</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> (34:55) carried for distribution</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> or commercialization</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">[Name 009] was carrying a point of ketamine. This is important because neither admitted </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">that they were an addict, a user, or thought that day</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> of using ketamine</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">, so what</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> was going to happen with that ketamine? That is the issue that tells us, precisely, of an unlawful transport</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> of a drug that is not allowed</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> (time marker 34:37 to 35:33). </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline;">v</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">The majority judge refers to</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> article 58 of Law 8204</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">and its various verbs, all individual. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">He reiterates that the only lawful</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> way to transport drugs is for personal or own use or by the police</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> when they seize it</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">and take it to the authorities</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">, which </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">is a permission in compliance with a legal duty. He adds that the typical transport</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> was configured because the defendants knew</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> what they were carrying and that it was illegal</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">, to the point that there is an evasive attitude upon encountering the police</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">. [Name 016] said that this was because he </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">was coming very high, very crazy, but </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">the police did not see them</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> using drugs, nor </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">that they were coming under the effects of any drug. Mr. </span>[Name 012]<span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> did not see signs or behaviors related to drug use in them</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">.</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">(See time sequence 37:44 to 38:25). </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline;">vi</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">Starting from </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">time counter 41:35 of the audiovisual file containing the judgment, after the judge relaying the vote has alluded to the segments of the Theory of Crime</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">, he refers to the sanction</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> and justifies the minimum penalty</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">, of eight years</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> of imprisonment, for [Name 009] for having a clean</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> record</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> and being young, without reduction</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> because there are no circumstances to presume vulnerability due to consumption nor can other penalties be imposed. For [Name 016], from time marker 43:02 until 45:07, it is indicated that the situation</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> is different </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">because</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> he has a record for illegal carrying</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> of a permitted weapon (two years</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> and six months of imprisonment</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">), a benefit of conditional suspension of the sentence</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> had been granted to him</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> which was revoked by another criminal sentence that found him</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> guilty of aggravated robbery</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">, imposed seven years</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> and added</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> that other amount to it. The judge mentions that there was a problem with the Judicial Registry regarding the way of writing the name ([Name 016] in one and [Name 016] in another) but there are already two convictions. Therefore, the minimum penalty</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> is not adequate and the sanction</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> was set</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> at nine years</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> of imprisonment</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">, proportional due to being young.</span> **vii.** It was ordered that the detention of both be extended to enforce the sentence, although it was later clarified (upon observation by the co-judge) that this measure was being imposed on [Name 016] at that time because he did not have one before. No reference was made to the procedural risks of either. It was also decided to communicate the decision to the Dirección General de Migración given the irregular situation of [Name 016] (this only in the operative part).

From the 46:36 time stamp of the audiovisual file containing the oral sentence, the dissenting judge set forth his **dissenting vote** based on the following considerations: **i.** There are factual issues between the police action and what is stated in the accusatory piece. He deems the statement of police officer [Name 012] to be credible, for the most part, especially given the time elapsed from the intervention to his declaration in this trial. Here he stated that both subjects ran and, when asked what would have happened if they had not, the officer transparently stated that they would not have been intervened. The accusation says that [Name 009] did not run but remained static and although here the officer stated that he did, there is an important contradiction that affects the police intervention—to what extent can the suspicious action of [Name 016] in running be attributed to [Name 009]? **ii.** If the prosecutorial thesis is accepted, that running is not typical of someone who is going to consume, a very large assumption is made because no one can allude to an atypical or abnormal reaction; one can also think that one runs to avoid having the drug taken away and, for that reason, throws it onto the roof. **iii.** The accusation cites the generic term "*fines de tráfico*" (trafficking purposes), it is like a bag where everything fits. (Just at this segment, time stamp 52:29, he is interrupted because one of the accused speaks and states that he wishes to withdraw, which he is indeed allowed to do and is taken out of the courtroom by the guards). For the majority, any purpose other than consumption is illicit, except for the transport permit of the police officers. We all have confirmed the transport; you (addressing the defendants) do not deny it. The majority says that this transport was for distribution or supply between the two of you, without a prior agreement before the purchase. **It is unacceptable,** the minority judge continues, **that — if Article 58 alludes to 16 or 17 verbs, each of which describes illicit activities — the Ministerio Público comes with such a scant investigation that it does not allow us to say to which of those activities the accused were dedicating themselves.** The hypothesis of distribution or supply arises from the court's deliberation, it is never mentioned by the prosecutorial entity, which shields itself behind an element as arcane and imprecise as "tráfico" (trafficking), without describing which activity they were going to carry out. Yes, it is a matter of flagrancy; yes, the investigation is short, but that does not mean it does not warrant some, especially when the penalty is so high. He alludes to the principles of *última ratio* and innocence and "...*what is happening, at least in the judgment of the one who saves his vote, of the one who votes dissidently, what is being said here is that since you could not prove the issue of consumption and said things that make one think of a supply issue, then ergo, you must be condemned, when it is supposed that the one who should prove that activity different from consumption is the Ministerio Público within the avalanche of possibilities that exist with what you declared and from the facts, the court cannot, at least I cannot, extract as a court, reliably that the drug was not for consumption, just as my colleagues rule out with the circumstantial evidence that they used and which I am not going to refer to at such length because they are already known.*" (Cf., time stamp 55:40 to 56:34). From that vote, and from others by different courts, the dissenting judge continues to explain, it is inferred that the burden of proof has been reversed and a transport without content, or with the content of an indication, has been determined as a penalized activity. **iv.** Jurisprudentially, a difference has been established between consumption with or without a prior agreement. Here it was said that there was no prior agreement. I do not understand — the official continues — how the danger to public health changes. He disagrees with that thesis. If both carry drugs to consume and exchange something, what is the danger to public health with that? If they had not met, they probably would have gone to consume the drug the same way; if the purpose was consumption and if it was another purpose, it could not be demonstrated in this trial, because there was no element whatsoever to mention sale. The judge even expresses doubts because the police officer does not remember if the accused had items for consumption; the prosecutor says that this must be somewhere, the logbook or the Oficialía, but he did not bring them. The accused say that they did carry lighters, a situation that the majority of the court dismisses, without this thesis of the majority being accurately supported in the evidence. The doubt is also about the injury to the legal right, the intervention of the Fuerza Pública and the actions that each one carried out, as well as the difference between prior or subsequent agreement for consumption, and that does not generate certainty and, therefore, acquittal is granted.

**(B) A digression (long, but necessary) on the conceptual tools to be applied.** This matter, both due to the nature of the facts, and the content of the prosecutorial piece, the procedural history (diverse results reached by different judges), the argumentation of the trial judges as well as, before this venue, of the parties, highlights the need to emphasize that, in States of Law, legal operators cannot depart from the norms that bind them, even if these do not have the content they intend, nor can they detach themselves from the evidence, for it is not their consciences that guide their actions. Therefore, this chamber finds it relevant to emphasize three fundamental themes for the scholar of Law:

*i.-* on one hand, the **role of jurisdictionality** in the resolution of controversies, before which all hold the same importance and must be attended with the same diligence and care. For this reason, in procedural doctrine, it is assumed that jurisdiction (as the state power to resolve conflicts) is one — unlike competence, which is divisible into thematic areas — and it is exercised, in its entirety, both by the judge of a rural zone in a contraventional matter and by those who integrate courts of the highest echelon in the pyramid. Hence, it is worth the tangential clarification, a dogmatic imprecision is incurred when alluding to "*jurisdicción de delincuencia organizada*" (organized crime jurisdiction) "*jurisdicción penal de hacienda*" (tax criminal jurisdiction), etc., since these are material sub-competencies of competence, in this case, criminal. From the foregoing, it follows that there is no "small case" and if someone, improperly, believes that one can be so (such as the seizure, in flagrancy, of a small amount of drugs in the hands of two people) they might be "surprised" that enormous legal discussions are involved there, like some of those that will be addressed here, for that consideration stems from the *anchoring bias* or the *Dunning-Kruger effect* (to which reference will be made later on) where, the greater the ignorance of a topic — and all human beings are more or less ignorant of most topics, for knowledge is procedural and sources of information are, today, almost unfathomable, an aspect that, in Greek philosophy, was synthesized with the phrase, attributed to Socrates, "*I only know that I know nothing*" —, the greater the recklessness in making such statements. For the same reason, the value of the decision of each judge is the same, regardless of the role they have when inserted in procedural systems where vertical scrutiny or degrees operate and regardless, also, of whether they are in the majority or minority in a collegiate body they integrate. Evidently, if, in light of that equal value of all jurisdictional criteria, the legal system did not propose further remedies, chaotic situations could be generated and the purpose of Law, which is the civilized resolution of disputes between people, would be thwarted. Thus, to mitigate the effects that this equivalence of value in the decision of each judge may produce, legal systems — by legislative policy decision and in attention to the constitutional principle of legal certainty — adopt numerical rules, both in voting and in the integration of courts. Thus, for example, decisions within the same body end up being accepted as valid based on a certain majority (incorporation of the democratic constitutional principle of numeral 1 of the current Constitución Política) and a system of appeals is established, according to which the decisions of the judges of control bodies (which tend to have, legally, higher selection requirements) prevail, in the specific case, over those who integrate lower-ranking bodies, thus incorporating the constitutional principle of suitability provided for in constitutional canon 192. Now, this, as a thesis in principle, because the fact that a decision is adopted by a majority or by a higher body does not make it "legitimate *per se*" (that is, extendable to other cases by the force of its argumentative framework), but only when, descending to its content, this follows the rules predetermined in the respective legal system, in attention, precisely, to respect for the principle of judicial independence that, constitutionally (article 154 of the superior norm) and conventionally (e.g., canon 8.1 of the Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos) is provided for as a guarantee for individuals, so that their disputes are decided aside from other factors foreign to the legal. And there, then, the jurisdictional limits arise (of any court, regardless of degree, subject matter, or composition), one of which is given by:

*ii.-* the **relevance of legal argumentation in the adopted decision**. In judgment systems of a Roman-Germanic or continental-European accent such as ours — as opposed to the rules that exist in *other* legal systems, such as Anglo-Saxon, indigenous, etc., because, contrary to what we usually normalize, the one we use is not the only valid legal system — this theme is what marks the validity of some reasoning over others (without prejudice to limits, which must also be in the regulations, to avoid endless discussions). In other words: a minority decision can be better structured than a majority one, which may present defects that invalidate it, a case in which the matter can be annulled so that the integral resolution is built anew. Likewise, a decision from a trial court body can be more convincing and reasonable ("more aligned with the rules of law") than one from a higher-level body, a situation in which, although the latter prevails for legal certainty, its signatories assume responsibility before the citizenry and exonerate the other body from it. Legal argumentation is inserted in all work with Law: from its creation (legislative) to its application (judicial). So, if we were to do a "flyover" of our legal systems (in general), we could indicate, broadly speaking, that they are characterized because, to design them:

*ii.a)-* legislation must be enacted starting from a **constitutional framework** that provides for the existence of a **State**, that is, a third party that — in exercise of the **sovereign power** granted to it in that founding, recognized-as-valid document (Constitución Política) — will resolve, even **coercively**, the conflicts of its **population** that are within its **territory**. Therefore, it is improper, in this context, to allude to "citizenship" (as mentioned several times in the prosecutorial reply brief) since this condition is only held by nationals of a certain age and in the exercise of their political rights, while dispute resolution also involves foreign persons, minors, or even those politically incapacitated. Likewise, that first norm and within its very text, is given a dogmatic value that others cannot contradict and, from that **constitutional supremacy**, a hierarchy of sources of law unfolds, where rules of lower rank cannot contradict those of higher grade. This will be important to revisit when analyzing, for example, whether ketamine is a prohibited drug at this time in the country or whether what jurisprudence says the law contains prevails over its text according to the hermeneutical rules usable in that matter. That **Constitutional State**, moreover, was defined, in current Article 1, as **Democratic**, that is, there is decision-making by majorities, whether simple or absolute (which, as stated, is also incorporated into the decisional systems of collegiate courts), but where minorities, by that position alone, do not lose the dignity inherent to their condition as human beings nor do they renounce their fundamental rights, but are protected by an array of international instruments, signed and ratified by the country that, by national decision (Article 27 of the Convención de Viena sobre el Derecho de los Tratados and votes number 282-90, 3435-92, 2315-93, 2313-95, 1319-97, 4356-98, and 6830-98 of the Sala Constitucional), are incorporated into domestic law and prevail over lower-ranking regulations. Likewise, that qualifier implies that there is a commitment to the reinforced protection of freedom, in its multiple manifestations (personal, movement, thought, expression, association, assembly, economic, religion, academic, etc.) and to individual guarantees, which include the rules of judgment in accordance with due process. That Democratic and Constitutional State is, also, a State **of Law** and **Republican**, that is, where those who hold power (both factual and institutionalized) submit to pre-existing legal rules that establish a design of checks and balances, with defined functions and where, in the Costa Rican case, as a product of the conflict of the 1940s, other control bodies were incorporated besides the three classic powers (Executive, Judicial, and Legislative), (the Poder Electoral, reinforced autonomies of some institutions, Contraloría General de la República, etc.). As can be seen, the constitutional qualifiers of the Costa Rican "State" are many more than those the prosecutor lists in his reply and his expression according to which "*Nuestro Estado liberal, democrático y republicano tolera (no legitima) que alguien transporte…*" is not so exact, for precisely in attention to the principle of autonomy of will (constitutional article 28) and to those other characteristics of the political regime, freedom becomes the rule (sustaining the constitutional principles *pro libertatis* and *pro persona*) and prohibition is the exception (hence the definition of Criminal Law as a 'discontinuous order of illicit acts', because continuity is given by freedom). Thus, it is not that the State tolerates freedom (that which is not prohibited) but that it empowers it, and this is the essence of the system. Everything not prohibited is legitimized by the principle of freedom. As will be set forth below, the one judging must analyze whether the legal rules (both formal or procedural and substantial or substantive) applied conform to that model or whether, for example in the definition of the content of what is criminally prohibited, that scheme is violated or not.

ii.b) One must judge based on legitimate, current, and valid legal rules (as stated above). In substantive law (derecho de fondo), it involves applying the methods of interpretation (grammatical or restrictive, historical, teleological, systematic, analogical, genealogical, logical…) appropriate to each subdiscipline, as well as the general principles of law (e.g.: a later law repeals an earlier one; a special law prevails over a general one) and the rules of validity in time, space, and with respect to persons. In criminal matters, in procedural law (en lo procesal), regarding the assessment of evidence and the determination of the historical fact that occurred (and as a principle increasingly extended to other matters), it starts from a system of freedom of proof (sistema de libertad probatoria) where, as a general rule (with its regulated exceptions), any fact can be proven by any legitimate means of evidence (article 182 of the Código Procesal Penal). This introduces the system of free assessment of evidence or sound criticism (sistema de libre valoración de la prueba o sana crítica) (as opposed to systems based on legal or tariffed proof or on conscience or intimate conviction) in which other areas of human knowledge play a fundamental role, such as the social sciences, within which psychology for the assessment of human manifestations and behavior (la psicología para valoración de las manifestaciones y el comportamiento humano) is highly relevant, the formal sciences for carrying out a logical explanatory argument, derived from the evidence and not merely speculative—although this does not mean that clues with an amphibological sense are admissible as evidence, issues that should not be confused—, complete (that is, without preterition of evidence or arguments), and non-contradictory. Also included are the "hard" sciences (to extract principles of physics in the dynamics of events, knowledge of ballistics, the human body, Forensic Medicine, criminalistics, etc.). On multiple occasions, this same panel has insisted that the notions of freedom of proof (libertad probatoria) and sound criticism (sana crítica) do not constitute letters of marque with which to disguise the subjectivity or arbitrariness of the decision-makers or the parties arguing in favor of their theses. Rather, contemporary procedural dogmatics explicates a series of criteria—valid as of this date according to the current state of human knowledge—to decide which means or element of evidence prevails over another, if several complement or exclude each other, which version is acceptable and which is not, etc. Thus, it has been said that:

«…in the mission of objectifying the level of verifiability of the information introduced into a trial, among those mentioned are (i) some related to the declarant person himself/herself, emphasizing the absence of subjective incredibility, that is, without entering into a minute analysis of the account, objectively there are no reasons to consider that the version is issued for spurious motives to unduly blame or deliberately exculpate someone for the obtaining of procedural, economic, or personal benefits (e.g.: persons convicted of false testimony; documents alluding to payment for benefits, allegations of revenge, obedience, physical inability to see or hear and make references of this type, etc.). Here it is necessary to attend to the proper characteristics of the declarant's personality, fundamentally his/her development and mental maturity and (ii) others alluding to the content of what is narrated that include verifying the following: (a) Coherence of the account: the structure of the statement is analyzed to verify if it has internal contradictions in its own current discursive thread or with the rest of the evidence and to rule out that the version is absolutely fanciful or incredible and that there is persistence in the incrimination and its details over time. (b) Contextualization of the statement: in such a way that it allows for the inference of temporal, environmental, and spatial circumstances in which the narrated facts occurred, since mental perception does not usually concentrate on a single theme but rather captures the whole. (c) Peripheral corroborations with objective data: that is, it concerns the possibility that even secondary themes find support in other evidentiary means or elements that give them verisimilitude or confirm some extremes. (d) Appearance of opportunistic details in the statement: this allows focusing on how, through questioning even on minor themes, new details can appear that allow confirmation or falsification of the statement and better control over its logicality and completeness. A detailed analysis of these factors allows ruling out the assumption of decisions in intimate conviction, disguised with analytical language, in the style of outlining a series of words (credible, reliable, truthful, etc.) but without giving them content. However, it is not enough that any one of them is present for the evidence to be, ipso facto, disqualified, but rather it obliges one to be more scrupulous in the examination (…) seems to require exactness in the statements to give them credibility, forgetting that the lack of this is not necessarily a sign of mendacity since each person narrates the facts according to the cognitive, cultural, linguistic, and memory development they possess. It is known that the capacity to understand, verbalize, and reproduce the facts varies in each human being and to understand it, the psychology of testimony has emerged (branch of psychology that, like all science, is in constant evolution and is not static), which has dealt, among other things, with explaining the functionality of memory, describing how three elements converge in the recollection of events: sensory memory (which depends on the perception of the declarant and which, in turn, is influenced by factors such as his/her capacity for visualization, hearing, attention, the visual level at which he/she is, distance, luminosity, duration of the event, age of the perceiving person, his/her emotional state, etc.), short-term memory (which encodes and decodes the information transmitted by sensory memory, whether visually, spatially, or verbally, and gives meaning to what is perceived by the senses), and long-term memory (which uses two sources: semantic memory that retrieves general cognitive knowledge according to space and time coordinates of the learner and autobiographical or episodic memory that stores our experiences in the form of "mnemic traces." However, those memory traces do not remain intact, but are modified by various factors. One of them is degradation due to the passage of time regarding details less consistent with the general scheme; another factor has to do with the process of recoding the original information, which occurs through higher mental activities of the human being [Cf. Ferrer, Francisco; Dieuzide, María (2018). Psicología del testimonio: los siete pecados de la memoria en testigos y víctimas. Revista Pensamiento Penal, Argentina and Atkinnson, R. y Shiffrin, R. (1983) Human memory. A proposed system and its control processes. En: K. W. Spence y J.T. spence (eds.). The psychology of learning and motivation: advances is research and theory. Nueva York: Academic press (trad. cast. En M.V. Sebastián, comp. Lecturas de psicología de la memoria, Alianza Universidad)]. By virtue of the foregoing, a story that constantly modifies itself, denoting the absence of a core that has marked an imprint on the memory, can be just as suspicious as a version that remains invariable over time, even in the smallest details (which is contrary to the gradation of the mnemic trace due to the insignificance of what was captured). Inclusively, many of the arguments of the professional who challenges start from this bias, because they question and qualify as anomalous (when it is not necessarily so) that there have been variations or omissions in the story between the moment of the complaint and the statement at trial, without such a procedure being irregular, according to the specialized literature, but rather it is usually common not necessarily only due to the passage of time and the maturity of the persons but, above all, due to the therapeutic and empowerment process to which a person has subjected himself/herself to remember without 'blockages' and without pain, especially in the face of traumatic or violent events such as those described in this case…» Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia Penal de San José, voto número 452-2024.

Neurosciences and the study of the phenomena of attention, perception, orientation, and memory provide greater inputs for better assessing certain means of evidence. Likewise, there are certain disorders that affect memory (such as amnesia in its various types: retrograde, anterograde, lacunar, dissociative, or global, which is a loss of memories, facts, information, and experiences; paramnesia or the experience of delusions as memories; cryptomnesia or implicit memory that considers an idea original when it is a thought induced or previous, a product of the environment; and ecmnesia in which there is an experience of situations from the past as if they were current) that, therefore, introduce distortions in the information obtained in a process. Later, when we descend to the specific case, we will see why this conceptual framework is relevant.

ii.c) Finally, one must decide based on the rules of sound criticism (briefly stated above), but the resolution must be motivated following the rules of language, both of the official language to be used and of the legal sub-language, correctly using legal terms to avoid semantic confusions regarding the meanings of words that, in each discipline, have a limited meaning (for this reason, it is insisted, by way of mere example, on the difference between plazo-término, caducidad-prescripción, vulva-vagina, among many other concepts that are, not infrequently, used interchangeably in an erroneous manner). On many occasions, the decision adopted by a court is correct (for example, whom to believe, what evidence prevails over another, what happened, who did it) but it fails in the explanation of that decision. In this task of making a decision explicit, logic is fundamental, a subdiscipline derived from philosophy that leads us to banish paralogisms or argumentative fallacies, both formal —which generate an invalid inference between the premises and give rise to an error that rests on the structure of the argument, among which are listed the denial of the antecedent, which uses a conditional and when the first element is denied, it is incorrectly inferred that the second is also denied ("if I give him a gift he will be my friend; if I do not give him a gift, he will not be a friend"); the affirmation of the consequent, which also starts from a conditional, but affirms the second element and from this the first is incorrectly inferred as true ("If I pass, I uncork the champagne; I uncork the champagne, therefore I passed"); the undistributed middle term or fallacious disjunctive syllogism where the central element of the syllogism that connects two propositions does not appear in the conclusion ("Every Frenchman is European; some Russian is European; therefore some Russian is French"); the fallacious negation of the conjunction occurs when a phenomenon does not occur as a result of a set of elements, so one of those elements is denied ("A good cake requires flour and eggs; the cake was not good, therefore flour was not put in it"); the categorical syllogism with negative premises where both premises are negations and nothing can be validly concluded from them ("No mammal has feathers; no mouse has feathers; ergo, no mammal is a mouse"); the fallacy of four terms where one of the terms has two meanings and the syllogism starts from only three elements for its validity ("Man is the only animal capable of creating the wheel; the woman is not a man; the woman cannot create a wheel"); the fallacy of illicit conversion in which the relationship of the terms of a proposition is incorrectly inverted ("All dogs are mammals, therefore, all mammals are dogs"); the fallacy of the existential premise in which conclusions about the existence of something are drawn from universal propositions, without premises that justify it ("Dragons spit fire. Ergo, dragons exist") or the affirmation of a false disjunctive or excluding alternative ("It is A or B; if it is B, it is not A")— as non-formal. In the latter, the error in reasoning is based on the content of the premises, not on the structure of the argument. There are multiple examples, so, without prejudice to delving deeper later into some applicable to the specific case, only some informal fallacies will be mentioned:

* ad populum or populist sophism (the validity of the information is based on the number of people who support the premise); * ad ignorantiam (since it cannot be demonstrated that the idea is false, it is accepted as true).

Within this category lies the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion (falacia de conclusión inatinente) or ignoratio elenchi, in which, often intentionally to distract attention, one seeks to prove the wrong point that is not related to the subject at hand; * ad hóminem (the message is discredited by attacking the sender for some personal characteristic); * ad baculum (the structure of an argument is supported by resorting to imposition, threats, or violence to persuade); * ad antiquitatem (traditions are invoked as the basic guide for proceeding in daily life); * ad novitatem (novelty is invoked as a guarantee of truthfulness); * ad nauseam (repeating the same idea enough times to make it real to the interlocutor); * ad misericordiam (pity or compassion is invoked to reinforce the suitability of what one seeks to achieve); * ad crumenam and ad lazarum (in the first case, truthfulness is attributed to the argument because the person using it is rich, and in the second, because they are poor); * of ambiguity (de ambigüedad) or antanaclasis, which are subdivided into: equivocation (equívoco), based on the different meanings of a term; amphiboly (anfibología), in a sense similar to the previous but the confusion arises from the premises of the sentence and not from the content of the words; emphasis, accent, or phonetic ambiguity (énfasis, acento o ambigüedad fonética), in which the erroneous understanding of the message arises from an error in intonation; of composition (de composición), in which the whole is of the same nature as its parts, like "the lemon is acidic, the cake is made of lemon, the cake is acidic"; and of division (de división), which attributes what is true for the whole to be true for its parts, like "university A is excellent; Juan is from University A, Juan is excellent"; * ad verecundiam or of authority (de autoridad) (the truthfulness of a proposition is linked to the authority of the person defending it); * ad consequentiam (the validity or invalidity of an idea depends on whether what can be inferred from it is desirable or not); * of hasty generalization (de generalización apresurada) (general conclusions are drawn from individual data, insufficient to extrapolate them); * of incomplete or anecdotal evidence (de evidencia incompleta o anecdótica) (conclusions are reached from poor-quality information); * of the "straw man" (del “hombre” de paja) (the idea is not refuted by following the argumentative thread presented, but with a different argument: "we want young people to read literature; that is, they want young people to stop doing sports"); * of composition (de composición) (if something is true of the whole, it is assumed that everything within that whole is true: "within the universe every phenomenon has a cause, ergo, the universe has a cause"); * of the middle ground, moderation, or compromise (del punto medio, moderación o compromiso) (an equidistant position between two conflicting ones is adopted without considering whether one of the conflicting premises has greater value than the other); * tu quoque fallacy: the illusion of refuting an argument is created by pointing out that the person proposing it does not act in accordance with that idea, and * post hoc ergo propter hoc (if one event happens after another, it is assumed that the latter is a consequence of the former: "the dollar fell and the volcano erupted, ergo the volcano erupted because the dollar fell")— [for an extensive treatment of this topic, cf. Arroyo Gutiérrez, José Manuel and Rodríguez Campos, Alexander (2002). Lógica jurídica y motivación de la sentencia penal. Escuela Judicial, San José, Costa Rica].

Correct human understanding also integrates experience (la experiencia) (which should not be confused with the private knowledge of the court, whose use generates an error by making it impossible for the parties to counter the information derived therefrom) and basic psychology (la psicología elemental). While logic, from philosophy, provides the analytical toolkit of fallacies, psychology, from the social sciences, ventures into cognitive biases (sesgos cognitivos) or heuristics (heurísticas), which, roughly speaking, can be conceptualized as mental shortcuts in decision-making to economize resources and ensure efficiency or survival, but which generate distortions of information and reasoning. Although, in some cases, there is similarity in the names and effects of formal or informal fallacies and some cognitive biases or heuristics, these reasoning vices arise at different moments. The latter appear in the immediate perceiving or acting of persons; the former in the more thoughtful and mediated exposition of ideas. Thus, when the persons who make up a court make immediate decisions, in the heat of circumstances, and expose their ideas verbally, as happens in the delivery of oral judgments, it is more likely that biases will be identified, whereas if they expose them in more detailed writing, the likelihood leads to identifying fallacies. However, the lines can cross, and one does not exclude the other. The list of cognitive biases (sesgos cognitivos) or heuristics (heurísticas) is enormous, but among the most common can be found:

* confirmation (confirmación) bias (this is the tendency to find and remember information that confirms our opinions or perceptions, topics now amplified by social media algorithms); * anchoring (anclaje) bias (too much trust is placed in the first information offered when making decisions); * survivorship (supervivencia) bias (an error is made in the selection of objects, persons, or data by trusting only the success cases and omitting the negative ones, where the key to the explanation may lie); * hindsight (retrospectivo) bias (the tendency to reconstruct the past to make it compatible with current knowledge and forgetting the limitations of the earlier time) and rosy retrospection (retrospección idílica) bias (judging the past in a disproportionately positive way compared to the present, in the style of "everything in the past was better"); * correspondence (correspondencia) bias, attribution error, or over-attribution effect (overvaluing internal motives when trying to explain a phenomenon or behavior, leaving aside or undervaluing external motives. Other people are judged by their personality, but each of us is judged by the situation); * in-group favoritism (favoritismo del endogrupo) bias (showing preference and favoring those who belong to the same group, compared to those who are outside it, which in our environments is often linked to citing pronouncements from our own offices and not from others); * bandwagon (arrastre) effect or Bandwagon effect (the tendency of people to adopt beliefs, behaviors, or attitudes simply because a large number of people think or assume such behavior or belief, for example, recently, the effect on social networks of making Ghibli-style images without analyzing their effects on the delivery of facial recognition data, the environment, or employment); * false consensus (falso consenso) bias (the tendency to think that many people think similarly to how each individual does, a topic exploited by social networks with their algorithms that generate "bubbles" of affinities); * just-world (mundo justo) hypothesis (it assumes that people get what they deserve: just people will receive good things and bad people, bad things; it is a tendency to protect self-esteem); * the Dunning-Kruger effect (efecto Dunning-Kruger) (persons with limited capacities in certain fields, because of those limitations, overestimate their capacity and performance since they cannot visualize their shortcomings); * tachypsychia (taquipsiquia) (it takes its name from the symptom of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder related to the acceleration of thought, but it concerns the distortion that we human beings sometimes have regarding the passage of time); * the curse of knowledge (maldición del conocimiento) (a person, in the communicative process, assumes that the interlocutor possesses the same information and can understand what they are explaining, which is shown, in this matter, when the private defender, in convoluted phrases that were transcribed when summarizing their argument, does not adequately explain what happened with the police officer's version in the two trials and presupposes that this court has their same data, which, therefore, made what they initially indicated unintelligible, something that was clarified upon descending to the examination of the historical records of this case); * the halo effect (efecto halo) (our impression or assessment of a person, idea, or object arises from the way a property of that person, idea, or object is evaluated. If at first glance something positive, or negative, emerges from the person or situation, one tends to extend that to the rest); * availability (disponibilidad) bias (the tendency of human beings to judge the frequency or availability of an event by the ease of thinking of examples of that situation. What is determining is the ease of imagination or memory, which extends to other aspects: if a plane crash has recently occurred, one tends to think that traveling by plane is more dangerous than doing so by car, for example, because that was the memory available in the mind); * the availability cascade (cascada de disponibilidad) (given the psychological need for social acceptance, collective beliefs end up being accepted through public repetition, a phenomenon exploited by computer bots on social networks); * naive realism (realismo ingenuo) (the tendency to believe that other people are irrational or uninformed, but we observe the situation objectively, very typical of litigation that emphasizes the arguments it deems "correct" without evidencing others that underlie or are not wanted to be seen); * the third-person effect (tendency such as considering that it is others, and not us, who are affected by the subliminal biases of communication processes); * blind spot prejudice (prejuicio de punto ciego) (believing that one has no prejudices, but others do); * disconfirmation bias (sesgo de disconformidad) (carrying out a critical scrutiny of information when it contradicts what is believed, but not doing so if the information is congruent with one's own beliefs); * the Forer effect (efecto Forer) (making vague attributions or descriptions that can be applied to many situations, as in astrology, graphology, or fortune-telling, or as when courts copy "templates" of what the reasoning is but do not perform it, or litigants say how the decision should be but do not criticize the specifically given argumentation); * automation bias (sesgo de automatización) (trusting too much in automated processes, overlooking that they are fed by people or that the programming can fail. For example, the belief that Artificial Intelligence or ChatGPT is infallible; that automated justice will be better, etc.); * status quo bias (sesgo del status quo) (valuing more what remains stable, hence "jurisprudence" tends to have more value than a pronouncement that sees the same phenomenon in a different or new way); * spotlight effect (efecto spotlight): (the tendency to overestimate the number of people who notice one's appearance or behavior); * the Zeigarnik effect (efecto Zeigarnik) (remembering incomplete tasks and not those that have been completed); * cultural bias (sesgo cultural) (interpreting phenomena based on the standards of one's own culture or universalizing them without failing to see their limited imprint); * self-serving bias (sesgo de autoservicio) (using ambiguous information as beneficial for one's own purposes); defensive attribution (atribución defensiva) (the observing person attributes the causes of a phenomenon to a false cause to minimize their fear of being a victim or cause of something similar); * out-group homogeneity (homogeneidad de grupo) bias (people in one group see those in other groups as more similar to each other than those in their own group. For example, in matters of lineup identifications, when a subject is Indigenous, Afro-descendant, or Asian and the person identifying them does not belong to that group, they tend to see all persons of those nationalities or affiliations with similar characteristics, so the risk of error is greater, and vice versa); * authority bias (sesgo de autoridad) (information is trusted because it is issued by an authority); * placebo effect bias (sesgo de efecto placebo) (cognitive or perceptual error that makes effects attributable to causes that do not generate them); * Parkinson's law of triviality (ley de Parkinson de la trivialidad) or bikeshedding (the tendency of people to waste more time on non-transcendent aspects, which is problematic when that generates frustration and not well-being); * the Ikea effect (efecto Ikea) (giving greater value to a product only because the person has contributed to its manufacturing) and (among hundreds more), the meta-bias (metasesgo) (believing that we do not have biases, but others do).

Also among biases are stereotypes (estereotipos), which are simplified ideas that a group has about reality or the identifying characteristics of other persons (nationality, ethnicity, sex, gender, age, religion, etc.) derived from the cultural matrix in which one is inserted and which, therefore, make it impossible to see other realities or characteristics, and they are assumed as the only valid ones, generating a hierarchy between that which shares my stereotype (with greater value) and that which does not (which becomes a banished 'other'). For example, assuming that our judging system is the only valid one (a very widespread idea in the West) is a stereotype, as is considering that language is objective or neutral and, therefore, refusing to use inclusive language for different populations, ignoring that official language rules arise or emanate from bodies of power with certain culturally assumed characteristics, and minimizing the importance of a normative, conventional system (hierarchically superior to language rules), which obliges state bodies to banish discriminatory expressions contained in the official structures of the lexicon— [for an extensive treatment of the topic of cognitive biases, which usually goes unnoticed in our environment, cf. Porter Aguilar, Raymond (2024). Razonamiento y argumentación jurídica. Antología.]

Judicial School, FIAJ, San José, Costa Rica].</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5pt; margin-bottom: 6.55pt; text-indent: -0.5pt; text-align: right; line-height: 108%;">It is now understood that the preceding diatribe seeks to avoid the bias of the</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt;">"curse of knowledge," according to which it is assumed that all legal operators start from the same conceptual bases and make use of the same reasoning tools, when this is not necessarily the case.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt;">Therefore, to close the initial idea, <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">if jurisdiction is one and is expressed argumentatively, the persuasive value of a reasoning will no longer be determined by simple numerical matters (majority or minority vote) or hierarchical ones (the role of the bodies) but by the greater rigor exercised both when examining the evidence, extracting the relevant data from it, and using the legal, procedural, and substantive rules for the scrutiny of the factual and legal data that must be applied, as well as in the exposition of that process</span>. Of course, as already stated, in the interest of legal certainty, the legislature may stipulate, and frequently does, normative limits (such as endowing the decision of a body at the apex with indisputable value; regulating the double conformity, formal and material res judicata, etc.) all in the effort to avoid endless discussions and to settle the controversy. Although this is valid, the content of the argumentation, if it does not comply with those rules, is not extrapolatable to other cases. For this reason, it is affirmed, without ambiguity, that <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">in a democratic legal system, it is argumentative rectitude under those parameters, and not fallacies or biases, that must prevail</span>. The third element to highlight is, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">iii.- the importance of an adequate architectural-legislative design of the judicial system to enhance reason and not authority</span>: developing this topic exceeds the pretensions of this decision, but it suffices to exemplify with two situations that can be observed in this case regarding how an inadequate normative design of the judicial architecture can ruin argumentative efforts, and with it, the value of jurisdictionality. The first example is when common legislation grants a body the power to impose its factual motivation and interpretation of the law on all other judges (who, like that body, develop jurisdictionality under equal conditions). In such cases, a principle that prevails in the hierarchy of norms established in the Political Constitution and in human rights treaties would be violated, namely, judicial independence. Hence, this type of regulation is only valid if incorporated into constitutional and conventional law. Therefore, in Costa Rica, provisions that make the arguments of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">constitutional</span> or <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">international</span> courts binding for all cases <span style="text-decoration: underline;">would not</span> be unconstitutional, as this is permitted by higher-ranking norms such as, respectively, Article 13 of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional</span> —a law of reinforced value, derived from constitutional article 10— and article 27 of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties</span> in relation to the value of supreme interpreter that each convention stipulates for certain bodies. However, provisions established in common laws or regulations that seek to impose the criterion of one body on the others endowed with jurisdictionality (a constitutional principle) <span style="text-decoration: underline;">beyond the specific case</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">would indeed be contrary to the supreme norm</span> (since, for the specific case, the issue of hierarchy and constitutional suitability that it entails prevails, in addition to the legal certainty already mentioned). For this reason, this tribunal descends to the diverse arguments set forth in votes (both from other appellate tribunals and from the Sala Tercera) and does not assume them, as the prosecutor intends, as unquestionable arguments (which is a fallacy of authority), even though the Criminal Procedure Code (an ordinary law) has alluded to the intention of unifying criteria (Article 468 paragraph a), given that this regulatory body cannot contradict one of higher value. The second relevant situation, arising from what has been said, is that this equal value of jurisdictional criteria has been the underlying historical reason for tribunals to be formed in an odd number: if they were an even number and the criteria of their members were evenly divided, as all votes have the same value and the quantitative aspect cannot be used, the decision would be impossible. For this same reason, historically, the higher-grade body has usually been composed of a greater number of members compared to the lower-grade body: to avoid ties in total jurisdictional criteria. For example, consider the case where a trial instance body resolves, by majority, in one sense, and one judging person holds a different opinion. This arrives on appeal to a collegial tribunal composed of the same number of people as the <span style="font-style: italic;">a quo</span> and there the decision is again divided, but now in the opposite direction (the majority of the <span style="font-style: italic;">ad quem</span> agrees with the dissenting trial judge's criterion, and the person who issued the dissenting vote on appeal coincides with the majority of the <span style="font-style: italic;">a quo</span>). In such a case, there would technically be three votes in favor of one thesis and three against it. If the jurisdiction exercised by each judge has the same value, a technical tie would occur that can only be resolved <span style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">by resorting to extra-argumentative solutions</span>, that is, hierarchical or authority-based solutions, i.e., stating that the criterion of some is worth more than others, a matter in which the democratic-argumentative design is deteriorated. Unfortunately, this is the criminal procedural system that the country has had for quite some time, a product of the reforms implemented with the stated discourse of addressing the country's condemnation in the case of Mauricio Herrera Ulloa (judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of July 2, 2014): a collegial tribunal of three persons at trial instance can decide in a divided manner, and the appeal corresponds to a higher-grade body composed of the same number of judging persons. The same occurs in single-judge resolutions of a criminal judge regarding a contraventions judge, and between a criminal judge and a trial judge. Despite this structural defect, given that this is the legally designed system and this body is governed by the principle of procedural legality, it must be adhered to; however, the foregoing is set forth only as evidence of the implications this can have for argumentative quality and the principle of jurisdictionality.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt;">Nor does this mean that is what has occurred in the present case. Although to date, four judging persons (three from the first annulled decision and the dissenter in the vote under review) have considered that the defendants must be acquitted and five (three from the prior appeal, because they found errors in the construction of the decision, and two from the trial instance in the judgment now appealed, because they are convinced of guilt) have considered that acquittal is not appropriate, it remains for this chamber to make the determination from a new analysis. Although theoretically it could happen that such an "argumentative tie" occurs (if the vote of this tribunal were divided and the majority joined the criterion of the other four judges, and the dissenting vote joined the other five, in which case it would be 6-6) and thus the last decision would prevail, regardless of its rationality, the truth is that this panel will try to demonstrate argumentative errors, both in the majority and minority votes and in the allegations of the parties, so as to generate a unanimous judgment of conviction. It is worth concluding by saying that, although fallacies and biases may be exposed in the reasonings of other procedural subjects, this does not in any way mean that there are none in this same argumentation, without our realizing it, despite the care that has been taken to avoid them, a task that falls on the parties to demonstrate.<span style="-aw-import: spaces;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt; -aw-import: list-item; -aw-list-level-number: 0; -aw-list-number-format: '(%0)'; -aw-list-number-styles: 'upperRoman'; -aw-list-number-values: '100'; -aw-list-padding-sml: 18.64pt;"><span style="-aw-import: ignore;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">(C)</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">The specific case examined in light of the stated tools. </span>If we start, then, from strictly applying the argumentative-legal rules, which is what the regulations require of legal professionals, we can begin to dismantle a series of affirmations (contained in the majority criterion, minority criterion, and in the arguments of the parties) that incorporate legal or conceptual inaccuracies or start from fallacies and biases, and we can make evident actions or omissions that are not sufficiently explained in legal terms. Let us see:</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt; -aw-import: list-item; -aw-list-level-number: 1; -aw-list-number-format: '%0.%1'; -aw-list-number-styles: 'upperRoman decimal'; -aw-list-number-values: '100 1'; -aw-list-padding-sml: 16.03pt;"><span style="-aw-import: ignore;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">C.1</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></span>Firstly, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">legally, the principle of impartiality must be respected</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">(Article 39 of the Political Constitution) of the deciding tribunal, as this is an integral part of due process</span> (Voto 1739-92 of the Sala Constitucional). This is part of the Rule of Law and the Constitutional State. For this reason, it has been maintained (since the vote of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Mauricio Herrera case referenced above) that the tribunal which issues a criterion on the probability of criminality for the purposes of issuing pretrial detention cannot form part of the deciding body because, in such a case, it has already advanced a criterion, even at the level of probability, on the involvement of the accused (in this regard, one may consult, among many others, the resolution of the Sala Constitucional number 7531-1997, reiterated in resolution 2006-17737). It should be recalled that the cited pretrial detention requires not only the probability of commission of the act but also a procedural danger. In this case, it is on record that judge Shirley Mayorga Espinoza (who formed part of the majority of the deciding body) ordered the pretrial detention of [Name 009] (according to resolution 184-2025-B of 14:37 on January 27, 2025, which appears in the minute visible on folio 574 of tome II and in the audiovisual file that was sent by the trial instance body at the express request of this tribunal, as it did not appear in the official records). That decision was issued within the framework of a partial record certification (testimonio de piezas) that had been issued against said defendant for his non-attendance at a prior debate, but later, the same current panel of the deciding body annulled what they themselves had previously done regarding the other defendant (the debate against him was underway, although evidence had not yet been received and it was suspended, within the statutory period, pending the appearance of the official), re-joined the cases, and restarted the debate against both. Originally, the audiovisual file of that proceeding, as stated, was not located in the digital case file of this matter, nor in the physical annexes, and it was necessary to request it from the deciding body, which demonstrates the procedural disorder of this matter, evidenced by partial record certifications, de-consolidations due to default, new consolidations due to the appearance of the defaulter, annulments of the ongoing debate, and repetition and changes of foliation. From the analysis of the content of said hearing, it appears that the judging officer based the probability required for pretrial detention (articles 239 and 243 of the Criminal Procedure Code) on the fact that it was a referral and, therefore, there was an accusation, thus avoiding conducting the jurisdictional analysis of the probable involvement of the defendant or the evidentiary sufficiency and transferring it to the accusing party. It must be taken into account that in the expedited proceedings (flagrancy) process there is, formally, no order of opening of trial (auto de apertura a juicio) issued by a different jurisdictional authority that allows one to avoid that descent into the facts of the specific case, which is constitutionally required (articles 422 to 429 of the Criminal Procedure Code and 37 of the Political Constitution), so that any ordering of pretrial detention in expedited proceedings must examine the requirements thereof, which was not done. Thus, although the judging officer avoided advancing a criterion on the merits of the matter in order to be able to form part of the deciding body (she herself indicated, in that hearing, that there was another similar initiated process that had been annulled to consolidate it with this one), she thereby evaded part of the control inherent in pretrial detention. In any case, for the sake of transparency, she ought to have expressly advised the parties, at the beginning of the debate, of that intervention, to avoid suspicion and enable them to exercise possible recusal motions in order to better safeguard the principle of impartiality. Although she did not do so and, in principle, it is verified, ex officio, that there was no advance of criterion that affects her intervention in the trial or generates an absolute defect (Article 178 of the Criminal Procedure Code), it is advisable to make evident the impropriety of such practices so that, in future cases, they are not incurred.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt; -aw-import: list-item; -aw-list-level-number: 1; -aw-list-number-format: '%0.%1'; -aw-list-number-styles: 'upperRoman decimal'; -aw-list-number-values: '100 2'; -aw-list-padding-sml: 16.03pt;"><span style="-aw-import: ignore;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">C.2</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></span>Secondly, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">it is not legally correct to maintain</span> —as the majority vote and the prosecutor before this body do— <span style="text-decoration: underline;">that the only two drug transports permitted by the legal system are those carried out for the purposes of self-consumption or in compliance with the legal duty of the police</span> when the latter carries out seizures. In order to subsume conduct under the respective criminal offense type, the scope of the latter must be determined. As is well known, there is a difference between article, offense type, and criminality, since a single article may contain many criminal offense types (sanctioned conducts that are structured with a subject, a verb, and conditions of manner), and the judgment of criminality involves, in addition to the scrutiny of the objective elements, that of the subjective ones (dolus, culpability, or preterintentionality) which, in most cases, are not expressly contemplated in the criminal offense types but are extracted (starting from a systematic but restrictive interpretation) from the rest of the criminal norms, in this case, from the general part of the Penal Code, which starts from the premise that the rule is dolus and for there to be culpability, there must be an express indication (<span style="font-style: italic;">numerus clausus</span> system: Articles 30 and 31 of the Penal Code). In the specific case, the parties have invoked article 58 of Law No. 8204, called <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&amp;nValor1=1&amp;nValor2=48392&amp;nValor3=93996&amp;strTipM=TC"><span style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">Ley sobre estupefacientes,</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&amp;nValor1=1&amp;nValor2=48392&amp;nValor3=93996&amp;strTipM=TC"><span style="font-style: italic; color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&amp;nValor1=1&amp;nValor2=48392&amp;nValor3=93996&amp;strTipM=TC"><span style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">sustancias psicotrópicas, drogas de uso no autorizado, actividades conexas, legitimación de capitales y financiamiento al terrorismo</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&amp;nValor1=1&amp;nValor2=48392&amp;nValor3=93996&amp;strTipM=TC"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a>(hereinafter abbreviated as</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">"Ley sobre psicotrópicos") which provides: "<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">sin autorización legal</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">distribuya, comercie, suministre, fabrique, elabore, </span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">refine, transforme, extraiga, prepare, cultive, produzca, transporte, almacene o venda</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley, o </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">cultive</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> las plantas de las que se obtienen tales sustancias o productos</span>." Therefore, a single article contains 15 criminal offense types (which are actually 14 because, as will be seen, "cultivate" is provided for twice), since the relationships of the initial and final elements must be made with each verb.

Thus, the resulting criminal offenses would be:

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, distributes (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) trades (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) supplies (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) manufactures (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) elaborates (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) refines (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) transforms (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) extracts (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) prepares (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) cultivates (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) produces (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) transports (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) stores (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) sells (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) cultivates the plants from which such substances or products are obtained." (emphasis added).

It can be seen that, even from a legislative drafting standpoint, a first error is palpable, not only because of the number of conducts but because "cultivation" is mentioned twice: both in the initial list of verbs and in the final phrase of the article.

For our purposes, the fourth criminal offense (counting from back to front in the list provided) is of interest, which, at the risk of being tedious to cite again, is necessary to have at a glance when breaking it down into its elements: "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization (...) transports (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." If a "taxonomy" of this last criminal offense is made following the parameters given by substantive criminal legal theory (which is important for drawing various consequences in the Theory of Crime as well as in issues of co-perpetration, participation, etc.), it can be classified as a criminal offense that, by gravity, is a felony (delito) (it is neither a crime nor a contravention); by the modalities of action, it is an offense of commission (it does not admit commission by omission as it is not a result crime according to the stipulations that, for Costa Rica, are set out in Article 18 of the Penal Code); by the active subject, it is a common offense, since any person may fit their conduct there, even if they have addiction problems, since this issue is not relevant for the purposes of criminality (tipicidad), although it may be so for others pertaining to other segments of the Theory of Crime or for topics related to procedural matters (evaluation of evidence); by the relationship between action and object (or modality of the objective part), it is a mere activity or pure action offense (all abstract danger crimes are located there; as opposed to result crimes).

Due to its typical construction, that danger is assumed and need not be proven, although this does not entirely eliminate some discussions about harmfulness typical of material unlawfulness); **by the form of consummation** it is an **instantaneous offense** (the action is consummated in a single moment, as opposed to continuing or permanent offenses); **according to the relationship between the objective and subjective parts of the statutory definition (tipo)** **it is a congruent statutory definition** (as opposed to incongruent penal definitions, whether due to excess of the objective definition —such as negligent or preterintentional offenses— or due to excess of the subjective definition —such as attempt, offenses of truncated result, two-act mutilated offenses, or those of intensified internal tendency, this last reason being why, in effect, the trial court is correct that no additional element beyond intent (dolo) is required, no further purpose, although from this the consequences that the majority of the court seeks to derive do not follow, as will be seen later); **by the protected legal interest**, it **seeks to protect public health**; **according to the number of actions** **it is a penal definition of a single elemental or simple action** (as opposed to penal definitions constructed by the legislator as involving several actions, which include compound definitions —with their subclassification of two-act mutilated offenses, mixed, complex offenses, and those of transcendent internal tendency, this last characteristic not being present in the one at hand—, continued offenses, and mixed alternative definitions) since, in effect, to transport is to move between two points, although, as will be seen, the intended consequences do not follow from this because these are matters of a different order; **according to the procedural form** **they are offenses prosecutable by public action** (Article 17 of the Código Procesal Penal); following **other classifications** it is ruled out that the offense at hand is a crime of expression, nor a breach of duty offense, nor is it an offense of determined means, and it is an autonomous offense (not a relationship, connection, or linking offense as money laundering is) and, finally and perhaps most relevant for these purposes, is that **following the structure of the statutory definition** it is an open penal definition because, to ascertain the prohibited conduct, it is not enough to read that provision; instead, the conduct must be completed by resorting to other provisions. In effect, the penal definition contemplates **normative elements**, specifically **of a legal nature**:

**(i)** on one hand it mentions “**without legal authorization (sin autorización legal)**”. This phrase in the construction of penal definitions is problematic and discouraged in sound legislative technique, as it introduces, as an element of the statutory definition, an issue that should pertain to unlawfulness (antijuridicidad). In principle, any typical conduct only becomes an offense if, in addition to that typicity, there are no permissions or grounds of justification that justify it within the rest of the Legal System. Therefore, in all cases it will always be necessary, per the Theory of Crime (Teoría del Delito), to carry out, after the analysis of objective typicity (and of the others that apply), the examination of formal unlawfulness. However, when the penal definition introduces this type of phrases, it elevates to the rank of an element of the statutory definition issues and problems that, in the Theory of Crime, were analyzable but in other strata, generating a problem of specialty: if something is in the typicity it must first be analyzed there and, therefore, the general rules of the Código Penal (which would treat it in other segments of the Theory of Crime) are displaced by the rule of typicity that requires its primordial analysis. The aphorism, proper to arithmetic and specifically to multiplication, which is the commutative property according to which the order of the factors does not affect the product, does not apply here. In these cases, the order in which a topic is approached does affect the final result because, incorporated into objective typicity, an error concerning this element becomes an error of type (error de tipo) and ceases to be an indirect error of prohibition (error de prohibición indirecto), as dealt with in dogmatics, with disparate consequences, on which it is not necessary to elaborate further than citing what has already been indicated by this same chamber in **vote number 2024-452** returning to previous criteria from other panels:

«…in certain types of offenses, where the penal definition was constructed in such a way that in said description the legislator introduced aspects such as "illicitly, illegitimately" or similar, there may be discussion about the nature of the error that falls upon that specific element. This has been determined by this Tribunal, with a panel partially similar to the current one but which is shared here, by indicating: “**On the nature of the error invoked.** *In principle, there is no great confusion when error of type is defined as that which falls upon the objective elements of the penal definition nor when referring to error of prohibition as that which occurs both when the agent is unaware of the norm, considers it not in force, or mistakenly interprets it (direct) and when he is mistaken about the existence or limits of justifications (error of permission or indirect prohibition). Although there is an important discussion regarding the nature and manner in which, in Costa Rica, the error concerning the factual circumstances of a ground of justification or error of permission type must be treated (...), the truth is that this issue is not relevant to define this matter, so it will be bypassed. What is necessary,* ***is to determine the nature of the error involved when the penal definition is constructed in such a way that, in its objective elements, it introduces terms such as*** **“illicitly”** ***“illegitimately” “illegally” “unlawfully”, etc. since these terms then become normative elements of a legal nature which, by forming part of the penal definition, would eventually cause the error alleged concerning them to be, no longer an error of prohibition but an error of type.** *On this matter, doctrine states: ¬ "...it was M.E. MAYER himself who realized the novelty that the normative elements of the statutory definition 'discovered' by him posed in general terms; stated succinctly: despite being components of unlawfulness, as they do not cease to be elements of the statutory definition, they would fall, for this author, under the rule of error concerning factual circumstances (...) that is, they would require—unlike unlawfulness—to be encompassed by the intent of the subject, as they would form part of the factual presumption upon which the value judgment of unlawfulness falls, such that an error concerning a normative element of the statutory definition would be what we call today an error of type, or if preferred, in more neutral terminology, an error excluding intent." DIAZ Y GARCÍA CONLLEDO, M. El error sobre elementos normativos del tipo penal. La Ley, 1st edition, Madrid, 2008, p. 42. Thus understood, the intent of the active subject must also encompass that normative-legal element. The issue has been addressed by the jurisprudence of this Tribunal, with different panels than the current one, in the following terms: ¬ "Subsection a- of Article 61 of the Ley Forestal (Number 7575) contains a normative element which is the permit from the Forest Administration, that is, in this case, for the active subject to commit the offense, it is required that they have a permit (...) as the criminal figure is defined, the permit constitutes a normative element of the penal definition, so that an error concerning its existence does constitute an error of type (Art. 34 of the Código Penal); it is an error of type of law, a situation that introduces, eventually, confusion, because between this, which excludes the penal definition, and error of prohibition, which excludes culpability, there exists a conceptual proximity (...) Normative elements of the statutory definition, when they refer to legal requirements or concepts, have a close proximity to the categories that make up the judgment of reproach for culpability, however, such proximity does not justify confusion between one concept and the other" Tribunal de Casación Penal, vote number 20031113 of 09:50 hrs. on October 31, 2003 (Cruz, Dall'Anese and Salazar)...." Tribunal de Casación Penal, vote number 20070358 of March 29, 2007 (Chirino, Morales and Gullock).» Tribunal de Casación Penal of San José (R. Chinchilla, E. Salinas and H. Sbravatti) vote number 2011-398. In the same vein from the same body, vote number 641-2010 (R. Chinchilla, U. Zúñiga and I. Estrada).

For the purposes of interest here, the topic of error (of type) is not at stake but rather the discussion, introduced by the reporting judge for the majority, the dissenting judge, and the prosecutor in his response, about whether another purpose is typically required in the penal definition. The statutory definition does not contemplate it **directly**. Certainly, this is not, as the reporting judge for the majority rightly stated and has already been noted, a penal definition of **transcendent internal purpose** nor does it contain subjective elements distinct from intent where, for example, the spirit of profit or something similar is necessary in the active subject to configure the conduct. Here there is no such further subjective element nor is anything else described, objectively. However, **the fact that this is so** **does not mean, as might lightly be thought, that merely transporting** **drugs is sufficient for typicity**, but rather that **said transport must be “****without legal authorization (sin autorización legal)****”.** That is, from one of the guidelines for classifying the penal definition, of the many that exist, it cannot be concluded that it is unnecessary to verify the other rules of classification (each with different purposes) nor can it be concluded that it is possible to obviate the scrutiny of other institutes proper to both the Theory of Crime and procedural law. To proceed in that manner would be to incur the informal fallacy of irrelevant conclusion, as there is no relationship between the premises and the conclusion.

The expression “**without legal authorization (sin autorización legal)**” qualifies all the typical verbs detailed above and, to fill it with content, as far as transport is concerned, the entire legal system must be reviewed because, as happens with grounds of justification, these are not **numerus clausus** but **apertus** (for favoring liberty, as a constitutional value). For the reporting judge of the majority opinion, the only two transports of drugs permitted by the legal system (although initially he only mentioned one, he later expanded it) are when the transfer is made for purposes of personal consumption (autoconsumo) or when carried out by judicial authorities in compliance with the legal duty of the police. This reasoning is partially correct, from the point of view of the elements of the statutory definition because, although in effect, these are cases where the transport of drugs, by being done **with legal authorization**, ceases to be typical: in one case because it thus derives from the constitutional principle of autonomy of will —(Article 28 of the Constitution) developed by provision 79 of the “Ley sobre Psicotrópicos” No. 8204 insofar as it “only” provides for a security measure (which could be unconstitutional, as there is no prior wrong) to whoever consumes drugs in public places— and, in the other, because it is regulated by the general clause of Article 25 of the Código Penal, what is erroneous is considering that they are “the only scenarios”. It is not correct to state that those are “the only” cases that exclude the illicitness of the conduct, because they are not. **On one hand**, the normative evolution must be taken into account, where more recently it is possible to find cases of decriminalization of use (and therefore of transport) of drugs for various purposes. On this matter, this chamber has already advanced, on other occasions and for similar discussions, the following:

«…although hypothetically the purposes of sale were referred only to possession and this was not related to the other verbs, **the legal system must** **be interpreted as a whole**, on one hand and, on the other, in the theory of crime (teoría del delito) the scrutiny of harmfulness (lesividad) is necessary, from which it is concluded that supplying, manufacturing, elaborating, transporting, or fulfilling **any of the other mentioned verbs** **for one's own consumption is not an offense** because that provision 58 must be related to provision 79 of the cited law that decriminalized personal consumption and if the final conduct (more serious) is not an offense, the prior phases of the **iter criminis** cannot be either. On the other hand, **neither is any of those verbs an offense when they relate** **specifically to the substance** ***cannabis sativa*** **and medicinal purposes** **are invoked** (which are not in Law No. 8204 but in a later one). Note that, with the approval of the *Ley del cannabis para uso medicinal y terapéutico y del cáñamo para uso alimentario e industrial* No. 10113, published on March 9, 2022, the landscape regarding the criminalization of said substance partially changed because the cited law states: “*ARTICLE 1- Purpose. The purpose of this law is: 1) Regulate and* ***permit*** *the access and use of cannabis and its derivatives* ***exclusively for medicinal and therapeutic use*** *, in order to guarantee the fundamental right to health of the entire Costa Rican population.* 2) <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Authorize the production, industrialization, and commercialization of industrial and food-use hemp (cáñamo de uso industrial y alimentario) and psychoactive cannabis for exclusively medicinal and therapeutic purposes</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">, and their derivative products. 3) Promote economic and social development and the adequate distribution of wealth in the rural areas of our country, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">by incentivizing the production, industrialization, and commercialization of hemp and psychoactive cannabis for exclusively medicinal and therapeutic purposes, and their productive derivatives</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">; as well as the promotion of productive linkages that primarily benefit small agricultural producers</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">"</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> (the underlining is supplied).»</span> Penal Sentencing Appeals Court of San José, <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1153351"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">vote number 541</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1153351"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">-</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1153351"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">2023</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1153351"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a>(R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas and K. Jiménez; some highlights are from the original and others added).</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt;">The foregoing is not intended to exhaust the list of possible decriminalizations, as not only is legislative activity dynamic (there are other initiatives in parliamentary proceedings that could be approved), but it is also very profuse, whereby a detailed examination of the thousands of laws in force could yield other conclusions. Therefore, to the two cases mentioned by the majority reporting judge (which the prosecutor accepts), one must add the case where, regarding <span style="font-style: italic;">cannabis</span>, its use is medicinal or therapeutic (a topic which, it is worth noting in advance, the majority did not even mention, rendering the reasoning incomplete).<span style="-aw-import: spaces;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">On the other hand</span>, one must also add all the defenses (justificantes) that the legal system provides (and which, under usual conditions, would be treated as part of the unlawfulness (antijuridicidad) analysis but here, due to the peculiar construction of the regulation, become subject to mandatory scrutiny within the objective actus reus (tipicidad objetiva)). Such as what? Such as any situation that can be framed within other fulfillments of legal duties different from the police action mentioned by the majority (Article 25 of the Penal Code), including that of other judicial officials (prosecutors, experts, etc.) but also of other types (administrative officials of the health authorities for sample analysis, health personnel regarding substances contemplated in the lists, etc.).</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt;">Also contemplated is any situation that fits within the legitimate exercise of a right (Article 25 of the Penal Code), in cases characteristic of justifying states of necessity—for example, someone who uses other types of regulated substances, thereby violating an abstract legal interest to save a concrete one of a higher degree such as the life or physical integrity of a patient suffering from pain, etc. (Article 27 of the Penal Code)—, among other scenarios. Therefore, this chamber considers that the reference by the lower court (tribunal <span style="font-style: italic;">a quo</span>) (endorsed by the prosecutor) is partially erroneous in that it lists two <span style="text-decoration: underline;">sole</span> cases of exclusion, without taking into consideration that, by introducing that element</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt;">("<span style="font-style: italic;">without legal authorization</span>") into the description of the offense, the scrutiny must be extensive and exhaustive and must be sought throughout the entire normative order with the rank of law.<span style="-aw-import: spaces;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">(ii)</span> The second normative element contained therein is "<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">drugs, the substances or products referred to in </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">this Law</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">.</span>" This expression generates a blanket criminal offense (tipo penal en blanco) which, in principle, is classified as improper because, to fill the content of the foregoing, one must look to another provision of legal rank, specifically the first article of that law, which states:</p> <p style="margin: 0pt 23.9pt 0.25pt 28.9pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;"><span style="-aw-import: spaces;"> </span>«<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Article 1°.- </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">This Law regulates the prevention, supply, prescription, administration, handling, use, possession, trafficking, and commercialization of narcotics (estupefacientes), psychotropic substances (psicotrópicos), inhalable substances, and other drugs and pharmaceuticals susceptible</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> to producing physical or psychological dependencies, included in the</span> <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&nValor1=1&nValor2=36897&nValor3=38903&strTipM=TC"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of the United Nations</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&nValor1=1&nValor2=36897&nValor3=38903&strTipM=TC"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #000000;">,</span></a> <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">of May 30, 1961, approved by Costa Rica through Law No. 4544, of March 18, 1970,</span> <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">amended in turn by the</span><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?nValor1=1&nValor2=10970&nValor3=11767"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?nValor1=1&nValor2=10970&nValor3=11767"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">Protocol Amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?nValor1=1&nValor2=10970&nValor3=11767"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?nValor1=1&nValor2=10970&nValor3=11767"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">, Law No. 5168</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?nValor1=1&nValor2=10970&nValor3=11767"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #000000;">,</span></a> <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">of January 25, 1973</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">, as well as in the</span><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?nValor1=1&nValor2=3491"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?nValor1=1&nValor2=3491"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">Vienna Convention on Psychotropic Substances</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?nValor1=1&nValor2=3491"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #000000;">,</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> of February 21, 1971, approved by Costa Rica through Law No. 4990, of June 10, 1972; likewise, in </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">the </span><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&nValor1=1&nValor2=43622&nValor3=0&strTipM=TC"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&nValor1=1&nValor2=43622&nValor3=0&strTipM=TC"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #000000;">,</span></a> <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">of December 19, 1988</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> (1988 Convention), approved by Costa Rica through Law No. 7198, of September 25, 1990. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0pt 23.25pt 0.15pt 28.15pt; text-indent: -0.5pt; line-height: 150%; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Additionally</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">, the lists of licit narcotics, psychotropic substances, and similar substances are regulated, which shall be prepared and published</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">, in La Gaceta, by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG). Likewise, the regulations that these Ministries</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> shall issue on the matter are ordered. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0pt 23.25pt 0.15pt 28.15pt; text-indent: -0.5pt; line-height: 150%; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Also regulated are the control, inspection, and oversight</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> of activities related to inhalable substances, drugs or pharmaceuticals, and the products, materials, and chemical substances</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> involved in the elaboration or production of such</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> substances; all without prejudice to what is ordered on this matter in </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">the General Health Law, No. 5395, of October 30, 1973, and its reforms; the General Law of the National Animal Health Service, No. 8495, of April 6, 2006, and its reforms; the Law </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ratifying the Loan Agreement signed between the Government of Costa Rica and the Inter-American Development Bank, for a Livestock Development and Animal Health Program (Progasa), No. 7060, of March 31, 1987.</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0pt 24.1pt 0.25pt 28.9pt; text-indent: -0.5pt; line-height: 153%; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Furthermore</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, financial activities are regulated and sanctioned, in order to prevent money laundering</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> and actions that may serve to finance terrorist activities, as established in this Law. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0pt 24.1pt 0.25pt 28.9pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">It is a function of the State, and is declared to be of public interest</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">, to adopt the necessary measures to prevent, control, investigate, avoid, or repress all illicit</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> activity relating to the subject matter of this Law</span>.» (Highlights added).</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 28.4pt;">But note that that first blanket criminal offense classified as "improper," makes a further reference: in some cases to treaties ratified by Costa Rica through laws or to other laws, as occurs in the first and third paragraphs highlighted above, in which case it remains an improper criminal norm, and, in others, it refers to norms of a lower rank than law, such as lists, directives, or decrees emanating from the Ministry of Health (second paragraph), in which case there is a clear violation of the principle of legality (principio de legalidad). The regulation of cocaine (and its derivatives) and cannabis (and some of its derivatives) is found, among others, in Articles 26 and 28 of the 1961 Single Convention, so there is no discussion in that regard. The point arises regarding ketamine as was noted, among others, in <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1153351"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">vote number 541</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1153351"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">-</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1153351"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">2023</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1153351"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a>(R.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 5pt; line-height: 108%;">Chinchilla, P. Vargas and K. Jiménez):</p> <p style="margin: 0pt 16.85pt 0.25pt 28.9pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">«</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(...</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">) the accusation</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> alludes to ketamine and the prosecutor assumes, in their arguments, that such substance is illicit. However, one must consider what this tribunal has previously noted. Specifically, in vote number</span><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1085849"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1085849"><span style="font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">2022</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1085849"><span style="font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">-</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1085849"><span style="font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">464</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1085849"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt;">this same panel</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> indicated</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">: «</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">III.- </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">[...</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">]</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> it is appropriate to warn the trial court and the prosecutorial representation</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> that when it attributes, as it does here, conduct related to ketamine, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">it has the duty to analyze whether, on the date of the accused acts, said</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;"> substance was illicit</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">. Although in this case it has no major repercussions on the offense classification (because, together with that substance, the transportation of others that are indeed illicit is attributed) the truth is that it could have them if it were the only</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> one mentioned in the prosecutorial documents, without the tribunal</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> stopping to make the minimum</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> analysis on the issue of objective actus reus. It must be taken into account that this tribunal, with a panel</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> partially similar to the current one (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas and E. Salinas) in vote number 2021-548, stipulated</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">: </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">«…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">it is mandatory for all courts to perform an analysis (and not just mentions) of the actus reus, not only because, in this case, the vast majority</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> of references in the lower court judgment allude to the generic</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> term "drugs"</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> and, when they are specified, what stands out most</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> (although it is not the only</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> term) is "ketamine"</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> and the question that immediately arises is…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> is ketamine found in those lists? According to the official</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> website of the Institute on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (IAFA) ketamine (hydrochloride) is </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">an</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> anesthetic and analgesic</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> used to regulate pain and anxiety and which was created in the</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> 60s especially for veterinary purposes but which, due to its hallucinogenic</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> effects or opioid properties, is currently used under the names of "Ga</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">ti"</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> "Kit Kat"</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> or "Special K"</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> especially among adolescent populations. It is said that it can generate greater addiction</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> than marijuana and cocaine</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> and damages</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> memory and cognitive abilities. The point on the subject is that </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">as of 2015, at the 58th.</span> period of sessions of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs was just beginning the discussion, in response to China's proposal, to include ketamine in Schedule I of the 1971 Convention (See the complete document E/CN.7/2015/7... on the website:

https://www.tni.org/files/cnd_document_on_mefedrone_and_ketamine_v1408359_esp1.pdf). Indeed, a quick review of the web allows one to infer that the discussion was still ongoing in subsequent years. For example, the European Parliament carried out a review of its regulations and incorporated it as an illicit substance only in October 2017 (See the MICOF page. Very Illustrious Official College of Pharmacists of Valencia.

“Spice, ketamine and ‘cannibal drug’: the list of prohibited substances in Europe grows”. Locatable at… https://www.micof.es/ver/12831/spice--ketamina-y-%C2droga-canibal%C2-crece-la-lista-de-sustancias-prohibidas-en-europa.html). This implies that the court should have questioned, and did not, whether, for the period stipulated in the accusation, ketamine was included in the lists accepted by the laws referred to in the first paragraph of Article 1 of Law No. 8204. However, the picture does not end there because, as transcribed, in subsequent paragraphs of Article 1, the content is complemented by referring to “…the lists of licit narcotics, psychotropic substances, and similar substances, which will be prepared and published, in La Gaceta, by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería, MAG). Likewise, the regulations that these Ministries will establish on the matter are ordered,” with which the issue here takes on another level because it ceases to be an open criminal type (with a normative element of a legal nature that allows it to be filled) to become a blank criminal law (for this Chamber, clearly violating the principle of legality) since the lists of medications would be created by decree or similar norm but not by law. None of this was questioned by the court. (The original typography is preserved except for the underlining, which is added). In a similar vein, vote number 646-2022 (Chinchilla, Vargas and Jiménez).

Ketamine is included in the lists of the Ministry of Health of Costa Rica according to ministerial resolution MS-DM-RM-1912-2022 of 12:00 hours on April 1, 2022 (page 25) and circular 002-2015 of December 14, 2015, which records what was decided by the Drug and Narcotics Surveillance Board (Junta de Vigilancia de Drogas y Estupefacientes), session 2996 of December 4, 2015, Article 3. However, these sources are inferior to the law, and the World Health Organization, to the best of this court's knowledge, has not incorporated it into its lists as a prohibited substance, whereby the criminal type would be completed in violation of the principle of legality. This would merit a judicial consultation on constitutionality, but it also turns out that the formalities were not observed because the trial court omitted any allusion to this aspect, which was highly relevant insofar as the consumption of ketamine was an indication valued by the majority as decisive for the decision adopted. Therefore, there is an evident lack of reasoning (fundamentación) on this aspect, which undermines numeral 142 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Código Procesal Penal).

C.3 It is not legally correct to support an argument based on criteria of authority without descending to the scrutiny of the argument to verify its adequacy to the prevailing rules. Even less so when the invoked precedents do not examine all the edges of an issue or when they involve cases that are not comparable to each other, due to the lack of similarity of the factual and legal premises. Despite the fact that in the votes invoked, both by the majority of the trial court and by the prosecutor, the Third Chamber (Sala Tercera) omits to carry out the aforementioned scrutiny, their use, without evaluating the rigor or the possibility of argumentative extrapolation, constitutes a clear fallacy and bias of authority. Note that, in the first place, due to the date of the vote (prior to many of the normative reforms referred to above), what was indicated there about the illegality of all transports of prohibited substances is not accurate to maintain now. In the second place, the aforementioned pronouncement does not address the issues already referred to regarding the construction of the criminal type and the referral it makes to normative elements of a legal nature. For a criterion of authority to be legally invocable, it must contain an analysis of a case exactly equal to the one being resolved; a solid argument that encompasses the edges at play, and that does all of this from an interpretive methodology valid for the discipline in question (in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedural Law, it is restrictive interpretation, but also taking into account the law as a whole and the tools provided by the Theory of Crime). The parties must be clearly aware that in a conflict between the law—applied according to the methods in force for a discipline—and jurisprudence, the latter must give way in its value with respect to the former. Not because this court affirms it, but because it thus derives from the hierarchy of norms contained in the Legal System (Ordenamiento Jurídico) both in the Political Constitution (Constitución Política) itself (Articles 7, 39, and 154), and in the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de la Administración Pública) (Articles 1, 2.1, 3.1, and 6) and the Civil Code (Código Civil) (canons 1 to 10), among many other sources. Not accepting it in this way, invoking criteria of authority, not only introduces a fallacy in the reasoning but also seeks to undermine judicial independence by making criteria applicable that are alien to the edges of the particular case, solely because of the source from which they emanate and regardless of their explanatory correctness. Working democratically with the legal implies convincing or persuading, not defeating or imposing. Previously, this court (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas, and K. Jiménez), in vote number 541-2023, has referred to a thesis now shared by this panel:

“...it is convenient to make two additional precisions. i) This is not the first time that this Chamber observes the prosecutorial reasoning that claims to be based on votes of the Third Chamber (Sala Tercera) according to which no intent to sell by the active subject is required to configure a drug-related crime when the governing verbs of the conduct are those of distributing, transporting, or other similar ones described in the respective criminal type. Such a criterion is not shared by this panel, whether it involves an incorrect interpretation by the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) or emanates from the Third Chamber, whose jurisprudence is not binding and from which this body may depart by virtue of the higher-ranking principle (constitutional and conventional) of judicial independence. It should be remembered that ordinary jurisprudence has only a guiding criterion—except for the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (by effect of Articles 62 and 68.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights and 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, both signed by the country) and of the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) (by effect of numerals 13 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional) and 10 of the Political Constitution)—and judges, as well as prosecutors guided by the principle of objectivity, must rely on the law and the restrictive way of interpreting it. In this case, numeral 58 of the Law on Narcotics, Psychotropic Substances, Drugs of Unauthorized Use, Money Laundering, and Related Activities (Ley sobre Estupefacientes, Sustancias Psicotrópicas, Drogas de Uso No Autorizado, Legitimación de Capitales y Actividades Conexas) No. 8204 provides: “Article 58.-A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization, distributes, trades, supplies, manufactures, elaborates, refines, transforms, extracts, prepares, cultivates, produces, transports, stores, or sells the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law, or cultivates the plants from which such substances or products are obtained. The same penalty shall be imposed on anyone who, without due authorization, possesses those drugs, substances, or products for any of the expressed purposes, and on anyone who possesses or trades seeds with germinative capacity or other natural products to produce the referred drugs.” (Emphasis supplied). And from there it could be concluded that the reference to consumption purposes is only circumscribed to possession, but it turns out that in order to transport, store, supply, or perform any of the other verbs, one must possess.

In other words, possession, which is the holding of something, is the basis for any of the other conducts, since one can only do something with a thing if one first holds it." **C.4** It is not legally correct to separate the evidentiary analysis and objective criminality (tipicidad objetiva) from the manner in which an accusation was formulated, as the accusation constitutes a limit on the jurisdictional decision. Pursuant to Article 365 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Código Procesal Penal), accusations constitute the factual limit of judgments. These cannot exceed that limit, as new facts, being surprising, may cause defenselessness for the accused party, who, from the beginning of the proceeding, has the right to have the facts and evidence set forth in detail. It is useless if the evidence received at trial reveals facts that can be subsumed under a criminal type (tipo penal) if such events were not properly attributed or charged. In the present matter, the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) attributed to the defendants that, at the time, date, and place described, "on a public road (...) [Name 009] and [Name 016] **possessed and transported for trafficking purposes** 60 doses of cocaine, crack base, one point of a drug and twenty-two points of the drug marijuana **respectively**, wrapped in transparent plastic bags, while they were walking from East to West. At this same time and place, officers of the Public Force (Fuerza Pública) were conducting a routine patrol, they observe both defendants walking together on a public road, and upon approaching and noticing the police presence, they take on a suspicious attitude, and [Name 016] flees running from the site, being closely followed by Public Force officers, at which moment, scarcely 10 meters away, he throws a plastic wrapper onto the roof of one of the dwellings, being detained at that same site and locating the plastic package he had just thrown onto the roof, which contained 22 joints of the drug marijuana. At the same time, Public Force officers carry out the detention of [Name 009], who remained static upon noticing the police presence, finding on him 60 doses of the drug cocaine, crack base, and one joint of Ketamine, for which reason both defendants were formally detained and the seizure of the aforementioned drug is carried out." (Emphasis added). It is important to note that the prosecutorial document states a specific purpose for which the drug was possessed (trafficking, not the supply assumed by the majority of the tribunal) and does not allude to any prior plan or functional distribution that would make the rules of co-perpetration (coautoría) applicable. It should be remembered that action in Criminal Law is highly personal, and this principle can only be broken in cases of perpetration that allow attributing to one person what another did if there is a prior plan and functional distribution, which, in this matter, was not charged. This is particularly relevant because, therefore, it is not possible to attribute to one defendant the drugs and effects that the other possessed, and even less so, to combine both quantities of substances to attribute them to both. It is in this context that the dissenting judge – although in a sparse, underdeveloped manner and interrupted in his thought by a defendant who wished to leave the courtroom while he was speaking – stated that the criminal type was a sort of "catch-all" into which everything fit and, therefore, the charge was not adequately formulated. If, as has been explained, it is not true that all transports of drugs are illicit, nor that there are only two or three exceptions to that, but rather that there are many more authorized ones, it is the duty of the prosecuting entity to stipulate the purpose for which the transport is made, and it was in that context that the judge alluded (at least, that is how this tribunal understands it) to the fact that mentioning "trafficking purposes" for the transport and introducing therein any of the typical verbs was not adequate, especially when that purpose is later changed to that of "supply." That is, the criticism was formulated regarding an issue of correlation that, in effect, was not addressed. Despite the *ad hominem* and high-sounding arguments with which the prosecutor responds, the truth is that if the prosecutorial document, unnecessarily, alluded to a specific purpose for the individual possession of drugs by each accused person, the least the majority of the tribunal should have done, and did not, was to question whether changing that purpose affected the correlation and whether the possession of substances by each defendant could be joined when a co-perpetration had not been attributed. By omitting such reasoning, Article 142 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was violated.

**C.5** It is not legally correct to depart from the content of the evidence to base conclusions that, consequently, are not derived from those elements. The majority of the tribunal dismissed the defendants' thesis (that they possessed and transported the drugs for personal use purposes) by conducting an indiciary analysis of the statements of the accused. In that exercise, the judge and female judge of merit found contradictions and inconsistencies in their versions over time. One piece of circumstantial evidence (indicio) that was given great weight is that a point of ketamine was seized from [Name 009], but (according to the majority judges) neither of the two said, at any procedural stage, that they consumed that substance. Based on this, the majority concluded that the presence of that substance among the seized items indicated it was not intended for personal use. Likewise, this was weighed alongside the fact that the police officer who testified at trial, Mr. [Name 012], according to the same members of the tribunal, did not see them being under the effects of any drug, nor that they had signs or behaviors related to drug consumption (see time sequence 37:44 to 38:25 of the file containing the judgment). However, this argumentation incurs confirmation bias, as the judge and female judge only recalled information that confirmed their belief or expectation but left aside other information that discarded it. In audiovisual file 240001051092PE-02022024092111-2_Multi 1 (which contains the data collection of the accused persons before the Public Prosecutor's Office) at counter 15:33, when [Name 016] is being asked if he has addictions, he says he consumes drugs of all types, and in audiovisual file 240001051092PE-03022024041657-2_Multi --01 (which refers to the initial flagrancy hearing, in which jurisdiction is assumed), Judge Melissa Bogantes reads that data to the defendants to verify if they are correct or should be adjusted, and at that moment [Name 009] (minutes 1:31 and 4:32 to 5:15) says that legally he consumes everything, but that "right now," "in the last year," "thank God," what he has consumed most is mota (marijuana) and crack. On the other hand, on February 6, 2024, a legal medical examination was performed on [Name 016], and there he stated he had been an addict, since age 18, to various drugs and mentioned ketamine (as summarized by the judge at trial at minute 28:10 to 28:11, and it is recorded on folio 65, where he referred to the consumption of this drug from age 18 to the present, inhaled every three days). Therefore, the assertion that neither of the two alluded, at any procedural stage, to ketamine is not derived from the evidence. On the other hand, police officer [Name 012], when testifying at trial, affirmed (as the majority restated to give credibility to his account) that he knew the defendants from having seen them, together or separately, both at points of sale or bunkers and on street corners or wandering around (see audiovisual file 240001051092-PE-28012025065237-2_Multi). To this must be added that, when his oral police report was received, in file 240001051092PE-02022024084517-2_Multi 1, the aforementioned law enforcement agent said, from counter 10:56, that he knew the defendants because he had previously made interventions for drug consumption, since a lot of drugs are consumed in the area and sometimes there are 9-1-1 incidents of "certain subjects" selling, without specifying whom he was referring to, statements that the majority of the tribunal does not take into consideration, in an evident pretermission (preterición) of evidence on essential issues, as these are what support the majority decision. Therefore, if both defendants tested positive for the consumption of some psychotropic substances according to the toxicological tests, if in their medical examinations they gave narratives alluding to the consumption of various drugs and one said he had consumed ketamine, if one behaved wildly and under the effects of drugs at the time of detention according to the police officer, and if what they were carrying was not a significant quantity, all these elements should have been weighed together by the tribunal (along with others, such as the price of the substance, the occupation and socio-economic conditions of each one, the attitude of one of them upon seeing the police, etc.), without the majority doing so, but rather they proceeded to isolate some of those pieces of indirect evidence and to give them not only greater importance than others but also an inverse sense to that which they really had. This violated the rules of sound criticism (sana crítica). Moreover, consider that if the person who ran exhibited erratic behavior according to the police, this is relevant not for the purposes of culpability capacity under the Theory of Crime (as the prosecutor states), but for determining whether, under the conditions he was in, it was possible to demand a behavior typical of an average human being, or whether, under such conditions, he could consider that, even having drugs for consumption, they would be seized from him, since it is part of the rules of experience that the police seize any illicit substance they find on individuals, regardless of whether it is a lot or a little. This last point was the argument that the minority judge tried to make explicit. The prosecutor counters, indicating that the defendant was in his "right mind" and fully aware of his actions, but in doing so, he mixes, once again, the analytical levels, because that is important to calibrate not for substantive Criminal Law purposes, but for procedural issues: interpreting whether the piece of circumstantial evidence of running under his circumstances is univocal or amphibological. Furthermore, the minority judge correctly states that not all people act in the same way or rationally when faced with the same event, so the opposite cannot be claimed. None of this can be described as far-fetched or contrived, as the prosecutor expresses when referring to the minority opinion, although a broader explanation would indeed have been desirable, which, due to the circumstances of the case (the duration of the oral judgment, the time it was issued, and the fact that one defendant asked to leave, as he indeed did under police supervision, an aspect that interrupted the judge's narrative) could not be achieved. For all of this, concluding that one defendant ran out of a feeling of guilt, and that this is applicable to the other, introduces flaws in the reasoning that render it illegitimate for the intended purposes.

**C.6** It is not legally correct to assume that the accused persons (or their technical defense) must prove the facts upon which they base their defensive strategy. Despite the onslaughts of punitive populism, the principle of innocence remains a constitutional norm (Article 39) that is reinforced with conventional protection, both at the regional level (Article 8.2 of the American Convention on Human Rights, Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos) and the universal level (canon 14.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Pacto Internacional de Derechos Civiles y Políticos). Derived from this, the law (Article 9 of the procedural code) adopts the principle *in dubio pro reo*. The aforementioned constitutional and conventional principle means that the rules of the burden of proof, the dynamic burden of proof (each party proves what it affirms), or the *onus probandi*, typical of other areas of law, are excepted for criminal matters. This last thesis, characteristic of private law or other subjects, has been uncritically superimposed onto Criminal Law, forgetting that there is a constitutional norm that prevents it. This translates into the fact that it is the State (or those who bring private accusations) who is responsible for proving the crime (delito). A crime is a typical (típica), unlawful (antijurídica), and culpable action. Hence, it is erroneous to allude that the Public Prosecutor's Office must prove the criminality (tipicidad) and the defense must accredit the rest of the elements, as it is the former who is responsible for proving the entire crime, even if it must avail itself, including, of indiciary elements to rule out the doubts that may be generated by the defense in the last segments of the Theory of Crime. It is sufficient for the defense (technical or material) to raise a reasonable doubt about the facts for the most favorable interpretation for the accused person to prevail. The Constitution, treaties, or law do not require the technical or material defense to prove anything: only to break the certainty of the opposing thesis in the evaluation of the material provided, which it can do, including, with argumentation. It is enough for doubt to be generated for the accuser to be responsible for proving that this doubt is discarded with another piece of evidence, including indiciary evidence, reaffirming the certainty in the commission of the **crime** attributed. Therefore, it is necessary to differentiate two distinct analytical levels: on one hand, whether the accusing entity proved, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the seized drug was for purposes different from those authorized by law (which, as we have seen, are not just one or two, but several) and, on the other hand, whether a piece of circumstantial evidence used to establish the prosecution's thesis is univocal or amphibological. Note that circumstantial evidence is valid proof to reach that certainty, provided it is analyzed as a whole and is univocal, not amphibological. The prosecutor, in his response and when referring to the minority judge's argument, makes this overlap of analytical levels. The minority judge indicated that the fact that one of the defendants ran was not indicative that he was transporting drugs for trafficking purposes, since *he could have done so* for multiple situations: because each person's reaction varies, because he intended to prevent the substance from being taken away from him, etc. In this exercise, the minority judge sought to demonstrate that the piece of circumstantial evidence was not univocal and that, therefore, his argumentation was not solid. The prosecutor responds by indicating that those possibilities do not derive from any evidence and, although this is so, that argument is not capable of detracting from the probative value of the piece of circumstantial evidence: weak from the moment its mere presence does not lead to a single conclusion but rather admits other analytical possibilities. When the defendants testify and allude to their consumption and provide evidence (medical-legal and toxicology expert reports to that effect), they are introducing cracks into the opposing thesis, and it is up to the Public Prosecutor's Office to rule them out by any lawful means, without it being valid to conclude that, since their version was not as forceful as intended (because the statements had some inconsistencies), they should make a greater evidentiary effort. The majority should have, instead, asked themselves whether those statements from both defendants, even with the stated inconsistencies, generated cracks in the prosecution's theory of the case. If the answer was positive, there was doubt, and the consequences of that are set by the Legal System. It is not acceptable to convict from dubious judgments. The majority, at counter 34:55 of the file containing the judgment, stated that the way the drug was individually packaged (22 joints of marijuana, 60 doses of crack, and the point of ketamine) shows that it was not destined for personal consumption, but rather *could* be carried for distribution or commercialization. This "could" is probabilistic and not a judgment of certainty like that required for a conviction.

**C.7** It is not legally valid to incorporate the private knowledge of the legal operators if this does not derive from the evidence. The prosecutor seeks to support the majority's conclusions based on elements that not only substitute or complement the arguments stated by the decision-making body but also emanate from private knowledge and were not possible to subject to adversarial examination. In his brief before this body, the prosecutor makes a series of assertions regarding the temporal window in which, according to gas chromatography, the presence of drugs in the body of individuals can be detected, and he maintains: "…on folio 65, [Name 016] reports having consumed **ketamine the very day of his detention, February 2, 2024**. However, in expert report DCF 2024-00546 TOX, conducted with samples taken only on February 6, 2024, at 1:11 p.m. (and not a year later, as the public defender falsely claims), it is reported that **no ketamine was detected in the urine of that defendant** -see folio 80-.

Here it is important to state that, in this case, gas chromatography was used to detect ketamine in urine, and this method can detect amounts of 0.1 mg/ml of the compound, according to the toxicological literature. According to (sic) the same medico-legal literature, the maximum detection time is approximately 72 hours for a single dose. However, it is noted that in users with habitual or addictive consumption, as the accused [Name 016] claimed to have, ketamine can take up to more than 7 days to be eliminated [The nonmedical use of ketamine. Part two. A review of problem use and dependence. J Psychoactive Drugs 2001 (…) cited in J. Royo “ La “keta” (ketamina), del fármaco a la droga de abuso. Clínica biopsicosocial del consumidor y algunas propuestas terapéuticas, in Revista Elsevier No. 34, volume 3 (…)]. This situation, likewise, makes it scarcely credible that the drug in question had been consumed by the accused with the frequency or habitualness to which he referred, on the date he stated, and that the carrying of that substance was also for a genuine purpose of self-consumption (…).” Although this may be so in the literature, it turns out that it does not derive from any evidence (the prosecutor did not request an expansion of the expert opinions in that sense) but only emerges from the private knowledge of the official, not subject to the filter of orality, immediacy, and contradiction, and, most relevantly, was not an argument used by the majority. As if that were not enough, the prosecutor introduces a fact that also does not derive from the various statements of the accused (that he had a habitual consumption of ketamine allowing detection in urine 72 hours earlier, i.e., three days prior), because what [Name 016] said in his initial data was that he consumed all types of drugs, and on February 6, 2024, when the medico-legal examination was performed on him, [Name 016] stated that he had been addicted, since the age of 18, to various drugs and mentioned ketamine (on folio 65, he alluded to the consumption of this drug since the age of 18 to the present, inhaled every three days). Thus, the prosecutor gives content to the concept of “habitualness” different from what the accused stated and from what the medical literature mentions. On this would depend whether the substance shows up in urine at three days or at seven days from the sample (in this case, there were four days from the arrest to the taking of the sample).

**C.8** It is not legally appropriate to defend a judgment using arguments that it does not contain, except when hypothetical incorporation exercises are performed. Much has been insisted upon that nullity in and of itself is not permissible if it does not violate substantive rights or guarantees that cannot be remedied or validated by other means, because the pro sentencia principle (which, according to Constitutional Chamber vote number 1739-92, forms part of due process) and the constitutional principle of prompt and complete justice (Article 41) prevent it. In this vein, it is the obligation of every legal operator who analyzes an act and notices defects or omissions to perform exercises of hypothetical inclusion (of overlooked evidence or arguments) or hypothetical exclusion (of improper evidence or arguments) to verify whether the adopted conclusion changes in any way. However, that exercise is very different from trying to sustain a decision with arguments that it did not use in its adoption and exposition, and without noting anything about it. The prosecutor notes that the accused's version is not credible because “Another aspect that equally, and with grounds, called into question the claim that the drug carried by the accused was for self-consumption was the detail set forth by [Name 009] in the sense that he and [Name 016] had opened a small bag of cocaine and both had consumed from it shortly before the arrest. However, [Name 016] did not present cocaine metabolites in blood (see Expert Opinion No. 2024-0546 TOX, folio 80), and no powdered cocaine was seized from either of the accused, so once again the version of ([Name 009]) is scarcely credible.” (Cf. prosecutor's response). This version does not derive from the tribunal's summary of the accused's statements, nor was it considered by the judge and female judge of the majority. This chamber could not hypothetically introduce it into the decision either, because it is not the only aspect omitted from the judgment; there are others, also relevant, to the decision to be adopted. Note that the toxicology expert opinion 2024-544-TOX performed on [Name 009] (folios 72-73) records that, on the date of sample collection (February 6, 2024), “there was exposure to cocaine in the person's organism,” and the medico-legal expert opinion performed on him on a similar date records that “…no clinical signs compatible with acute consumption of drugs of abuse were found, but there was a sepia stain on the upper and lower dental arch's central and lateral incisors and a sepia stain and hyperkeratosis at the pulp level of the first and second fingers of the right hand; which is a chronic, non-specific sign compatible with the chronic consumption of marijuana and tobacco and of crack, respectively” (expert opinion 2024864 from folio 36, emphasis added). Finally, in the expansion of the medico-legal expert opinion of [Name 016], it is recorded that “it is indeed possible that a person who has been a drug consumer since the age of 11 (13 years of consumption in the case of the examinee) does not present clinical signs of chronic or acute drug consumption, since these are not pathognomonic signs, but compatible findings (…) therefore, they are not determinative for concluding whether the examinee is a chronic consumer of some type of illicit drug” (folios 146). The majority made absolutely no allusion to any of this. Therefore, attempting to hypothetically introduce the aspects mentioned by the prosecutor would necessitate also introducing the others, overlooked in the judgment, and everything together could indeed modify what was decided and generate a single-instance decision, hence the exercise cannot be done because it is only valid when the adopted conclusion remains unchanged. This highlights, once again, that there was a biased process of selecting information to evaluate and that important material was overlooked.

**C.9** It is not legally acceptable that, in the act of evaluating oral evidence, greater weight be given to what a person expressed many years after the occurrence of an event, despite the fact that, at the very moment it occurred, said person gave a different version of what happened, and without there being a weighty reason for the change: According to the rules of psychology explained above, memory tends to deteriorate as time passes between an event and the recollection, except in cases of amnesia or traumatic blocks and other memory disorders which, for this matter, have been neither discussed nor accredited. That is, the closer to the event one testifies, in principle, the more details and reliability the testimony has, since memories tend to fade with the passage of time, especially in persons such as law enforcement officers, who are exposed to many similar situations that can cause the transposition of data between one matter and a similar one. Therefore, if in the written report submitted and signed by officer [Name 012] and in the oral report's reception it was recorded that only [Name 016] ran (and after him, two officers) but [Name 009] remained still (and accompanied by the other police officer); if those were items of evidence admitted and incorporated into the trial; if this was the same thing officer [Name 012] stated in the first trial held in mid-2024 —which, although it is true it was annulled, does not make the recordings of it disappear, as they become documents solely for the purpose of evaluating a deponent's credibility— and if there is no valid reason to understand why the change in position occurred, if all of this is so, the majority judge and female judge did wrong by giving greater value to the police officer's statement in the final trial than to what he expressed at other times, because, in doing so, they violated the rules of psychology that form part of sound criticism. Of course, this also presupposes that the parties assume their role in the interrogation in the terms indicated in votes of this chamber number 1247-2015 (R. Chinchilla, L. García and A.L. Jiménez) and 014-2015 (R. Chinchilla, L. García and J. Campos), in which it was indicated:

«(A) Is it possible to incorporate, and evaluate, the statements given in an annulled trial or in an audiovisually recorded interview, without the formalities of a jurisdictional advance? (...) with the Criminal Procedure Code, in force since 1998, the norms were modified to expressly prohibit that actions from the investigation phase have evidentiary value (Article 276 of the Criminal Procedure Code), unless they had been received under the rules of definitive and irreproducible acts, of the jurisdictional advance of evidence, or were cases provided for by law as exceptions to orality (see numerals 276, 277, 293, 327, and 334 of the Criminal Procedure Code), without, in any case, some of those possibilities being beyond criticism, especially when, for reasons of urgency, the parties do not participate in the acts, an aspect that escapes, for now, the object of the question to be resolved in this matter. In parallel, a shift in jurisprudential practices was taking place, to the point of settling the thesis that, although the complaint, expert reports, and documents are exceptions to orality susceptible to being incorporated into the trial by reading (Article 334 of the Criminal Procedure Code), it was impossible to refer to the content of such documents, insofar as they reproduced testimonial statements, since it was a way of circumventing the aforementioned guarantee and, with it, those principles were violated. It was in that context that, for example, this Chamber (…), under the name of the Criminal Cassation Tribunal of San José, through vote number 2007-844 bis, indicated: "First of all, it must be noted that under no circumstance can it be understood that what a person states before a legal physician or another professional who intervenes in the preliminary inquiries, at the time of preparing an expert opinion or report about some circumstance, constitutes, in a formal sense, a 'declaration' or 'testimony,' because it is not even provided with the prescribed formalities. It has already been insisted that, under the new procedural scheme, it is undeniable that testimonial evidence is only that which is received in the hearing, except for exceptional cases of evidence of that nature, received by jurisdictional advance, where witnesses are received under the conditions specific of the trial, that is, in compliance with the principles of immediacy, orality, concentration, and, very particularly, the adversarial principle. Only this testimony, received exceptionally in that manner, can be incorporated into the trial. Before that, one cannot formally speak of a declaration but rather of simple references. The only legally provided possibility for the witness to refer to, or even be expressly questioned about, those 'informal' versions is made by the third paragraph of Article 352 of the Criminal Procedure Code, when it points out that the prosecutor may interrogate the witness about the statements made in the investigation phase. The legal authorization for such prosecutorial behavior occurs because it primarily attends to facilitating the process of ascertaining the real truth, as well as the principle of freedom of evidence. These referential elements can be brought into the interrogation in order to clarify certain aspects of the declaration in trial, but such action does not imply that they are being given the value of testimony" (bold supplied). (...) In this line of reasoning... could the exercise of the adversarial principle, of attacking the credibility of a deponent, be limited by the fact that the version considered to be modified is contained in a document, for whose reception the principles of the trial were not taken into account? For example, can a witness, who in trial states 'x' but on a radio or television program spontaneously said '-x', that is, the opposite, not be interrogated, after the incorporation of that document, about this variation, under the pretext that, on the radio program, he did not declare in accordance with the trial principles?

It would seem that there is no rule, or legal principle, that makes this limitation possible since, if one were to proceed in that way, supposedly to respect the principles of immediacy and the adversarial principle, others would be disrespected, equally part of constitutional due process and, perhaps, of greater weight, such as the adversarial principle, the freedom of evidence, and the right to defense. Therefore, **pursuant to the interpretive rule contained in numeral 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Código Procesal Penal), a broad exercise of those powers must be favored, accepting, consequently, the incorporation of any document that contains a different version and allowing interrogation on such points. It is true that the recording (of the interview in the Gesell Chamber or the annulled trial), which is a document under the broad terms established by numeral 368 of the Civil Procedure Code (Código Procesal Civil) (a movable object with representative value), contains a declaration that, in the first case, has not been collected with the principles of the adversarial system and immediacy; that is, it is not a jurisdictional advance of evidence. However, it is not that document, thus understood, that is the evidentiary element to be considered, but rather that will be the witness's testimony at trial, the veracity of which is intended to be sustained, or undermined, through cross-examination. In other words, to the extent that a document (in a broad sense, including recordings) is used in plenary to interrogate a witness and, in that way, support their credibility, or lack thereof, no legal violation is observed**, one which would indeed occur if one attempts, without conducting that interrogation exercise, to give value to that document over the testimony in the trial. **The documentary value is limited to sustaining, or not, the credibility of the witness, because, otherwise, we would be turning our backs on reality if we indicated that any reference, prior to the trial, by the deponent, could not be assessed, even though the reliability of the witness or the plausibility of their statement may depend on them.** Consider that, in this way, orality and the adversarial principle are enhanced, which would not happen if one attempts to make the contrast at times other than interrogation, such as in closing arguments or through the appeals process, preventing the witness from giving explanations of what happened" (...). All of this must be weighed, opportunely.» (Some emphasis is original and others added).

In any case, in this matter, besides Officer [Name 012]'s statement in the annulled trial (in a different sense from that rendered in this trial regarding whether one or both of the accused ran upon noticing his presence at the scene), the police report and the oral complaint were available in which he recorded that only one of them ran. Why is this relevant? Again, here the parties and judges mix analytical planes. Of course, the fact that only one person runs gives rise to a psychological indication that enables police action. That is, even if there was no news of a crime regarding them nor any operation that justified the detention and search, that act of running in the police presence enabled the authorities to intervene, detain, and validly confiscate objects, and that makes the obtained evidence lawful. This plane of evidentiary lawfulness (which was the one emphasized at other times) is different from other analytical planes: whether the psychological indication of running is unequivocal regarding the purpose for which the substance is possessed and whether the fact that only one person ran can be transferred to the other accused as an indication against him. Recall that, as already mentioned, the charge was not formulated in terms of co-perpetration, with a prior plan and functional distribution between the two. That co-perpetration could have existed, but the charge did not formulate it in that way, and this generated a limit on said pleading given the principle of correlation (article 365 of the Ritual Code [Código ritual]). So the fact that one ran cannot be attributed to the other as an indication (unequivocal or amphibolous) because the accusatory pleading was not formulated in that way, and co-perpetration is one of the institutes that allow breaking the principle of personal action. Nor is it acceptable to consider that content of the policeman's statement irrelevant (whether one ran or both) because, although it may be so for purposes of defining the lawfulness of the police intervention, it is not so for purposes of establishing the historical fact that actually occurred and extracting from it elements of intent and co-perpetration of the accused who did not run. Yes, the police approach is lawful, even if only one of the subjects ran, and therefore the evidence obtained is lawful and does not contradict what was indicated in the vote of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">Fernández</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">Prieto y Tumbeiro vs. Argentina case (merits and reparations judgment of September 1,</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">2020)</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a>which stated:

«*79. The Court notes that* (...) *temporary detention for identification purposes must be duly founded on circumstances that “give reason to presume that someone has committed or could commit some criminal or contraventional act.” In this sense, in the specific case, the Court considers that none of the reasons given by the police to detain Mr. Tumbeiro and request his identification constituted in themselves, or together, sufficient and concrete facts or information that allow a reasonable observer to objectively infer that he had probably committed or was about to commit a criminal or contraventional act. On the contrary, the reasons that motivated the detention for identification purposes of Mr. Tumbeiro seemed to respond to preconceptions about how a person traveling in a certain place should look, how they should behave in the police presence, and what activities they should carry out in that place. 80.* (...) *The Court recalls that stereotypes consist of preconceptions of the attributes, behaviors, roles, or characteristics possessed by persons belonging to an identified group. The use of stereotyped reasoning by security forces can lead to discriminatory and, consequently, arbitrary actions. 81. In the absence of objective elements, the classification of a certain conduct or appearance as suspicious, or of a certain bodily reaction or expression as nervous, obeys the personal convictions of the intervening agents and the practices of the security forces themselves, which entails a degree of arbitrariness that is incompatible with Article 7.3 of the American Convention. When additionally these personal convictions or assessments are formulated based on prejudices regarding the characteristics or conducts supposedly typical of a certain category or group of persons or their socio-economic status, they can result in a violation of Articles 1.1 and 24 of the Convention.* (...) *82. The use of these profiles supposes a presumption of guilt against any person who fits them, and not a case-by-case evaluation of the objective reasons that effectively indicate that a person is linked to the commission of a crime. Therefore, the Court has pointed out that detentions carried out for discriminatory reasons are manifestly unreasonable and therefore arbitrary. In this case* (...) *, the lack of explanations about the suspicious character attributed to Mr. Tumbeiro beyond his nervousness, his way of dressing, and the explicit indication that this was not typical of the “humble people” area through which he was walking, show that there were no sufficient and reasonable indications of his participation in a criminal act, but rather that the detention was carried out prima facie due to the sole circumstance of not reacting in the way the intervening agents perceived as correct and using an attire judged by them as inadequate based on a subjective preconception about the appearance that the inhabitants of the area should maintain, which entails discriminatory treatment that makes the detention arbitrary.*» Unlike that scenario, running solely because of coming face to face with a patrol car enables police intervention regarding that subject but, unless a co-perpetration is attributed to the person accompanying them who does not run (which was not the case in the file), it would not enable it for the person who is alongside and remains unaltered. Nor can that subjective indication (unequivocal or amphibolous) be transferred to such companion. None of this was analyzed by the majority.

**C.10** <span style="text-decoration: underline;">It is not legally acceptable to assess indications in isolation and not as a</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">whole</span>. It was already noted that not only were Officer [Name 012]'s words distorted (regarding the state of one of the accused and the prior interventions he had made on them) and those of the accused (regarding the type of substances they consumed and their frequency), but that the content of the forensic and toxicological expert reports on the exact meaning of the findings documented on the defendants' bodies was not taken into account. The evidence was also poorly assessed regarding the meaning of running in the police presence and its imputation to the person who did not do it (according to the first version given by the intervening police officer) and the form of packaging of the substances, since it was assumed that the fact they were individually dosed was presumptive of distribution or sale, but not of self-consumption, an assertion that is not accurate because a consumer, upon acquiring, does so by doses according to their economic possibilities or consumption habits, in order to have the substance divided for ingestion at each time. If a person acquires drugs for consumption, they may do so pre-dosed for the purpose of measuring their own consumption over time, since acquisition remains a risky activity precisely because of the thin line that separates it from illicit activities with which it can be confused; hence it is usually acquired for longer time units (weeks, months) according to economic possibilities that, in this case, were not analyzed. That is, the indication of individual packaging is also not unequivocal for the affirmed conclusion. In the minority vote, topics not addressed by the majority were mentioned, such as that <span style="color: #323130;">the policeman did not remember if the accused had elements for consumption at the time of their detention and the trial prosecutor's statement (that this must be somewhere like the admissions log or the Clerk's Office) is not valid because these are not elements introduced into the trial, while</span> <span style="color: #323130;">the accused would have said that they did have lighters. This implies a lack of reasoning in the majority vote under the terms of numeral 142 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Código Procesal Penal).</span><span style="color: #323130; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span> **C.11** <span style="text-decoration: underline;">It is not legally acceptable to distort the arguments set forth by the</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">minority vote to draw other conclusions</span>. The minority judge implied (because certainly his arguments were not extensive and he had interruptions in the issuance of his argumentation) that in the face of an event punished with such a high penalty, greater precision in the drafting of the charge and a more solid investigation of the purposes for which the drug was possessed were required, for, even if it was a flagrant offense, some investigation, however brief, had to exist. That is drawn from the context of his argumentation. The prosecutor indicates, instead, that if the cited judge had doubts about the constitutionality of the penalty, he should have made the consultation, but by responding in this way, he not only transmutes the meaning of that judge's words to a topic that was not the one invoked but also makes use of the *tu quoque* fallacy explained above by pointing out the inconsistency of the supposed argumentation. Although, this Chamber believes, the doubt about such a high punitive reaction for illicit minor drug trafficking activities that are equated, in the sanction, to the trafficking of large quantities of drugs is legitimate, the truth is that the constitutionality consultation was already an exercise carried out before by this court (under the name of Criminal Cassation Court of San José [Tribunal de Casación Penal de San José]) through<a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">vote number</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">2011</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">-</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">742</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a>, composed of R. Chinchilla, L. García, and E. Salinas) and by which the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional), by majority, issued <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">vote</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">number</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a> <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">2011</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">-</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">11697</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a>according to which: «*The consultation formulated is resolved in the sense that article* *58 of the Law on Narcotics, Psychotropic Substances, Drugs of Unauthorized Use, Related Activities, Money Laundering, and Financing of Terrorism, number 7786 of April 30, 1998, and its reforms, is not contrary to the principle of proportionality. Magistrates Armijo and Cruz issue a dissenting vote and declare that the consulted norm is unconstitutional.*» That pronouncement is binding pursuant to the rules referred to above (article 13 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction [Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional]). However, the issue raised by the minority judge was not that one, but rather he sought to show that if criminal prosecution always requires a restrictive interpretation of substantive and procedural rules, unequivocal indications as well as certainty and not probability, in cases where the reaction was so high, that analytical and argumentative exercise had to be taken to the maximum to avoid errors. This approach, which is what this Chamber infers from the minority vote, is, in our understanding, an adequate positioning in the face of the responsibility that the judging of human beings implies. Acting accordingly is not, as the prosecutor says, extrapolating the law.

On the contrary, this is extrapolated when, procedurally, the statements of witnesses are distorted, when the circumstantial evidence is not analyzed as a whole or is ambiguous, or when, substantively, the criminal offense is defined by Ministry of Health circulars, to which state agents do not react with the functions entrusted to them by law (objectivity and impartiality). Nor is it entirely accurate to state that the dissenting judge said that a "criminal transport figure without content" had been created, as the prosecutor stated in his response, because although he used that expression (which he later corrected to "or with evidentiary content"), from the context of that intervention, what can be inferred is that the judge was trying to indicate (although certainly not as explicitly as desired) that transport alone was not sufficient for a crime to exist, but rather that the illicit purposes established in the legal system had to be proven, and that it was not sufficient to allude, in an accusation, to "trafficking purposes" to incorporate therein any of the other purposes mentioned in the article, a point that, as explained in the first sections, is correct based on the objective elements of the criminal offense in question.

**C.12** Other biases in the presentations. In addition to those already indicated in the majority opinion, the parties have also resorted to inadequate arguments. The defense attorney, for example, assumed that this court knew the context in order to make an argument that was initially incomprehensible and only made sense when the court became immersed in the points of the case (curse of knowledge bias). For his part, it also implies a cognitive bias to attempt to appeal to the meaning of words and the rules of semantics or those governing the Spanish language for topics that suit a thesis, but not to do so for those that the same presenting person dislikes. The prosecutor has attempted, against systematic interpretation (which, as such, is not extensive, as it refers to understanding the date of the law and the existence of other regulations of that rank that support the permit defined by the criminal offense), to convince this chamber that transport is understood *solely* as the transfer from one point to another, and for this he appeals to the rules of the Spanish language (setting aside the complete interpretation of the criminal offense), but he attempts to set aside the rules of international treaties and not adhere to the grammatical meaning of "judges" when he refers to the composition of the trial court. This is also an argumentative bias. Nor is it legally acceptable to use dramatic or sociological arguments from other historical contexts, when the rules of law, by virtue of sovereignty, are exclusive to a territory. Therefore, from one place to another and from one time to another, regulations can change, so presenting emotional arguments or arguments from other contexts is a departure from legal rules. This is what the prosecution does when stating: "the normalization and generalization of acts of swapping drug for drug or supplying or distributing drugs within a community can endanger the very stability of the economic and social system, as happens, for example, in cities like Los Angeles, California, or in the drainage channels of Las Vegas, Nevada, where the diffusion of highly addictive drugs such as ketamine, cocaine, and fentanyl not only cause growing work absenteeism, but also uncontrollable expenses in the health system, an increase in violent crime, premature deaths, and increases in premiums for vacancy and life insurance policies, while growing neighborhoods of fentanyl zombies and mentally disabled people are created (sic) who must be supported by the rest of the population." (Cf. response brief). Even if the above is true, it turns out that our legal system is not the same as that of those places, and such a sociological context is valid only for criminal policy purposes, *lege ferenda* or primary criminalization, but not for judging a case with specific rules.

All of the foregoing has aimed to demonstrate the need to refine legal argumentation in the approach to cases. Certainly, this very resolution will not escape, no matter how much we have tried not to fall into such biases, incorporating these or many others, but it is the task of the parties to make them evident through appeals and with legal arguments. Doing so in this way will allow the gap between the ideal and the actual to narrow and, without a doubt, will strengthen the rule of law in the sphere of the "administration" of justice. For all the reasons stated, the appeals must be upheld and the appealed sentence annulled, ordering a retrial before a panel that has not previously intervened and with respect for the prohibition of *reformatio in pejus* to the detriment of the defense, as the sole appellants.

**III.-** In the **second argument of the public defender's appeal**, the insufficient reasoning for the sentence imposed (one year more than the minimum) on [Nombre 016] is challenged, using, as the sole criterion in this regard, the existence of criminal records for illegal possession of a weapon and aggravated robbery, both sentences served by the accused and which bear no relation to the offense for which he is now sentenced. She says that imposing nine years for transporting 22 marijuana cigarettes is disproportionate. Upon responding to the appeal, the prosecutor said he would not contest that argument because, in jurisprudence, there have been "two opposite poles" (thus in the response) on the matter, to which he refers, and therefore the Third Chamber has adopted an eclectic position (for which he partially transcribes vote number 763-2014, which he says he shares) according to which criminal records cannot be the sole criterion for increasing the sentence, so if the nine-year sentence were endorsed, it would legitimize the defense to file a cassation appeal based on contradictory precedents. To this he adds that the prosecutor requested, in his closing arguments, eight years in prison for both accused and concludes that he will not contest the ground as long as that is the sanction. **The complaint is upheld.** Although, by virtue of what was decided previously, resolving this issue may seem unnecessary, it is not, insofar as what is decided here will determine whether, in the retrial, if a conviction is reached (a matter on which no prejudgment is made), the same sentences already used may or may not be imposed, or whether there is an additional or further limit set by this ruling. This latter scenario applies here, as will be stated. It is clear that the accused ([Nombre 009]) received the minimum sentence established in the criminal offense, and this aspect is not appealed by the public defender, whereby, by the principle of prohibition of *reformatio in pejus* (Article 447 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), that will be the ceiling to consider in the retrial in the event of a possible conviction. It should be noted that —although the minimum sentence may be high and may seem disproportionate to the amount of drug found, the role of the persons in the eventual distribution chain, and, comparatively, because it is the same punitive reaction as for much more harmful conduct such as large-scale international trafficking— upon a consultation made by the former Criminal Cassation Court of San José (vote number 1034-2007; R. Chinchilla, A. Chirino and S. Zúñiga) regarding whether, faced with a conflict between the constitutional principles of culpability and legality, courts could make value judgments to depart from minimum limits in order to reduce them if they exceeded a person's culpability (a thesis held by scholars such as Roxin and Binder), the Constitutional Chamber, evading the point, upheld the constitutionality of the minimum extremes of sentences (see vote number 2008-2124). Similarly, upon a consultation made by the Criminal Cassation Court of San José, in vote number 742-2011 (R. Chinchilla, L. García and E. Salinas) regarding whether such high sentence amounts were proportional to punish persons with a low role in the drug trafficking chain and from whom a small quantity was seized, the majority of the constitutional body found no irregularity on the point, this in vote number 2011-11697 mentioned above. Therefore, if that sanction was applied, another could not be used, not even a lesser one.

However, in the case of [Nombre 016] cc. [Nombre 016] the situation is different, as he was given one year more than the minimum. In this regard, it must be indicated that any increase beyond the minimum sentence established by the legislator must be based on objective reasons, unrelated to the same elements of the criminal offense, which must be sufficiently explained by the *a quo* [lower court], and in whose argumentation it is not possible to transgress the limits derived from constitutional norms and principles, including *res judicata* and the Criminal Law of the Act characteristic of a democratic system. Thus, increasing the minimum sentence based on registered convictions is unconventional and unconstitutional, as this court, with different panels, including since it was called the Criminal Cassation Court of San José, had occasion to state, among others, in vote number 2015-1120 of this chamber (with another panel: García, Wittmann and Obando). The precedent is invoked not for reasons of authority but for ease in explaining the reasons previously given to reach that conclusion, namely:

«…the sentencing court justified the imposed sentence based on different circumstances, such as (…) that the defendants had prior convictions, which this Chamber does not agree with, as it exceeds the culpability inherent to the sanctioned act. In this regard, resolution 0934-15 of this Court, with a panel partially comprised of those subscribing here, indicated: "...Regarding the issue of criminal records, this type of argument implies using a Criminal Law of the Author and not of the Act. It must be taken into account that, **as the Constitutional Chamber has stated in various votes, the sentence cannot exceed the culpability of the subject, a thesis consistent with what was resolved by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in the case of Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin et al. vs. Trinidad and Tobago, issued on June 21, 2002 (No. 102) and the same constitutional jurisprudence** has indicated that **the sentence cannot be increased based on the existence of criminal records (Vote No. 5746-93) because this implies a violation of the principle of *res judicata*, by re-judging the person (to increase their sanction) for events for which a final judgment has already been issued. Furthermore, when a Criminal Court increases the prison sentence taking, as a criterion, the fact that the person has criminal records, it fails to consider that the Criminal Code already provides, for these cases, a consequence, namely, that the person cannot obtain certain benefits, among these, the benefit of a suspended sentence (Article 60); commutation of the sanction (Article 69) or substitution by electronic monitoring (special law), among others.** In other words, if what is sought is greater rigor for subjects subjected, more than once, to Criminal Justice, it will be those measures, previously provided by the legislator, that fulfill that function".» (the emphasis is supplied).

If the above is true in any case, it is even more so when the crimes for which the conviction was recorded lack relation (or at least this is not stated) to the crime in the conviction where the sanction is increased, as happens in this case, where the *nomen iuris* (illegal possession of a weapon, aggravated robbery, and drug transport) is different and the majority of the sentencing court made no minimal argumentative effort to establish any relationship. All of this must be considered, if applicable, in the ordered retrial where the issue of criminal records cannot be considered to establish a punitive consequence, should this be applicable, a matter on which, it is worth reiterating, this court does not prejudge, but only stresses the need that, whatever the decision adopted, all the factual and legal topics previously developed be analyzed.

**IV.- On the precautionary measure and warning for previous annulments. (A)** In this matter, the majority resolution, in its reasoning section, merely states the extension (later corrected to issuance for [Nombre 016] and extension for [Nombre 009]) of the precautionary measure. Nowhere is the probability of criminal conduct mentioned (which can be remedied because previous moments of the sentence, which must be integrated into this section, have been based, for the majority, on certainty in this regard), and even less is it indicated what the procedural risk is and for what reason the measure is issued or extended. It is appropriate, once again, to reiterate that the precautionary measure is not automatic upon the mere issuance of the sentence, and that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (judgment in the case of López Álvarez vs. Honduras, among many others) has indicated that the amount of the sentence or the conviction alone is not sufficient to issue it: "69. From Article 7.3 of the Convention arises the State obligation not to restrict the liberty of the detainee beyond the limits strictly necessary to ensure that they will not impede the efficient development of the investigations nor evade the action of justice. The personal characteristics of the alleged perpetrator and **the gravity of the crime attributed to them are not, by themselves, sufficient justification for pretrial detention**. Pretrial detention is a precautionary measure and not a punitive one. The Convention is infringed when persons whose criminal responsibility has not been established are deprived of liberty for an excessively prolonged, and therefore disproportionate, period. This is equivalent to anticipating the sentence." It is clear that the decision on the precautionary measure, for practical reasons, is inserted into the sentence, but it is not necessarily a part of it (as the decision can also be adopted in a separate order, before or after said decision), but, in any case, this does not eliminate the jurisdictional obligation to state reasons for it, as required by numerals 142 and 257-258 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The failure to do so constitutes yet another defect in the process, even challengeable before this body (thus, vote of the Constitutional Chamber number 202120046).

Given that in the case of [Nombre 016], the issuance of the measure was only done in the now-annulled conviction sentence, as he faced the process while free and his provisional detention was imposed solely based on the amount of the sanction, his immediate release must be ordered, if no other cause prevents it and without this affecting the possibility that the parties have —if they see fit and **if the legal prerequisites for it are met**— to request, before the competent body (which is not this one), any **other** precautionary measure, different from the one indicated, or to request pretrial detention **based on supervening causes different from the one already referred to**.

In other words, for [Name 016] the sole basis for the precautionary measure (cautela) until now was the judgment, and since that judgment has been voided, the foundation upon which that measure rested loses its support and cannot be validly sustained, so **the release must be executed by the authority holding him at its order, which is the only one with standing to do so**.

As for [Name 009], the situation is different, since he was declared a fugitive (rebelde) previously (and his pretrial detention was ordered by the same trial judge in a decision issued prior to the judgment, although it was extended in the judgment), so the flight risk persists and constitutes a procedural ground; therefore, for him, the precautionary measure must be maintained under the terms ordered by the lower court, that is, expiring on August 2, 2025, given that in order (auto) 184-2025-B issued at 2:37 p.m. on January 27, 2025 (see folio 574 of volume II), the judge analyzed the flight risk due to the declared fugitive status and the probability that the act was committed arises from the same indictment under discussion (article 303 of the procedural code). Hence, the measure must be maintained for the period decreed by the *a quo* (the only aspect of the decision that remains in force, since, although it was resolved in the judgment, it can constitute a separate order), a period during which the ordered new trial (reenvío) must take place, without prejudice to the measure being varied, if deemed appropriate, either ex officio or at a party's request. **(B)** Finally, this is the third time a new trial (reenvío) has been ordered in this matter, a point that is mentioned so that the lower court may grasp the level of responsibility it bears, as it is unacceptable that a flagrancy (flagrancia) case has been in process for over a year, has two volumes of case file (due to the numerous copies made) and three new trial orders to its name, and the case has still not been properly concluded. Likewise, it should be noted that an acquittal was previously issued, so if a second acquittal were to be issued (a point mentioned solely as one possible outcome, without prejudging the final decision to be adopted), it would close off the possibility of a criminal appeal due to the double jeopardy (doble conforme) principle (article 466 bis of the Criminal Procedure Code), and in such a case, the final responsibility for any jurisdictional error would fall solely upon the deciding body. Therefore, regardless of the decision adopted, the new panel must endeavor to avoid any error, because if it convicts and errs, it will be the fourth new trial, and if it acquits and errs, it fully assumes responsibility for the decision, absent any further appeal.

**POR TANTO:** The appeals (recursos de apelación) filed by licensed attorney Esther Salazar Rojas, as public defender for the accused, and by licensed attorney Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, private defender for the suspect ([Name 009]), are formally declared admissible and with merit. The lower court's judgment is annulled (except with respect to the precautionary measure for [Name 009] included in that decision), and a new trial (reenvío) is ordered before an authority that has not previously intervened and with respect for the principle prohibiting reformatio in peius (prohibición de reforma en perjuicio). The pretrial detention (prisión preventiva) of [Name 009] is maintained until August 2, 2025, without prejudice to any change that may be decreed. The immediate release of [Name 016] cc. [Name 016] cc. [Name 016] is ordered, if no other cause prevents it, which must be executed by the court at whose order the suspect is held, for which purpose the immediate notification of this decision is ordered. NOTIFÍQUESE.

Rosaura Chinchilla Calderón Ivette Carranza Cambronero Kathya Jiménez Fernández Appellate judges for criminal sentencing Imputado: [Name 009] Ofendido: La salud pública Delito: Transporte de droga II. [...]

**C.1** First of all, *legally the principle of impartiality must be respected* (Article 39 of the Political Constitution) of the deciding court, as this is an integral part of due process (Constitutional Chamber vote number 1739-92). This is part of the Rule of Law and the Constitutional State. For this reason, it has been held (since the vote of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Mauricio Herrera case referenced above) that the court that issues a criterion on the criminal probability for the purposes of issuing pretrial detention cannot form part of the deciding body because, in such a case, it has already advanced a criterion, even at the level of probability, on the intervention of the accused (in this regard, among many others, Constitutional Chamber resolution number 7531-1997, reiterated in resolution 2006-17737, may be consulted). It should be remembered that the cited precautionary measure requires not only probability of the commission of the act but also a procedural danger. In this case, it is on record that Judge Shirley Mayorga Espinoza (who formed part of the majority of the deciding body) ordered the pretrial detention of [Name 009] (according to resolution 184-2025-B at 14:37 hours on January 27, 2025, which appears in the minute visible on folio 574 of volume II and in the audiovisual file that was sent by the court of instance at the express request of this court, since it did not appear in the official records). That decision was issued within the framework of a certified extract of parts (testimonio de piezas) that had been processed against said accused for his non-appearance at a previous hearing, but later, the same current composition of the deciding body annulled what they themselves had previously done with respect to the other defendant (the hearing against him was underway, although no evidence had been received and it was suspended, within the legal term, awaiting the official's appearance), re-accumulated the cases, and restarted the hearing against both. Originally, the audiovisual file of that proceeding, as stated, was not located in the digital case file of this matter, nor in the annexes of the physical file, and it was necessary to request it from the deciding body, which demonstrates the procedural disorder of this matter, evidenced by certified extracts of parts, severances (desacumulaciones) due to default, new accumulations due to the appearance of the defaulter, annulments of the ongoing hearing, and repetitions and changes of foliation. From the analysis of the content of said hearing, it is clear that the judge based the probability required by the precautionary measure (articles 239 and 243 of the Criminal Procedure Code) on the fact that it was a retrial and, therefore, there was an accusation, thereby evading the jurisdictional analysis of the probable intervention of the accused or of the evidentiary sufficiency and transferring it to the accusing party. It must be considered that in the expedited procedure for flagrancy (proceso de flagrancia), there is no formal order to open trial issued by a different jurisdictional authority that would allow evading that descent into the facts of the specific case that is constitutionally required (articles 422 to 429 of the Criminal Procedure Code and Article 37 of the Political Constitution), so any issuance of precautionary measures in flagrancy must examine their requirements, which was not done. Although, in this way, the judge avoided advancing a criterion on the merits of the matter in order to be able to form part of the deciding body (she herself indicated, in that hearing, that there was another similar proceeding initiated that had been annulled to accumulate it with this one), she thereby evaded part of the control inherent to precautionary measures. In any case, for the sake of transparency, she should have expressly warned the parties, at the beginning of the hearing, of that intervention, to avoid suspicions and to enable them to exercise possible challenges (recusaciones) in order to better safeguard the principle of impartiality.

Although it did not do so and, in principle, it is noted, on the Court's own motion, that there was no advance ruling (adelanto de criterio) that affects its intervention in the trial or generates an absolute defect (vicio absoluto) (article 178 of the Código Procesal Penal), it is appropriate to highlight the impropriety of such practices so that, in future cases, they are not incurred.\"</span> For our purposes, the fourth criminal type is of interest (counting backwards from the end of the list provided) and, at the risk of being tedious by quoting it again, it is necessary to have it in plain sight when breaking it down into its elements: "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization (…) transports (…) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law…" If a "taxonomy" of this last criminal type is carried out following the parameters provided by substantive criminal dogmatics (which is important for drawing various consequences in the Theory of Crime as well as in matters of co-perpetration (coautoría), participation, etc.), it can be classified as a criminal type which, by its gravity, is a crime (delito) (it is neither a felony (crimen) nor a contravention (contravención)); by the modalities of action, it is a crime of action (it does not admit commission by omission, as it is not a result crime according to the stipulations that, for Costa Rica, are set out in Article 18 of the Penal Code) [...]" [...] It should be borne in mind that—although the minimum penalty is high and may seem disproportionate given the quantity of drugs found, the role of the individuals in the eventual distribution chain, and, comparatively, because it is the same punitive reaction as for much more harmful conduct such as large-scale international trafficking—in response to a consultation made by the former Criminal Cassation Court of San José (vote number 1034-2007; R. Chinchilla, A. Chirino and S. Zúñiga) regarding whether, in the event of a conflict between the constitutional principles of culpability and legality, the courts could make balancing judgments to depart from the minimum thresholds in order to reduce them if these exceeded the culpability of an individual (a thesis supported by scholars such as Roxin and Binder), the Constitutional Chamber, sidestepping the point, upheld the constitutionality of the minimum limits of penalties (see vote number 2008-2124). Similarly, in response to a consultation made by the Criminal Cassation Court of San José, in vote number 742-2011 (R. Chinchilla, L. García and E. Salinas) regarding whether such high penalty amounts were proportional for punishing individuals with a low-level role in the drug trafficking chain from whom a small quantity was seized, the majority of the constitutional body found no irregularity on this point, in the aforementioned vote number 2011-11697. Therefore, if that sanction was applied, no other, not even a lesser one, could be used.

However, in the case of [Nombre 016] cc. [Nombre 016], the situation changes, as he was given one year more than the minimum. In this regard, it must be noted that any increase to the minimum penalty established by the legislator must be based on objective reasons, unrelated to the very elements of the criminal type, which must be sufficiently explained by the a quo court and in whose argumentation it is not possible to transgress the limits derived from constitutional norms and principles, including material res judicata (cosa juzgada material) and the Criminal Law of the Act (Derecho Penal de Acto) characteristic of a democratic system. Thus, increasing the minimum penalty due to registered prior convictions (condenas inscritas) is unconventional and unconstitutional, as this court, with different compositions, including since it was called the Criminal Cassation Court of San José, had occasion to state, among others, in vote number 2015-1120 of this chamber (with another composition: García, Wittmann and Obando). [...]

The judges Rosaura Chinchilla Calderón, Kathya Jiménez Fernández, and Ivette Carranza Cambronero participate in the decision on the appeals. Attorney Esther Salazar Rojas appeared at this venue as public defender of the accused; attorney Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, private defender of the accused ([Nombre 009]), and M.Sc. Héctor Chacón Chang as prosecutor of the Public Prosecutor's Office, also appeared.

**WHEREAS:** **I.-** That by judgment number 122-2025 at 16:00 hours on February 2, 2025, the Flagrancy Criminal Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José, by majority, resolved: "*THEREFORE: In accordance with Articles 39 and 41 of the Political Constitution; Articles 1, 11, 14, 18, 19, 20, 30, 31, 45, 54, 59, 60, 62, 63, and 71, all of the Criminal Code; Article 58 of Law No. 8204, Articles 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 239, 249, 258, 265, 266, 360, 361, 363, 364, and 367, all of the Criminal Procedure Code; by majority of the judges CARLOS NÚÑEZ NÚÑEZ and SHIRLEY MAYORGA ESPINOZA, the accused [Nombre 009] AND [Nombre 016] [Nombre 016] are declared responsible perpetrators of A CRIME OF DRUG TRANSPORT, for which the following penalty is imposed: on the convicted person ([Nombre 009]) EIGHT YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT and on the convicted person [Nombre 016] the penalty of NINE YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT. As it is inappropriate, the benefit of conditional execution of the sentence is NOT granted to the convicted persons, nor is it substituted by house arrest with electronic monitoring or the provision of community service. It is ordered to notify the Judicial Register for their corresponding actions, in relation to (sic) the revocation of the benefit of conditional execution of the sentence of the convicted person [Nombre 016], which was carried out by judgment No. 625-24 at 16:25 hours on July 23, 2024, of the Flagrancy Criminal Court of the II Judicial Circuit of San José, in case No. 24-000685-1092-PE, which is also not registered. The pretrial detention of the defendant [Nombre 016] is ordered for a period of SIX MONTHS starting from today and until AUGUST 2, 2025, and the detention of the defendant [Nombre 009] is extended for a period of SIX MONTHS, from today and until AUGUST 2, 2025. It is ordered to notify the General Directorate of Immigration and Aliens, for their corresponding actions, in relation to (sic) the convicted person [Nombre 016]. Judge WARREN JUGO MADRIGAL dissents, acquits both accused of all penalty and responsibility, and orders their immediate release, unless another cause prevents it. By virtue of having been resolved orally and integrally, all parties are duly notified at the act and this resolution in digital format is at their disposal. Carlos Núñez Núñez. Shirley Mayorga Espinoza. Warren Jugo Madrigal.*" (sic, folios 600-602).

**II.-** That, against the preceding pronouncement, attorney Esther Salazar Rojas as public defender of the accused and attorney Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo as private defender appointed by the indictee ([Nombre 009]) filed an appeal.

**III.-** That, having verified the respective deliberation in accordance with the provisions of Article 465 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the court considered the questions formulated in the appeals.

**IV.-** That the pertinent legal prescriptions have been observed in the proceedings.

Judge Chinchilla Calderón drafts; **WHEREAS:** **I.- Procedural Questions. (A) Admissibility.** Attorney Esther Salazar Rojas, as public defender of both accused, filed an appeal against the judgment issued in the case record, a decision that is challengeable by said procedural subject (subjective taxativity) and through this channel (objective taxativity). This challenge was raised by means of a reasoned brief, submitted before the trial court and within the legal period, as it was delivered on February 21, 2025, at 18:00 hours according to the receipt stamp of the document attached to the case file (folios 611 to 617). Similarly, on that same February 21, 2025, the private defender —appointed on February 3, 2025, by the accused ([Nombre 009])— attorney Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, submitted a brief of appeal (folios 607-610). Given that the integral judgment was issued orally on February 2, 2025 (see folio 598), the 15-business-day period did not expire until February 22, 2025, and, therefore, the appeals must be admitted, without the need for further formalities, otherwise, the mandate established in Article 8.2.h of the American Convention on Human Rights and the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Mauricio Herrera Ulloa against Costa Rica, judgment of July 2, 2014, would be breached. The prosecutor details that the accused [Nombre 009], as of February 3, 2025 (folio 599), revoked the representation exercised by the Public Defender's Office and appointed attorney Rafael Jenkins Grispo as his defense counsel of choice, so, in the opinion of M.Sc. Chacón, the defender lacked standing to manage on his behalf. Although, in effect, the data provided by this professional corresponds to what occurred in the case record, what he does not take into account is that the rule is that any change of legal representation operates from when the variation is accepted by the court and not from when it is made by the accused, without prejudice to the fact that, even after the resignation, the previous professional continues to attend to the interests of their client for up to 10 additional business days (Article 46 of the Code of Legal, Moral, and Ethical Duties of the Legal Professional), this because the appointed person may not be a legal professional, may be suspended, or the accused may have debts to honor with another previously designated legal representative (as even happened with this professional in this same case, where there was a resignation by him and non-payment of fees as recorded on folio 574 verso). Said jurisdictional acceptance of the substitution of defense did not occur until February 21, 2025 (by resolution of the a quo body at 20:01 minutes, visible on folio 618, a decision notified to all parties on that same date, as recorded on folios 619 to 621), so at the time the public defender presented her brief, she had not been formally released from her duties and, in accordance with Article 102 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which obligates the removed defense counsel to remain in the position until the substitute intervenes, her brief is admissible, as is that of the private defender which was submitted on that same date, before the substitution (at 16:10 hours), but after being formally appointed by the accused. In any case, as will be seen, both appeals address similar issues for that accused. **(B) Procedural Recount.** The judgment issued stems from a remand ordered by this court (composed of M. Escalante Quirós, R. Badilla Rojas, and E. Montero Mena) in decision number 2024-1882 (volume I, folios 192 to 196) where, upon hearing a prosecutorial appeal against a first acquittal of both accused (issued by judges A. Sobrado, M. Salas, and judge K. Durán), it entirely annulled that pronouncement and ordered a new trial. Therefore, it has been verified that in the processing of the case there are no violations of the principle of impartiality in the composition of this chamber, the remand jurisdiction has been respected, and neither material res judicata nor the principle of double conformity is violated. **(C) Procedural Questions.** (i) In this matter, both because of the aforementioned remand and due to ordered testimonies of pieces, the same actions have been duplicated and accumulated, to the point that "the flagrancy summary" has more than 600 folios distributed in two volumes. On folio 501 (which heads volume II), the creation of volume II was ordered, and from there on, an erratic foliation action is noted, as it first followed the previous consecutive numbering (although making inexplicable number jumps), then that was crossed out and a new numbering started from 1, only for this chamber to finally renumber everything to strictly respect the consecutive sequence. This last numbering is the one that will be referenced in this judgment, so it is not necessarily the one cited by the parties. (ii) Finally, the name of the accused appears in official documents written in two different ways; "[Nombre 016]" and "[Nombre 016]", so the allusion to the name made in each case will be respected, warning that this situation caused, at another time, the criminal record of the accused to be kept separately, one with each name, but it is the same person.

**II.-** In the **first ground of the public defender's challenge**, the complaint is set out regarding the determination of the facts because, she argues, this was the product of an erroneous assessment of the evidence and inadequate intellectual evidentiary reasoning. After describing the accused facts (transport of 22 doses of marijuana by [Nombre 016] and 60 rocks of crack and one dose of ketamine by [Nombre 009]) and the form of police intervention (the accused were walking and, upon seeing the police presence, one ran and threw the bag, and the other remained at the site, and upon being searched, the referred total was found, distributed between what each carried), the defense claims that the drug was carried for personal consumption purposes, that the toxicological expert reports denote that both are users, and that the fact that one of them ran is not an unequivocal element to establish the purpose of trafficking, since it may have the objective of avoiding his arrest and the suppression of the substance on which he depends. She says that the quantity seized is not significant and, in the absence of other elements (for example, operations or sales), an acquittal based on doubt was warranted. She considers the analysis of the sentencing court biased since, in her opinion, it inverted the burden of proof regarding the fact that the accused had to demonstrate that the drug was for their consumption, when it was up to the prosecutorial entity to prove that the transport was carried out for sales purposes. She adds that the narration of the only witness received at trial, the police officer (who said he had seen the accused using drugs), was not subject to controversy, but rather the important thing was whether the seized drug was or was not intended for trafficking, and, based on this, the majority opinion uses the statements of her clients to affirm that aspect. Thus, it is affirmed that the accused did not agree to carry out joint consumption, but rather each went to make individual purchases and they met on the way, and there they decided to use together, mutually supplying each other with drugs, which, although illicit, was not accused in that way nor is it mentioned in the proven facts. By assuming a different purpose in the judgment, the appellant affirms that the correlation was violated. She criticizes that, in the majority opinion, no credibility was given to the defendants under the argument that the toxicological report does not refer to the consumption of ketamine, when the presence of drugs in the body depends on many factors, including the days elapsed between consumption and the examination. She affirms that it is the minority opinion that resolves the point correctly. She alludes that the two toxicological reports show consumption by both defendants and that in the medico-legal history of [Nombre 016], it is recorded that he said he had consumed ketamine since he was 18 years old and his last intake was on February 2, 2024, which explains why no evidence of the substance appeared in the toxicological report. She requests the ineffectiveness of the decision. In the **sole ground of the appeal by attorney Jenkins Grispo**, the lack of intellectual reasoning and the erroneous assessment of the evidence regarding ([Nombre 009]) is alleged. He says, in a somewhat confusing manner (for someone who does not know the context), that between one trial and another, an officer of the Public Force changed his version: "...in the first trial that was annulled, the Public Force officer tells us that it was he who ran and that his companion stayed with my client, and my client says that the drug alleged in the report was never taken from him, and that it later appears as evidence, in the second trial the police officer changes that version, not just summarily, meaning he changes it in a way that does a 180-degree turn, managing to correct the error that led to the annulled sentence of the first trial. The only witness at the trial, the officer, relates under oath something that he subsequently varies in the second trial, that is, what happened, in which he lacked truth, in which perjury occurred, in the first trial or in the second." (Cf. appeal brief). Furthermore, while the Public Prosecutor's Office, in the accusation, stated that only one accused ran and [Nombre 009] remained static, the police officer, in his testimony under oath, stated that both subjects ran, which generates doubts about the real truth of what happened. He adds that the purpose is not mentioned in the accusation and this was not demonstrated at trial, so the judgment makes this point fall on the accused, inverting the burden of proof. He adds that the total amount of drugs divided by two does allow one to consider that it was for personal consumption and that the fact that ketamine did not appear in his client's body does not mean he did not want to try it that day. He considers that what was resolved by the dissenting judge was correct because there is no impact or harm to third parties from their consumption, and he asks to annul the judgment with respect to [Nombre 009], order his release (since he was detained by the conviction judgment), and order a remand. Upon contesting the arguments, the counterparty requested that they be rejected. The prosecutor summarized what happened at other times (acquittal of both accused), the facts proven by the majority, the evidence admitted (the statement of [Nombre 012], of both accused who did not deny possessing the substance that was seized from them, the seizure records and the analytical chemical report, the toxicological analyses of the accused and the medico-legal report of one of them), and the reasoning set out in the opinion, both majority and minority, to demonstrate what he classifies as "intersubjectivity" of the point under discussion. He describes that, although there is a difference between the oral report of the police officers and their account at trial regarding whether one or both subjects ran, the fact that only one did makes the police intervention lawful, which was not questioned, and that the issue under discussion is the purpose of the possession. In this regard, the prosecutor points out that, in the majority opinion, the judges —thus in the brief, although the jurisdictional body to which he alludes is composed of a man and a woman and despite the fact that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), an instrument duly signed, ratified, and in force in the country, obliges, in its Article 2, subsections d), e), and f), public officials to eradicate patterns of discrimination that include the sexist use of language— analyzed that neither of the defendants said they consumed ketamine, nor did this substance appear in the toxicological reports performed on them: ([Nombre 009]), in his initial investigative statement, said he only consumed marijuana, but later added that he also consumed crack or cocaine, and although [Nombre 016] claimed to consume both substances, he only presented traces of marijuana in his urine. In the prevailing ruling, it was indicated that if one transported drugs to supply the other, it would be a typical act, that ketamine found no support in the defense's theory, and the way in which the 66 doses of crack, the 22 joints of marijuana were packaged, and the flight of [Nombre 016] upon police presence were indicators of the purpose of trafficking. The prosecutor describes the minority opinion (which is based on doubt as to whether the drug was for consumption) and says, with support from decisions of the Third Chamber, that for the crime to occur, it is sufficient to transport drugs from one point to another and for it not to be for personal consumption.

Adds that: “<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">the possession and transport of this last drug by </span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt; line-height: 153%; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-style: italic;">[Name 009]</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, which was objectively demonstrated, is relevant, since the ketamine seized under the demonstrative conditions of the case sub examine presented a clear impossibility of being plausibly associated with a purpose of personal use by ([Name 009]). Unlike [Name 016] [Name 016]</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, the defendant [Name 009] at no time claimed to be addicted to ketamine, and his defensive allegation was limited to saying that his intention and that of [Name 016] was to make bazuco with the marijuana that [Name 016] was carrying and the crack rocks that [Name 009] was carrying</span><span style="font-style: italic;">. Nor did the accused [Name 009]</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> state at trial that, upon being arrested, he was carrying that drug to </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">“</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">use it for the first time.” For that reason, the allegation made in that sense by the esteemed attorney Jenkins Grispo comes from the mere imagination of the cited colleague, which lacks all evidentiary support and is purely conjectural.”</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">(Cfr. prosecutorial response, the improper use of generalized capitalization in proper names is corrected, but the spelling used by the appellant for these is maintained). He adds that the defendants incurred in contradictions throughout the process regarding their </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">condition of addiction, which diminished their credibility:</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt;"> “</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">[Name 009]</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> asserted that he only consumed marijuana and so he told the court in the presence of his defense. He did not relate that he primarily consumed bazuco, which is a mixture of crack and marijuana. Neither did he say he was addicted to cocaine. Nor did he </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">assert that he consumed ketamine. And this is relevant, since at no time was marijuana seized from [Name 009]. What was seized from him and what he was transporting was crack -cocaine- and ketamine. Ergo, if [Name 009] was not transporting drugs to which he stated he was addicted at the time of the initial hearing, it is quite logical that [Name 009] could not be transporting those substances for personal use before that initial hearing </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt;">(…</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt;">) </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">In relation to the (sic) </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">accused [Name 016] [Name 016]</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">, neither can the finding of ketamine be associated with a purpose of personal use. Certainly, when interviewed by the forensic doctor, this accused said he consumed ketamine, inhaled, every 3 days, and so it was recorded in the medical-legal opinion 2024-000918. Although that expertise is dated February 7, 2024, the assessment was performed the day before. In it, as found on folio 65, [Name 016]</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> reports having consumed ketamine on the same day of his detention, February 2, 2024. But, in the opinion DCF 2024-00546 TOX, performed with samples taken barely on February 6, 2024 at 13:11 hrs (and not a year later, as the public defender falsely states) it is reported that </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">no ketamine was detected in the urine of that defendant </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">-see folio 80-. Here it is important to say that to detect ketamine in urine in this case, gas chromatography was used, and by that method quantities of 0.1 mg/ml of the compound can be detected, according to the toxicological literature. According to the same medical-legal literature, the maximum detection time is situated at approximately 72 h for a single dose. However, it is warned that </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">in users with habitual or addictive consumption, as the accused [Name 016] stated he had, ketamine can take more than 7 days to be eliminated </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">[The nonmedical use of ketamine. Part two. A review of problem use and dependence. J </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Psychoactive Drugs 2001 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">)</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> cited in J. Royo “</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> La “</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">keta”</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> (ketamine), del fármaco a la droga de abuso. Clínica biopsicosocial del consumidor y algunas propuestas terapéuticas, in Revista</span> <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Elsevier No.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> 34, volume 3 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">)]</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> situation that, equally, makes it hardly credible that the drug of interest had been consumed by the accused with the assiduity or habitualness that he referred, on the date that he said so, and that the carrying of that substance was also due to a true purpose of personal use </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">)</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> Another aspect that likewise, with grounds, called into question the allegation that the drug the accused were carrying was for personal use, was the detail set forth by [Name 009]</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> to the effect that he and [Name 016] [Name 016]</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> had opened a small bag of cocaine and both had consumed from it shortly before the arrest. However, [Name 016] [Name 016]</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> did not present cocaine metabolites in blood (see opinion No.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> 2024-0546 TOX, folio 80), and no powder cocaine was seized from any of the defendants, so again the version of ([Name 009]) is hardly credible. Similarly, it is also not possible to believe that what the accused supposedly consumed was ketamine and not cocaine, confusing the latter with the former, since from an objective point of view, neither of the two resulted with traces of ketamine in urine</span>” (Cfr. prosecutorial response, the improper use of generalized capitalization in proper names is corrected but the spelling of these is respected). Due to those inconsistencies and because the defendants varied the purpose from personal use to supply to the other and <span style="font-size: 11pt;">“…</span>[Name 016]<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">, in a sign of guilty conscience, took to his heels when he noticed the police presence and tried to hide the drug by throwing it onto a neighboring roof</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">”</span> (Cfr. prosecutorial response, the improper use of generalized capitalization in proper names is corrected while respecting their spelling) the prosecutor considers that the conviction was correct. Immediately thereafter, the representative of the prosecuting entity makes an extensive disquisition on the reasons of criminal policy and criminal dogmatics for not prosecuting or sanctioning personal use, an action different from supply. He stated that it is not essential whether both defendants ran or only one did, according to the change in the police officer’s version, since it is understandable that this varies due to the time elapsed and the various existing trials, and that the fact that [Name 009] did not flee upon seeing the police does not exclude his knowledge that he was moving from the place of purchase to the place of arrest 66 rocks of <span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span> and a wrapper of ketamine, and that the purpose of that transport, with respect to at least part of that stash, was not personal use, as he admitted in his account. He states that there was no reversal of the burden of proof but rather analysis of indicia, that being a drug user does not grant a license to carry out the typical behaviors, that although the defendants were approached without prior investigation to demonstrate the purpose of their possession, this does not generate harm since each of them, duly advised, accepted that the drug each was carrying was destined for a mutual barter, and that the defender’s explanation of the reason why [Name 016] ran upon the police presence is a simple conjecture that does not derive from the evidence, inasmuch as the officer stated he could not detect that, at that moment, he was under the effects of the substance. He argues that the non-seizure of money or the small quantity of the substance is superfluous since the defendants accepted that they were going to exchange drugs where, according to Article 1100 of the Civil Code, money is substituted and that, although the appellant mentions that there are biases in the majority vote, these are not explained. He accepts that the accusation does not mention the purpose of supply or distribution, but maintains that for the configuration of the offense only common criminal intent is required, which is to transport, and it was ruled out that it was for personal consumption, all of which was charged and therefore the correlation is not violated, from which everything else is peripheral. He adds that “…<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">the accused themselves, freely and voluntarily, once they were warned of their right to abstain and knowing that anything they said could be used against them, tried to create an allegation of personal use, without succeeding, since the material defense allegation of [Name 009]</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> and [Name 016]</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> ended up degenerating, degrading, and foundering on the admission of a partial purpose of supply or distribution to a third party on account of the barter of drugs that each was individually transporting, which, whether the appellant wants it or not, and whether the respected dissenting </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">judge wants it or not, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">clearly denaturalized the thesis of a transport supposedly for mere individual personal use of each accused</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">It is worth saying, furthermore, that this defensive absurdity was carried out by means of separate statements of the accused, rendered with all procedural guarantees and that, in addition, were not the responsibility of the Court </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">nor of the Public Ministry, which must be considered for the effects of the principle nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem (no one can allege their own wrongdoing), which is contemplated in Art. 439 of the CPP.</span>” (Cfr. prosecutorial response, the improper use of generalized capitalization in proper names is corrected, although their spelling is respected). He explains why, in his view, the principle <span style="font-style: italic;">in dubio pro reo </span>was not violated and descends into the analysis of the minority vote, regarding which he criticizes several fundamental themes: one, that the doubt must not fall on essential themes or those not explainable by the rules of psychology and that, in the case of the variation in the officer’s version about who ran, this could be explained by the passage of time; a second topic, relative to starting from a conjecture when mentioning the possible reason for the flight, since the defendant did not say that he did it so they would not take the substance from him, in addition to the fact that although the officer stated that [Name 016] was “shaken” or emotional, the officer did not describe behavior that evidenced he had an altered consciousness, for which reason it is not rational that, if he only intended that they not take the drug from him, he threw it onto the roof from where others could take it or it was difficult for him to recover it. Because of this he qualifies this doubt as “<span style="font-style: italic;">contrived and artificial (…</span><span style="font-style: italic;">) markedly absurd and even contradictory</span>”. The third criticism that the prosecutor makes of the minority vote is that it is irrelevant to indicate in the accusation if the purpose is trafficking, since the criminal type only needs knowledge and will to transport drugs, and that what the defendants were carrying (ketamine, cocaine base <span style="font-style: italic;">crack </span>and marijuana, were such) and personal use was ruled out since barter falls outside that sphere. In fourth place, the prosecutor criticizes that “drug trafficking” is a “catch-all concept,” as the dissenting judge indicated, in which everything fits, for which he alludes to the treaties on the matter ratified by the country and to the content of the article:<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> “</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">It is not true that the majority vote set forth in its reasoning that once transport was demonstrated, any destination would be an act of drug trafficking. What the Court pointed out in its majority vote was that given </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">the inconsistencies and contradictions between the statements of the accused throughout the process about the substances to which they said they were addicted and the results of the toxicological tests, and the manner in which the accused were carrying drugs of different types, in doses packaged for retail sale, together with the accused’s own statements about the intention they had of supplying and distributing the drugs to each other by means of a barter, it must be categorically excluded that the transport </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">of drugs was due to a true purpose of individual personal use.”</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> (</span>Cfr. prosecutorial response, the original spelling is respected). In fifth term, he also does not share the minority vote’s argument that it is important whether the investigation was scarce or did not exist to accredit other purposes. The prosecutor relies on the criterion of the “Sala de Casación Penal” —whose name he records using the grammatically incorrect generalized capitalization, despite the fact that the one provided for in the special law, Article 56 of the Ley Orgánica del Poder Judicial, which prevails over the general one, is different— to stipulate that that body has indicated that nothing more is required than to demonstrate the transport and simple criminal intent and that the requesting entity has investigative autonomy, so that the rest of the judge’s affirmations are, he affirms, only opinions.<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> “</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Nor is it a reality that the majority vote convicted </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">the defendants because they did not demonstrate the purpose of personal use. It was rather that the statements rendered at trial by the defendants, added </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(sic) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">to the rest of the indicia</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">set forth previously permitted ruling out —with complete independence from the quantity of drug seized— the purpose of individual personal use of each defendant. Ergo, there was no reversal of the burden of proof whatsoever, as the minority vote carelessly stated. It is worth emphasizing that it does not depend on the Public Ministry nor on the judges of the Judicial Branch that a typical figure of abstract danger such as the crime of drug transport has a minimum sentence of 8 years of imprisonment </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">That is a decision proper to the Legislative Branch.</span></p> If the judge (...) has or had doubts about the proportionality of the minimum penalty, the correct course was to make a constitutional inquiry or to propose, de lege ferenda, a legislative reform, giving their personal reasons of "concern" to the Legislative Branch, like any other citizen (sic). What is not possible is to demand requirements that the law does not expressly impose on the prosecuting body or on the other judges (sic) of the collegiate chamber, as a pretext for the law not to be applied, or for it to be applied only according to the personal biases and phobias that are hinted at in the minority decision. It is not true that a figure of drug transport "without content" has been created as an activity penalized with 8 years of prison as a minimum penalty. It is an abstract danger offense consummated by the mere act of moving from one place to another drugs capable of producing physical or psychological dependence, according to the international Conventions signed and ratified by Costa Rica. The criminal figure has a specific, concrete content clearly derived from the wording of the offense, according to the proper meaning of the words used in the legislative drafting and according to the meaning of the rules of semantics and syntax that govern the Spanish language. It is not proper for the minority decision to want by itself, before itself, and for itself, to impose additional contents on the criminal offense, on the Public Prosecutor's Office (Fiscalía), and on the judges (sic) who drafted the majority decision, based on a mere individual opinion about what the figure of drug transport "should be" starting from an idealized vision of the right to the presumption of innocence or the principle of ultima ratio (...) the action of one who transports the same drug they are going to consume from the place of purchase to their home is not the same as that of one who transports from the place of purchase to another place a drug that they are going to supply or distribute to a third party, even when the latter pays for the drug with another type of drug reciprocally. It is clear that the minority vote inadvertently confuses the general concept of drug consumption with the more restricted concept of individual self-consumption of drugs. Drug consumption corresponds to a more general concept than that of individual self-consumption and encompasses any use of psychoactive substances, regardless of the quantity, frequency, or motivation. It can include both personal use and distribution to third parties, and does not specify the purpose of consumption. Individual self-consumption, on the other hand, refers specifically to the consumption of psychoactive substances for personal and exclusive use (in this case, of the person transporting the drug). It implies that the substance that is the object of possession or transport is intended only for the own consumption of the individual who possesses or transports the drug, without intention of sale, distribution, or supply, total or partial, to third parties. Self-consumption is characterized by the will to use the drug only by the subject who possesses or transports it. While generic consumption may involve distribution or supply as a mode of disposal of the drug. And it is only the purpose of individual self-consumption that generates the non-prosecutability of drug possession or transport. That is the epistemological foundation that the minority vote obviates, conceals, and ignores when equating a purpose of self-consumption with a purpose of transporting drugs to barter for another drug used as currency. Our liberal, democratic, and republican State tolerates (does not legitimize) someone transporting drugs to endanger their own health but is not obliged to tolerate citizens (sic) commercializing drugs through drug-for-drug barter agreements, where substances capable of producing physical or psychological dependence, according to the international conventions signed and ratified by Costa Rica, pass from hand to hand, extending beyond the sphere of an individual's health the risk that the promotion or maintenance of addictions causes to society. In the first case, that of self-consumption, we are in the presence of a matter of personal self-determination, but in the second case we are in the presence of conduct that, according to the abstract danger offense created by the legislator (sic), endangers public health, since it is understood that the normalization and generalization of acts of drug-for-drug barter or supplies or distributions of drugs among a community can endanger the very stability of the economic and social system, as happens, for example, in cities like Los Angeles in California or in the drainage canals of Las Vegas, Nevada, where the diffusion of highly addictive drugs like ketamine, cocaine, and fentanyl not only cause growing absenteeism from work, but also uncontrollable expenses in the health system, an increase in violent crime, premature deaths, and increases in unemployment and life insurance premiums, while growing neighborhoods of fentanyl zombies and mentally disabled (sic) individuals are created who must be maintained by the rest of the population. For the reasons stated above, this representation vigorously disagrees with the arguments by which the honorable judge (...) chose to acquit." (Cf. prosecutorial response). It concluded by requesting the rejection of the appeal by attorney Jenkins and the first ground of the appeal by attorney Salazar. The arguments must be accepted, and they are addressed jointly due to the interrelated nature of their reasoning. To understand why this must be so, it is convenient to begin by making a simple description of what happened during the trial phase, an aspect that is of the utmost usefulness if one considers that the judgment was delivered entirely orally so that, in order to delve into the analysis of its content, it is appropriate to capture it (albeit in summarized form) in a more easily manageable medium such as written text. Subsequently, in another section, the analysis of the arguments expressed there will be compared against those of both parties, but not before, in this second moment, making an introduction about what is expected in a jurisdictional decision in light of the rules of legal argumentation, setting aside opinions or personal claims not derived from documents, evidence, or legal rules, conclusions not derived from the premises used, or personal or ideological attacks.

(A) Procedural Summary. The prosecutorial accusation attributed the following to the defendants: "On February 2, 2024, at approximately 2:30 p.m. in San José, Curridabat, Tirrases, in front of Barrio Colonia Cruz, Calle El Mirador, on a public road, the accused [Name 009] and [Name 016] possessed and transported with the purpose of trafficking 60 doses of cocaine, crack base, one dose of a drug and twenty-two doses of the drug marijuana respectively, wrapped in transparent plastic bags, while walking from one side to another, from East to West. At this same time and place, Public Force (Fuerza Pública) officers were on a routine patrol, they observe both accused walking together on the public road, whereupon (sic) upon approaching and noticing the police presence, they take on a suspicious attitude, whereupon (sic) [Name 016] flees from the site running, being followed closely by Public Force officers, at which instant, barely 10 meters away, he throws a plastic wrapper onto the roof of one of the dwellings, being arrested at that same site and locating the plastic package he had just thrown on the roof, which contained 22 joints of the drug marijuana. At the same time, Public Force officers arrest [Name 009], who remained frozen upon noticing the police presence, finding on him 60 doses of the drug cocaine, crack base and one dose of Ketamine, for which both accused were formally arrested and the seizure of the aforementioned drug is carried out." (Emphasis added, see folios 88 to 89 of the physical case file).

In the retrial — ordered by another composition of this court (M. Escalante Quirós, R. Badilla Rojas, and E. Montero Mena) after a first unanimous acquittal appealed by the prosecutorial representation whose appeal was upheld according to vote number 2024-1882, completely annulling what had been decided then — officer [Name 012] appeared as a witness and the documentary and expert evidence was admitted, consisting of the police report or report, the record of drug seizure and field test result, two forensic medical reports and two toxicological reports of the defendants and their addendum, analytical chemistry reports of the seized substances, identification data of the defendants, and certification of their criminal records. The decision was issued orally, by majority, and is supported by an audiovisual file with a total duration of 1:03:54. Formally, in the section so denominated, the following was held as proven: "SINGLE: On February 2, 2024, at approximately 2:30 p.m., in San José, Curridabat, Tirrases, in front of Barrio Colonia Cruz, Calle el Mirador, on a public road, the accused [Name 009] and [Name 016] possessed and transported, with the purpose of trafficking, 60 doses of crack cocaine base, one dose of ketamine and 22 joints of marijuana, wrapped in transparent plastic bags, while walking from East to West." (Written minute of judgment and time marker 12:42 onwards of the audiovisual file containing the oral judgment, emphasis added). However, the construction of that section denotes that it was not as exhaustive as it should have been (for this, reference is made to the vote of this court, with a partially similar composition to the current one: R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas, and K. Jiménez, number 830-2022, where, among other similar matters, the meaning and purpose of the procedural formalities that a criminal judgment must meet are explained), because from the presentation of the judgment by the majority, understood as a unit of logical-legal meaning, it is inferred that this held additional events as proven, such as those that will be listed below, not without first clarifying that the joining of ideas that will be done is carried out by this chamber, since the presentation of those events was dispersed throughout the entire decision, on which occasion the co-judge (off-microphone) complemented the presentation of the majority voting judge (who added the data she gave him). The same words were not used to describe these events either: a) While the police unit was circulating, it came across the defendants, who were walking on the public road, at which time [Name 016] ran and threw a bag onto a roof, was chased and arrested by two officers ([Name 012] and [Name 017]), and it was determined that said wrapper contained 22 joints of cannabis sativa or marijuana with a mass of 6.17 grams (time counter 13:54 to 16:12 of the audiovisual file containing the oral judgment).

• b)Upon the third police officer, [Name 018], searching [Name 009], he found on him 60 doses of crack (of which 45 were analyzed at random, with an estimated mass of 105.40) and one dose of solid powder of something that turned out to be ketamine and not cocaine, as initially thought. [Name 016] narrated this to officer [Name 012], who was the only one who testified in the trial (time counter 16:38 to 19:17 of the same file mentioned above). c) On February 6, 2024, the forensic medical examination was performed on [Name 009] and there he said he was addicted to crack and marijuana, that he consumed the crack (in the amount of eight rocks) six days prior (that would be January 31) and the marijuana five days before that date (February 1). The medical assessment indicates that he shows clinical signs compatible with habitual drug use. Later, in the toxicological report, which analyzes a sample taken on the same date, it was determined that he tested positive for cannabinoids, that is, for marijuana use; negative for ketamine and confirmatory in urine for cocaine metabolite benzoylecgonine (counters 26:44 to 27:13 and 28:39 to 29:08 ibidem). d) On February 6, 2024, the forensic medical examination was performed on [Name 016] and there he said he was an addict, since the age of 18, to various drugs: cocaine (he claimed to have consumed it inhaled three days prior, that is, on February 2), crack, ketamine —28:10 to 28:11—, clonazepam, tusi, blotter paper, etc.

The medical examination found no signs of addiction or prolonged drug use. However, a later clarification of the expert opinion indicates that this could vary between individuals and that there could be other signs not contained in the report. The toxicological test was negative for *cannabinoids*, ketamine, and cocaine metabolite (counter 27:39 to 29:08 and 29:33 *ibidem*). **e)** The accused [Name 009] has no criminal record and [Name 016] has one for <span style="color: #323130;">illegal carrying of a permitted weapon (he was given two years and six months with the benefit that was later revoked) and for aggravated robbery (penalty of seven years in prison). </span><span style="-aw-import: spaces;">&nbsp;</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt;">Although the judgment does not expressly include a section for “<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">facts not</span> <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">proven</span>”, it can be derived from its content that, for the members of the majority of the court, there was one of that nature, since it was held as not proven that the accused possessed or transported the substances found on them for personal use.<span style="-aw-import: spaces;">&nbsp; </span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt;">Regarding the <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">intellective analysis and grounds for the</span> <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">appealed decision</span>, it, which was a conviction, was adopted, as already stated, <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">by majority</span> —with the dissenting vote of one judge who acquitted—. Nowhere in the decision is the method of deliberation used explained (staggered or total: for which reference is made, among others, to the vote of this same panel <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1242504"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">number 2024</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1242504"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">-</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1242504"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">1233</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1242504"><span style="color: #000000;">)</span></a>, so this court must infer that it was the latter given that, regarding the penalty, nothing is stated. The majority's arguments for the conviction were explained starting at minute marker 13:50 in the following terms, which are now simply summarized, respecting the meaning of what was indicated, although without necessarily using the same words: <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">i</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">.</span> The patrol, according to what the officer said, was going in the opposite direction to that in which the two individuals were walking together (who, ultimately, are identified as the accused here). Upon being next to them, the vehicle stops and it is at that moment that [Name 016] ran<span> out into the street where he was detained. Two officers follow him and see him throw a bag onto the roof of a house; they detain him, look for a ladder</span><span> and bring down what was thrown, determining</span><span> that it was marijuana. The police report states that [Name 009] remained </span><span> still and therefore officer [Name 016] guarded</span><span> him, but at trial the police officer</span><span> who testified</span><span> (</span>[Name 012]<span>) said that he</span><span> also ran</span><span> and that that police officer</span><span> detained him</span><span>. </span><span>That contradiction</span><span> </span><span>—</span><span>says the judge reporting the majority vote</span><span>—</span><span> is not serious nor does it affect the decision</span><span> to consider that the police approach and detention</span><span> were legitimate</span><span>, because one ran and substances that, in field tests, </span><span>are identified as drugs, were seized from both. In those events </span><span>—</span><span>date, time, manner and place of the detention</span><span> and the seizures, as well</span><span> as the persons involved</span><span>—</span><span> there was no controversy, since the police reports and records coincide with the statements of the accused and of the officer </span>[Name 012]<span>, who is given credibility because he is not an enemy of the defendants, but rather only knows them from having seen them, together or separately, at points of sale or </span><span style="font-style: italic;">búnkeres</span><span> (bunkers), as well as on the corners or wandering around, but the intervention was almost random, because they ran away. <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">ii</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span>There was no break in the chain of custody and what was analyzed in the laboratories was the same material seized, determining</span><span> that it was drugs: marijuana, </span><span style="font-style: italic;">crack </span><span>and ketamine (the latter originally confused by the police with cocaine). <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">iii</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span>The discussion lies —the judge reporting the majority vote continues— in the purpose of the transport (accepted by both) of those substances. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The only licit</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> purpose for transport is that it be for personal use, a strictly personal matter, any other is</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> prohibited by law</span>. The defendants, in the oral proceedings, say they are users, that they did not agree on any drug purchase, but rather they just met at the exit of the </span><span style="font-style: italic;">búnker</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span>(bunker) when they had already purchased and they decide to use together. [Name 009] had bought </span><span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span><span> (worth 30,000 colones) and ketamine; he said he uses </span><span style="font-style: italic;">crack </span><span>“bathed” (bañado), pressed or in bazuco (in his intake sheet, he puts four or five rocks with chopped marijuana), not in a pipe or rock, but in his identification data he stated that he only smoked marijuana (at trial he added that he also uses </span><span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span><span>). [Name 016] alluded to using </span><span style="font-style: italic;">crack</span><span> and marijuana (at trial he added cocaine). <span style="font-weight: bold;">Neither said, then, that they used</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> ketamine</span>. From the medical and toxicological opinions, it is inferred that</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5pt; margin-bottom: 0.05pt; text-indent: -0.5pt; line-height: 150%;">“…<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">there was confirmatory cannabinoid use for both: confirmatory in urine for [Name 016] and presumptive positive for the case of [Name 009]. But all negative, for ketamine </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">Here</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, then, what we have here</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> is a sample that, even though it is true both could</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> use drugs, ummm, of unauthorized use, according</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to these toxicological tests, the truth of the matter is that that day you were carrying</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> a drug in the conditions in </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">which you were carrying it, one on one side, ummm, in these rocks of crack and a point of ketamine, of which neither of you appears as a user of that type of drug, and on the other hand the marijuana that Mr. [Name 016] was carrying</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">”</span> <span style="color: #323130;">(see time sequence 29:58 </span><span style="color: #323130;">to 30:55). The statements of the accused lose credibility and weight that they were going to use because “…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">the possibilities that </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">)</span> <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">at least the point of ketamine was intended for use </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">in the first place</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, and that the marijuana alone was going to be intended for use, given the ways in which you say you use it, according</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to the statement</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;"> (…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">that at that moment you were carrying that drug to then go and use it in the manner you indicated here</span> <span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">(…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #323130;">) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">even if we were to say that, well, that you were going to </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">use this drug, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">that there was going to be use of this drug by both, that it was only for use and had no</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> other purpose, other than that established for use</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, that is </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">any</span> <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">other purpose that is</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;"> prohibited for its transport</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, then we would have</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to accept that both, upon meeting on the street and deciding </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">—</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">as you yourself accept</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">—</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> meeting</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, were going, among yourselves, to </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">distribute</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> drugs that you did not buy by prior agreement. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">That is, you went to a point of sale, each bought individually</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> or acquired</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> or came into</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> possession individually of different types of drugs, and if your theory of use between you were really true, in the way in which both said you were going to use it, which was a bazuco that required</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> the combination</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> of both drugs, that means that [Name 009] </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">would have had to distribute</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> and that was his purpose (the purpose, believing the defense's theory), his purpose would be</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to distribute crack to [Name 016] so that he could use crack and the purpose of [Name 016]</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> would be</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to distribute, supply, even if free of charge, supply marijuana to [Name 009] so he could use a bazuco. And that activity is </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">illicit</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">, it is an illicit activity, it is a prohibited activity, use is one's own, it is strictly personal, </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline; color: #323130;">any other supply, any other delivery of the drug is prohibited</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline; color: #323130;">by law</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> So, although the court considers, in any case, that that drug was not for use, at least not in the way you indicated it was going to happen, there was not even, even your own statement</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> banishes the possibility that</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> the two of you reached a common</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> agreement, to pool resources, to start</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> using the drug that both had</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> bought, the truth of the matter is that the court, not having considered proven even that point, that aspect, as illicit transport, the truth of the matter is that the other theory raised by you also</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> leads you</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to a criminal illicit, which is the transport of drugs for distribution</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> and the supply of the drug, yes,</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to supply it</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; color: #323130;"> to each other mutually.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">”</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">(See time sequence 30:54 to 34:19). </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline;">iv</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">The way the drug was packaged individually (22 baggies of marijuana, 60 </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">doses of </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic;">crack</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> and the point of ketamine) shows that it was not intended for personal use, but rather </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-style: italic;">could</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> (34:55) be carried for distribution</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> or commercialization. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">[Name 009] was carrying a point of ketamine. This is important because neither admitted</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> that they were addicted to, used</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> or planned that day to</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> use ketamine</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">, so </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">what</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> was going to happen with that ketamine? That is the issue that speaks to us, precisely, of an illicit</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> transport of a drug that is not</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> permitted (minute marker 34:37 to 35:33). </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline;">v</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">The majority judge</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> alludes to</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> article 58 of Law</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">8204 and its various verbs, all individual. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">Reiterates that the only</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> licit form of drug transport is for personal or one's own use or by the police</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> when they seize it</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">and take it to the authorities</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">, which </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">is a permission for fulfilling a legal duty. He adds that the typical transport</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> was configured because the accused knew</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> what they were carrying and that it was illicit</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">, to the point that there is an evasive attitude when the police</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> arrived. [Name 016] said that this was because he </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">was coming on very strong, very crazy, but </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">the police</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> did not see them</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;"> using nor </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;">that they were coming under the effects of any drug. Mr. </span>[Name 012]<span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold;"> does not see signs or behaviors related to drug use in them</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt;">.</span> <span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">(See time sequence 37:44 to 38:25). </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline;">vi</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">From the </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">time counter 41:35 of the audiovisual file containing the sentence, after the reporting judge has alluded to the segments of the Theory</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> of the Crime, he refers to the sanction</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> and justifies the minimum penalty</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">, of eight years</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> in prison, for [Name 009] for being of clean</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">record and young, with no reduction</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> because there are no circumstances that suggest he is vulnerable due to use and other sanctions are not possible. For [Name 016], from minute 43:02 to 45:07, it is indicated that the situation</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> is different </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">because</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> he has a record for illegal carrying</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> of a permitted weapon (two years</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> and six months in prison),</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> he had</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> been given a benefit of conditional execution of the sentence that was revoked by another criminal judgment that found him</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> responsible for aggravated</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> robbery, imposed seven years</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> on him and added</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> that other amount. The judge reports that there was a problem with the Judicial Register due to the way of writing the name ([Name 016] in one and [Name 016] in another) but there are already two convictions. Therefore, the minimum penalty</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> is not appropriate and the sanction</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> was set</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> at nine years</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> in prison, proportional</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> because he is young. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline;">vii</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;">It was ordered the extension</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> of imprisonment</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> for both to make the sentence effective, although later it was clarified</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> (on observation</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> by the co-judge) that [Name 016] was being given that measure at that moment because he did not have it</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> before. No mention was made</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> of the procedural dangers of</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> either. It was also decided</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> to communicate the decision to the Dirección</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> General de Migración</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> given the irregular situation</span><span style="text-indent: -0.5pt; color: #323130;"> of [Name 016] (this only in the dispositive part).</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #323130;">From time counter 46:36 of the audiovisual file containing the oral sentence, the dissenting judge set out his </span><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">minority vote</span><span style="color: #323130;"> on the basis of the following considerations: </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #323130;">i</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: #323130;">.</span><span style="color: #323130;"> There are factual issues</span><span style="color: #323130;"> between the police action and what is stated in the accusatory document. He finds the statement of the police officer </span>[Name 012]<span style="color: #323130;"> credible</span><span style="color: #323130;">, for the most part, especially</span><span style="color: #323130;"> given the time elapsed from the intervention</span><span style="color: #323130;"> to his testimony</span><span style="color: #323130;"> in this trial.</span></p> Here he said that both subjects ran and, when asked what would have happened if they had not done so, the police officer transparently stated that they would not have intervened. The accusation says that [Name 009] did not run but remained still and although here the police officer stated that he did, there is an important contradiction that affects the police intervention. To what extent can the suspicious action of [Name 016] in running be attributed to [Name 009]? **ii.** If the prosecution's thesis is accepted, that running is not typical of someone who is going to consume, a very large assumption is made because no one can allude to an atypical or abnormal reaction; one could also think that one runs to prevent them from taking the drug and, for that reason, throws it onto the roof. **iii.** The accusation cites the generic term "*trafficking purposes* (fines de tráfico)", it is like a bag where everything fits. (Just in this segment, time counter 52:29, he is interrupted because one of the accused speaks and states that he wishes to withdraw, as in fact he is allowed and is taken out of the room by the custodial officers). For the majority, any purpose other than consumption is unlawful, except for the transport permit of police officers. We all have confirmed the transport, you (addressing the defendants) do not deny it. The majority says that this transport was for the distribution or supply between the two of you, without an agreement prior to the purchase. **It is unacceptable**, the minority judge continues saying, **that** **—** **if Article 58 refers to 16 or 17 verbs, each of which describes unlawful activities** **—** **the Public Prosecutor's Office comes with such a scarce investigation that does not allow stating which of those activities the accused were engaged in.** The hypothesis of distribution or supply arises from the court's deliberation, it is never mentioned by the prosecuting entity, who hides behind an element as arcane and imprecise as "trafficking" (tráfico), without describing which activity they were going to carry out. Yes, it is a matter in flagrancy; yes, the investigation is short, but that does not mean it does not merit some investigation, especially when the penalty is so high. He alludes to the principles of *last resort* (última ratio) and innocence and "*...what is being, at least in the opinion of the one dissenting, of the one who casts a dissenting vote, what is being said here is that because you could not prove the issue of consumption and you said things that suggest an issue of supply, then ergo, you must be convicted, when it is supposed that the one who should prove that activity different from consumption is the Public Prosecutor's Office within the avalanche of possibilities that exist with what you declared and the facts, the court cannot, at least I cannot, extract as a court, reliably that the drug was not for consumption, just as my colleagues rule out with the circumstantial evidence elements that they used and to which I am not going to refer at such length because they are already known.*" (Cf., time counter 55:40 to 56:34). From this vote, and from others of different courts, the dissenting judge continues to explain, it is inferred that the burden of proof has been inverted and a transport without content, or with content of an indication (indicio), has been determined as a penalized activity. **iv.** Jurisprudentially, a difference has been established between consumption with or without a prior agreement. Here it was said that there was no prior agreement. I do not understand — the official continues saying — how the danger to public health changes. He expresses his disagreement with that thesis. If both carry drugs to consume and exchange something, what is the danger to public health with that? If they had not met, they probably would have gone to consume the drug in the same way, if the purpose was consumption and if it was another purpose, in this trial it could not be proven, because there was no element to mention the sale. The judge even expresses doubts because the police officer does not remember if the accused had elements for consumption; the prosecutor says that this must be somewhere, the entry book or the Official's Office (Oficialía) book, but he did not bring them. The accused say that they did have lighters, a situation that the majority of the court disqualifies, without this majority thesis being supported in a certain way by the evidence. The doubt is also about the injury to the legal right, the intervention of the Public Force and the actions that each one carried out, as well as the difference between the prior or subsequent agreement for consumption and that does not generate certainty and, for that reason, they are acquitted.

**(B) An excursus (long, but necessary) on the conceptual tools to apply.** This matter, both due to the nature of the facts, as well as the content of the prosecutorial document, the procedural history (various results extracted by different judging persons), the argumentation of the trial judges and, before this venue, of the parties, highlights the need to emphasize that, in States of Law, legal operators cannot depart from the rules that bind them, even if these do not have the content they intend, nor can they detach themselves from the evidence, for it is not their consciences that guide the doing. Therefore, this chamber finds it relevant to emphasize three fundamental themes for the person studying Law:

**i.-** on one hand, the **role of jurisdiction** (jurisdiccionalidad) in the solution of disputes, in the face of which all have the same importance and must be attended to with the same diligence and care. For this reason, in procedural dogmatics, it is assumed that jurisdiction (as the state power to resolve conflicts) is one — unlike competence, which is divisible into thematic areas — and is exercised, in its entirety, both by the judging person of a rural zone in a contraventional matter and by those who integrate courts of the highest echelon in the pyramid. Hence, and this tangential clarification is valid, a dogmatic imprecision is incurred when referring to "organized crime jurisdiction" (jurisdicción de delincuencia organizada), "criminal tax jurisdiction" (jurisdicción penal de hacienda), etc., since these are material sub-competences of competence, in this case, criminal. From what has been said, it follows that there is no "small case" and if someone, improperly, believes that any case can be so (such as the seizure, in flagrancy, of a small amount of drugs in the hands of two people) they might get the "surprise" that enormous legal discussions are involved there, like some of those that will be addressed here, for that consideration starts from the *anchoring bias* or the *Dunning-Kruger effect* (to which reference will be made later) where, the greater the ignorance of a topic — and all human beings are, to a greater or lesser extent, ignorant of most topics, since knowledge is processual and the sources of information are, today, almost unencompassable, an aspect that, in Greek philosophy, was synthesized with the phrase, attributed to Socrates, "*I know only that I know nothing*" — the greater the recklessness in making affirmations of that type. For the same reason, the value of the decision of each judging person is the same, regardless of the role they have when they are inserted in procedural systems where vertical scrutiny or degrees operate and regardless, also, of whether they are in the majority or minority in a collegiate body they integrate. Evidently if, in the face of that equal value of all jurisdictional criteria, the legal system does not propose further remedies, chaotic situations could be generated and the purpose of the Law would be thwarted, which is the civilized decision of disputes between people. Thus, to mitigate the effects that this equivalence of value in each judge's decision can produce, legal systems — by decision of legislative policy and in attention to the constitutional principle of legal certainty — adopt numerical rules, both in the votes and in the integration of the courts. Thus, for example, decisions within the same body end up being accepted as valid based on a certain majority (incorporation of the democratic constitutional principle of numeral 1 of the current Political Constitution) and the system of appeals is established, according to which the decisions of the judging persons of the control bodies (which usually have, legally, greater selection requirements) prevail, in the concrete case, over those of those who integrate bodies of lower rank, thus incorporating the constitutional principle of suitability provided in constitutional canon 192. Now, this, as a principle thesis, because the fact that a decision is adopted by majority or by a superior body does not make it "legitimate *per se*" (that is, extendable to other cases by the force of its argumentative framework), but only when, descending to its content, it follows the pre-fixed rules in the respective legal system, in attention, precisely, to respect for the principle of judicial independence that, constitutionally (Article 154 of the superior norm) and conventionally (e.g., canon 8.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights) is provided as a **guarantee of persons**, so that their disputes are decided apart from other factors alien to the legal. And there, then, the jurisdictional limits arise (of any court, regardless of the degree, matter or integration), one of which is given by:

**ii.-** the **transcendence of legal argumentation** in the adopted decision. In judging systems of Roman-Germanic or continental-European accent as ours is — in contrast to the rules that exist in *other* legal systems, such as Anglo-Saxon, indigenous, etc., for, contrary to what we tend to normalize, the one we use is not the only valid legal system — this theme is what marks the validity of some reasonings over others (without prejudice to limits, which must also be in the regulations, to avoid eternal discussions). In other words: a minority decision can be better structured than a majority one, which may present flaws that invalidate it, a case in which the matter can be annulled so that the integral resolution is built anew. Likewise, a decision of a trial body can be more convincing and reasonable ("more adherent to the rules of law") than one from a superior body in degree, a situation in which, although the latter prevails for legal certainty, its signatories assume responsibility before the citizenry and exempt the other body from it. *Legal* argumentation is inserted in all work with the Law: from its creation (legislative) to its application (judicial). So, if we made a "flyover" over our legal systems (in general), we could indicate, broadly speaking, that these are characterized because, to design them:

**ii.a)- one must legislate** starting from a *constitutional framework* in which the existence of a *State* is provided, that is, a third party that — in the exercise of the *sovereign power* that was given to it in that founding document (Political Constitution) recognized as valid — will resolve, even *coercively*, the conflicts of its *population* that are found in its *territory*. Therefore, it is improper that, in this context, one refers to "citizenry" (as mentioned several times in the prosecutorial response document) since this condition is only held by nationals of a certain age and in exercise of their political rights, while the decision of conflicts also involves foreign persons, minors, or even those politically disqualified. Likewise, that first norm and in its own text, is given a dogmatic value that others cannot contradict and, from that *constitutional supremacy* a hierarchy of sources of law is broken down, where rules of lower rank cannot contradict those of a superior grade. This will be important to return to when analyzing, for example, if ketamine is a prohibited drug at this moment in the country or if what jurisprudence says the law contains prevails over the text of the latter according to the hermeneutical rules usable in that matter. That *Constitutional State*, in addition, was defined, in current Article 1, as *Democratic*, that is, there is decision-making by majorities, whether simple or absolute (which, as stated, is also incorporated into the decision-making systems of collegiate courts), but where minorities, by that position alone, do not lose the inherent dignity of their condition as human beings nor renounce their fundamental rights, but are protected by an ace of international instruments, signed and ratified by the country that, by national decision (Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and votes number 282-90, 3435-92, 2315-93 , 2313-95, 1319-97, 4356-98 and 6830-98 of the Constitutional Chamber), are incorporated into internal law and predominate over regulations of lower rank. Likewise, this qualifier implies that there is a commitment to the reinforced protection of freedom, in its multiple manifestations (personal, transit, thought, expression, association, assembly, economic, worship, academic, etc.) and for individual guarantees, which include the rules of judging according to due process. That Democratic and Constitutional State is also a *State of Law* and *Republican*, that is, where those who hold power (both factual and institutionalized) submit to pre-existing legal rules in which a design of checks and balances is established, with defined functions and where, in the Costa Rican case, product of the conflict of the 1940s, to the three classic powers (Executive, Judicial and Legislative), other control bodies were incorporated (the Electoral Power, reinforced autonomies of some institutions, the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República), etc.). As can be seen, the constitutional qualifiers of the Costa Rican "State" are many more than those listed by the prosecutor in his response and his expression according to which "*Our liberal, democratic and republican State tolerates (does not legitimize) that someone transport...*" is not so exact, because precisely in attention to the principle of autonomy of will (Article 28 of the Constitution) and to those other characteristics of the political regime, freedom becomes the rule (giving sustenance to the constitutional principles *pro libertatis* and *pro persona* (pro persona)) and prohibition is the exception (hence the definition of Criminal Law as a 'discontinuous order of illicitnesses', because continuity is given by freedom). Therefore, it is not that the State tolerates freedom (what is not prohibited) but that it empowers it and this is the essence of the system. Everything not prohibited is legitimized by the principle of freedom. As will be exposed next, the judge must analyze whether the legal rules (both formal or procedural and substantial or substantive) that they apply are in accordance with that model or if, for example in the definition of the content of what is criminally prohibited, that scheme is violated or not. **ii.b) One must judge** starting from legitimate, current and valid rules (according to what was said before). In the *substantive law*, it is about applying the methods of interpretation (grammatical or restrictive, historical, teleological, systematic, analogical, genealogical, logical...) appropriate to each subdiscipline, as well as the general principles of law (e.g., later law repeals the former; special law prevails over the general) and the rules of validity in time, space and persons. For the criminal matter, **in the procedural**, regarding evidentiary assessment and the determination of the historical event that occurred (and as a principle increasingly extended to other matters), it starts from a *system of evidentiary freedom* where, as a general rule (with its regulated exceptions), any fact can be accredited by any legitimate means of proof (Article 182 of the Criminal Procedural Code (Código Procesal Penal)). This introduces the *system of free assessment of evidence or sound criticism* (sana crítica) (in contrast to systems based on legal or appraised evidence or on conscience or intimate conviction) where other areas of human knowledge play a fundamental role, such as the social sciences within which **psychology for the assessment of human manifestations and behavior** is highly relevant, the formal sciences to carry out a logical explanatory argumentation, derived from the evidence and not merely speculative — although this does not mean that indications with an ambiguous sense are admissible as evidence, themes that should not be confused —, complete (that is, without omission of evidence or arguments) and non-contradictory. Also located are the "hard" sciences (to extract principles of physics in dynamics of facts, knowledge of ballistics, of the human body, of Legal Medicine, criminalistics, etc.).

On multiple occasions this same panel has insisted that the notions of freedom of proof (libertad probatoria) and sound criticism (sana crítica) do not constitute letters of marque with which to disguise the subjectivity or arbitrariness of decision-makers or of the parties arguing in favor of their theses. Rather, contemporary procedural dogmatics sets forth a series of criteria—valid at this time according to the current state of human knowledge—for deciding which means or element of proof prevails over another, whether several complement or exclude each other, which version is acceptable and which is not, etc. Thus it has been said that:

«…in the mission of objectifying the level of verifiability of the information introduced into a trial, among which are mentioned (i) some related to the declarant person per se, emphasizing the absence of subjective incredibility, that is, that without entering into a minute analysis of the account, objectively there be no reasons to consider that the version is issued for spurious motives to unduly blame or exculpate someone deliberately for the obtainment of procedural, economic, or personal benefits (e.g.: persons convicted of false testimony; documents alluding to payment for benefits, allegations of revenge, obedience, physical incapacity to see or hear and to make references of this type, etc.). Here it is necessary to attend to the particular characteristics of the personality of the declarant, fundamentally to their mental development and maturity and (ii) others allusive to the content of what is narrated that include verifying the following: (a) Coherence of the account: the structure of the declaration is analyzed to verify whether it possesses internal contradictions in its own current discursive thread or with the rest of the evidence and to rule out that the version be absolutely fanciful or unbelievable and that there be persistence in the incrimination and its details over time. (b) Contextualization of the declaration: in such a way that it allows inferring temporal, environmental, spatial circumstances in which the narrated events occurred, since mental perception does not usually concentrate on a single theme but rather captures the whole. (c) Peripheral corroborations with objective data: that is, it deals with the possibility that even secondary themes find support in other means or elements of proof that lend them verisimilitude or that confirm certain extremes. (d) Appearance of opportunistic details in the declaration: this allows focusing on how, through examination even on minor themes, new details may appear that permit confirming or falsifying the declaration and exercising better control over its logical character and completeness. A detailed analysis of those factors allows discarding the assumption of decisions based on intimate conviction, disguised in analytical language, in the style of outlining a series of words (credible, reliable, truthful, etc.) but without giving them content. However, it is not enough that any one of them be present for, ipso facto, the proof to be disqualified; rather it obliges one to be more scrupulous in the examination (…) seems to require exactness in declarations in order to give them credibility, forgetting that the lack thereof is not necessarily a sign of mendacity since each person narrates events according to the cognitive, cultural, linguistic, and memory development they possess. It is known that the capacity to understand, verbalize, and reproduce events varies in each human being and to understand it the psychology of testimony has emerged (a branch of psychology that, like all science, is in constant evolution and is not static), which has concerned itself, among other things, with explaining the functionality of memory, describing how in the recollection of events three elements converge: sensory memory (which depends on the perception of the person declaring and which, in turn, is influenced by factors such as their visualization capacity, hearing capacity, attention capacity, the visual level at which they find themselves, distance, luminosity, duration of the event, age of the perceiving person, their emotional state, etc.), short-term memory (which encodes and decodes the information transmitted by sensory memory, whether visually, spatially, or verbally and gives meaning to what is perceived by the senses) and long-term memory (which uses two sources: semantic memory that retrieves general cognitive knowledge according to the space and time coordinates of the learner and autobiographical or episodic memory that stores our experiences in the form of “mnemonic traces”). However, those traces of memory do not remain intact, but rather are modified by various factors. One of them is degradation through the passage of time with respect to details less consistent with the general scheme; another factor has to do with the process of recoding the original information, which occurs through the higher mental activities of the human being [Cfr. Ferrer, Francisco; Dieuzide, María (2018). Psychology of Testimony: The Seven Sins of Memory in Witnesses and Victims. Revista Pensamiento Penal, Argentina and Atkinnson, R. y Shiffrin, R. (1983) Human memory. A proposed system and its control processes. In: K. W. Spence y J.T. spence (eds.). The psychology of learning and motivation: advances is research and theory. New York: Academic press (trad. cast. In M.V. Sebastián, comp. Lecturas de psicología de la memoria, Alianza Universidad)]. By virtue of the foregoing, just as suspicious as an account that is constantly modified, denoting the absence of a nucleus that has left an imprint on the memory, is a version that remains invariable over time, even in the smallest details (which is contrary to the gradation of the mnemonic trace due to the insignificance of what was captured). Even many of the arguments of the professional who challenges testimony arise from this bias, since they question and qualify as anomalous (when it is not necessarily so) that there have been variations or omissions in the account between the moment of the complaint and the declaration at trial without such a course of action being irregular, according to the specialized literature, but rather it is usually common not necessarily solely due to the passage of time and the maturation of persons but, above all, due to the therapeutic and empowerment process to which a person has submitted themselves in order to remember without ‘blockages’ and without pain, especially in the face of traumatic or violent events such as those described in this case…» San José Criminal Sentence Appeals Tribunal (Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia Penal de San José), vote number 452-2024.

Neurosciences and the study of the phenomena of attention, perception, orientation, and memory provide greater inputs for assessing, in a better manner, certain means of proof. Likewise, there are certain disorders that affect memory (such as amnesia in its diverse types: retrograde, anterograde, lacunar, dissociative, or global which is a loss of memories, facts, information, and experiences; paramnesia or experiencing delusions as memories; cryptomnesia or implicit memory that considers an idea original when it is an induced or prior thought resulting from the environment and ecmnesia in which there is an experiencing of past situations as if they were current) that, therefore, introduce distortions into the information obtained in a proceeding. Further on, when we descend to the specific case, we will see why this conceptual framework is relevant.

ii.c) Finally, one must decide based on the rules of sound criticism (briefly enunciated above), but one must state the reasons for the decision following the rules of language, both of the official language to be used and of the legal sub-language, correctly using legal terms so as not to generate semantic confusions regarding the meanings of words that, in each discipline, have a limited meaning (for this reason it is insisted, by way of mere illustration, upon the difference between term/time limit (plazo/término), expiry/statute of limitations (caducidad/prescripción), vulva/vagina, among many other concepts that, with no little frequency, are used indistinctly in an erroneous manner). On no few occasions the decision adopted by a tribunal is correct (for example, whom to believe, which proof prevails over another, what happened, who did it) but the explanation of that decision fails. In that labor of making a decision explicit, logic is fundamental, a subdiscipline derived from philosophy that leads us to banish paralogisms or argumentative fallacies, both formal—which generate an invalid inference between the premises and give rise to an error that rests on the structure of the argument, among which is enumerated denial of the antecedent which uses a conditional and when the first element is denied, it is incorrectly inferred that the second is also denied (“if I give them a gift they will be my friend; if I do not give them a gift, they will not be my friend”); affirmation of the consequent which also starts from a conditional, but affirms the second element and from this it is incorrectly inferred that the first is true (“If I pass, I uncork the champagne; I uncork the champagne, therefore I passed”); undistributed middle or fallacious disjunctive syllogism in which the central element of the syllogism that connects two propositions does not appear in the conclusion (“Every French person is European, some Russian is European, therefore some Russian is French”); fallacious negation of the conjunction occurs when a phenomenon does not occur as a result of a set of elements, for which reason one of those elements is negated (“A good cake requires flour and eggs; the cake did not turn out well, therefore no flour was added”); categorical syllogism with negative premises where both premises are negations and nothing can be validly concluded from them (“No mammal has feathers; no mouse has feathers; ergo, no mammal is a mouse”); fallacy of four terms in which one of the terms has two meanings and the syllogism requires only three elements for its validity (“Man is the only animal capable of creating the wheel; woman is not a man; woman cannot create a wheel”); fallacy of illicit conversion in which the relationship of the terms of a proposition is incorrectly inverted (“All dogs are mammals, therefore, all mammals are dogs”); existential premise fallacy in which conclusions about the existence of something are drawn from universal propositions, without premises that justify it (“Dragons spit fire. Ergo, dragons exist”) or affirmation of a false disjunctive or excluding alternative (“It is A or B; if it is B, it is not A”)—as well as non-formal fallacies. In the latter, the reasoning error is based on the content of the premises, not on the structure of the argument. The examples are numerous, therefore, without prejudice to delving further on into some applicable to the specific case, only some informal fallacies will be mentioned:

* ad populum or populist sophism (the validity of the information is based on the number of people who support the premise); * ad ignorantiam (since it cannot be demonstrated that the idea is false, it is accepted as true).

Within this category lies the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion (falacia de conclusión inatinente) or ignoratio elenchi, in which, often intentionally to distract attention, one seeks to prove the wrong point that is not related to the subject at hand; * ad hóminem (the message is discredited by attacking the sender for some personal characteristic); * ad baculum (the structure of an argument is supported by resorting to imposition, threats, or violence to persuade); * ad antiquitatem (traditions are invoked as the basic guide for proceeding in daily life); * ad novitatem (novelty is invoked as a guarantee of truthfulness); * ad nauseam (repeating the same idea enough times to make it real to the interlocutor); * ad misericordiam (pity or compassion is invoked to reinforce the suitability of what one seeks to achieve); * ad crumenam and ad lazarum (in the first case, truthfulness is attributed to the argument because the person using it is rich, and in the second, because they are poor); * of ambiguity (de ambigüedad) or antanaclasis, which are subdivided into: equivocation (equívoco), based on the different meanings of a term; amphiboly (anfibología), in a sense similar to the previous but the confusion arises from the premises of the sentence and not from the content of the words; emphasis, accent, or phonetic ambiguity (énfasis, acento o ambigüedad fonética), in which the erroneous understanding of the message arises from an error in intonation; of composition (de composición), in which the whole is of the same nature as its parts, like "the lemon is acidic, the cake is made of lemon, the cake is acidic"; and of division (de división), which attributes what is true for the whole to be true for its parts, like "university A is excellent; Juan is from University A, Juan is excellent"; * ad verecundiam or of authority (de autoridad) (the truthfulness of a proposition is linked to the authority of the person defending it); * ad consequentiam (the validity or invalidity of an idea depends on whether what can be inferred from it is desirable or not); * of hasty generalization (de generalización apresurada) (general conclusions are drawn from individual data, insufficient to extrapolate them); * of incomplete or anecdotal evidence (de evidencia incompleta o anecdótica) (conclusions are reached from poor-quality information); * of the "straw man" (del “hombre” de paja) (the idea is not refuted by following the argumentative thread presented, but with a different argument: "we want young people to read literature; that is, they want young people to stop doing sports"); * of composition (de composición) (if something is true of the whole, it is assumed that everything within that whole is true: "within the universe every phenomenon has a cause, ergo, the universe has a cause"); * of the middle ground, moderation, or compromise (del punto medio, moderación o compromiso) (an equidistant position between two conflicting ones is adopted without considering whether one of the conflicting premises has greater value than the other); * tu quoque fallacy: the illusion of refuting an argument is created by pointing out that the person proposing it does not act in accordance with that idea, and * post hoc ergo propter hoc (if one event happens after another, it is assumed that the latter is a consequence of the former: "the dollar fell and the volcano erupted, ergo the volcano erupted because the dollar fell")— [for an extensive treatment of this topic, cf. Arroyo Gutiérrez, José Manuel and Rodríguez Campos, Alexander (2002). Lógica jurídica y motivación de la sentencia penal. Escuela Judicial, San José, Costa Rica].

Correct human understanding also integrates experience (la experiencia) (which should not be confused with the private knowledge of the court, whose use generates an error by making it impossible for the parties to counter the information derived therefrom) and basic psychology (la psicología elemental). While logic, from philosophy, provides the analytical toolkit of fallacies, psychology, from the social sciences, ventures into cognitive biases (sesgos cognitivos) or heuristics (heurísticas), which, roughly speaking, can be conceptualized as mental shortcuts in decision-making to economize resources and ensure efficiency or survival, but which generate distortions of information and reasoning. Although, in some cases, there is similarity in the names and effects of formal or informal fallacies and some cognitive biases or heuristics, these reasoning vices arise at different moments. The latter appear in the immediate perceiving or acting of persons; the former in the more thoughtful and mediated exposition of ideas. Thus, when the persons who make up a court make immediate decisions, in the heat of circumstances, and expose their ideas verbally, as happens in the delivery of oral judgments, it is more likely that biases will be identified, whereas if they expose them in more detailed writing, the likelihood leads to identifying fallacies. However, the lines can cross, and one does not exclude the other. The list of cognitive biases (sesgos cognitivos) or heuristics (heurísticas) is enormous, but among the most common can be found:

* confirmation (confirmación) bias (this is the tendency to find and remember information that confirms our opinions or perceptions, topics now amplified by social media algorithms); * anchoring (anclaje) bias (too much trust is placed in the first information offered when making decisions); * survivorship (supervivencia) bias (an error is made in the selection of objects, persons, or data by trusting only the success cases and omitting the negative ones, where the key to the explanation may lie); * hindsight (retrospectivo) bias (the tendency to reconstruct the past to make it compatible with current knowledge and forgetting the limitations of the earlier time) and rosy retrospection (retrospección idílica) bias (judging the past in a disproportionately positive way compared to the present, in the style of "everything in the past was better"); * correspondence (correspondencia) bias, attribution error, or over-attribution effect (overvaluing internal motives when trying to explain a phenomenon or behavior, leaving aside or undervaluing external motives. Other people are judged by their personality, but each of us is judged by the situation); * in-group favoritism (favoritismo del endogrupo) bias (showing preference and favoring those who belong to the same group, compared to those who are outside it, which in our environments is often linked to citing pronouncements from our own offices and not from others); * bandwagon (arrastre) effect or Bandwagon effect (the tendency of people to adopt beliefs, behaviors, or attitudes simply because a large number of people think or assume such behavior or belief, for example, recently, the effect on social networks of making Ghibli-style images without analyzing their effects on the delivery of facial recognition data, the environment, or employment); * false consensus (falso consenso) bias (the tendency to think that many people think similarly to how each individual does, a topic exploited by social networks with their algorithms that generate "bubbles" of affinities); * just-world (mundo justo) hypothesis (it assumes that people get what they deserve: just people will receive good things and bad people, bad things; it is a tendency to protect self-esteem); * the Dunning-Kruger effect (efecto Dunning-Kruger) (persons with limited capacities in certain fields, because of those limitations, overestimate their capacity and performance since they cannot visualize their shortcomings); * tachypsychia (taquipsiquia) (it takes its name from the symptom of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder related to the acceleration of thought, but it concerns the distortion that we human beings sometimes have regarding the passage of time); * the curse of knowledge (maldición del conocimiento) (a person, in the communicative process, assumes that the interlocutor possesses the same information and can understand what they are explaining, which is shown, in this matter, when the private defender, in convoluted phrases that were transcribed when summarizing their argument, does not adequately explain what happened with the police officer's version in the two trials and presupposes that this court has their same data, which, therefore, made what they initially indicated unintelligible, something that was clarified upon descending to the examination of the historical records of this case); * the halo effect (efecto halo) (our impression or assessment of a person, idea, or object arises from the way a property of that person, idea, or object is evaluated. If at first glance something positive, or negative, emerges from the person or situation, one tends to extend that to the rest); * availability (disponibilidad) bias (the tendency of human beings to judge the frequency or availability of an event by the ease of thinking of examples of that situation. What is determining is the ease of imagination or memory, which extends to other aspects: if a plane crash has recently occurred, one tends to think that traveling by plane is more dangerous than doing so by car, for example, because that was the memory available in the mind); * the availability cascade (cascada de disponibilidad) (given the psychological need for social acceptance, collective beliefs end up being accepted through public repetition, a phenomenon exploited by computer bots on social networks); * naive realism (realismo ingenuo) (the tendency to believe that other people are irrational or uninformed, but we observe the situation objectively, very typical of litigation that emphasizes the arguments it deems "correct" without evidencing others that underlie or are not wanted to be seen); * the third-person effect (tendency such as considering that it is others, and not us, who are affected by the subliminal biases of communication processes); * blind spot prejudice (prejuicio de punto ciego) (believing that one has no prejudices, but others do); * disconfirmation bias (sesgo de disconformidad) (carrying out a critical scrutiny of information when it contradicts what is believed, but not doing so if the information is congruent with one's own beliefs); * the Forer effect (efecto Forer) (making vague attributions or descriptions that can be applied to many situations, as in astrology, graphology, or fortune-telling, or as when courts copy "templates" of what the reasoning is but do not perform it, or litigants say how the decision should be but do not criticize the specifically given argumentation); * automation bias (sesgo de automatización) (trusting too much in automated processes, overlooking that they are fed by people or that the programming can fail. For example, the belief that Artificial Intelligence or ChatGPT is infallible; that automated justice will be better, etc.); * status quo bias (sesgo del status quo) (valuing more what remains stable, hence "jurisprudence" tends to have more value than a pronouncement that sees the same phenomenon in a different or new way); * spotlight effect (efecto spotlight): (the tendency to overestimate the number of people who notice one's appearance or behavior); * the Zeigarnik effect (efecto Zeigarnik) (remembering incomplete tasks and not those that have been completed); * cultural bias (sesgo cultural) (interpreting phenomena based on the standards of one's own culture or universalizing them without failing to see their limited imprint); * self-serving bias (sesgo de autoservicio) (using ambiguous information as beneficial for one's own purposes); defensive attribution (atribución defensiva) (the observing person attributes the causes of a phenomenon to a false cause to minimize their fear of being a victim or cause of something similar); * out-group homogeneity (homogeneidad de grupo) bias (people in one group see those in other groups as more similar to each other than those in their own group. For example, in matters of lineup identifications, when a subject is Indigenous, Afro-descendant, or Asian and the person identifying them does not belong to that group, they tend to see all persons of those nationalities or affiliations with similar characteristics, so the risk of error is greater, and vice versa); * authority bias (sesgo de autoridad) (information is trusted because it is issued by an authority); * placebo effect bias (sesgo de efecto placebo) (cognitive or perceptual error that makes effects attributable to causes that do not generate them); * Parkinson's law of triviality (ley de Parkinson de la trivialidad) or bikeshedding (the tendency of people to waste more time on non-transcendent aspects, which is problematic when that generates frustration and not well-being); * the Ikea effect (efecto Ikea) (giving greater value to a product only because the person has contributed to its manufacturing) and (among hundreds more), the meta-bias (metasesgo) (believing that we do not have biases, but others do).

Also among biases are stereotypes (estereotipos), which are simplified ideas that a group has about reality or the identifying characteristics of other persons (nationality, ethnicity, sex, gender, age, religion, etc.) derived from the cultural matrix in which one is inserted and which, therefore, make it impossible to see other realities or characteristics, and they are assumed as the only valid ones, generating a hierarchy between that which shares my stereotype (with greater value) and that which does not (which becomes a banished 'other'). For example, assuming that our judging system is the only valid one (a very widespread idea in the West) is a stereotype, as is considering that language is objective or neutral and, therefore, refusing to use inclusive language for different populations, ignoring that official language rules arise or emanate from bodies of power with certain culturally assumed characteristics, and minimizing the importance of a normative, conventional system (hierarchically superior to language rules), which obliges state bodies to banish discriminatory expressions contained in the official structures of the lexicon— [for an extensive treatment of the topic of cognitive biases, which usually goes unnoticed in our environment, cf. Porter Aguilar, Raymond (2024). Razonamiento y argumentación jurídica. Antología.]

Judicial School, FIAJ, San José, Costa Rica].</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5pt; margin-bottom: 6.55pt; text-indent: -0.5pt; text-align: right; line-height: 108%;">It is now understood that the preceding diatribe seeks to avoid the bias of the</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt;">"curse of knowledge," according to which it is assumed that all legal operators start from the same conceptual bases and make use of the same reasoning tools, when this is not necessarily the case.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt;">Therefore, to close the initial idea, <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">if jurisdiction is one and is expressed argumentatively, the persuasive value of a reasoning will no longer be determined by simple numerical matters (majority or minority vote) or hierarchical ones (the role of the bodies) but by the greater rigor exercised both when examining the evidence, extracting the relevant data from it, and using the legal, procedural, and substantive rules for the scrutiny of the factual and legal data that must be applied, as well as in the exposition of that process</span>. Of course, as already stated, in the interest of legal certainty, the legislature may stipulate, and frequently does, normative limits (such as endowing the decision of a body at the apex with indisputable value; regulating the double conformity, formal and material res judicata, etc.) all in the effort to avoid endless discussions and to settle the controversy. Although this is valid, the content of the argumentation, if it does not comply with those rules, is not extrapolatable to other cases. For this reason, it is affirmed, without ambiguity, that <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">in a democratic legal system, it is argumentative rectitude under those parameters, and not fallacies or biases, that must prevail</span>. The third element to highlight is, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">iii.- the importance of an adequate architectural-legislative design of the judicial system to enhance reason and not authority</span>: developing this topic exceeds the pretensions of this decision, but it suffices to exemplify with two situations that can be observed in this case regarding how an inadequate normative design of the judicial architecture can ruin argumentative efforts, and with it, the value of jurisdictionality. The first example is when common legislation grants a body the power to impose its factual motivation and interpretation of the law on all other judges (who, like that body, develop jurisdictionality under equal conditions). In such cases, a principle that prevails in the hierarchy of norms established in the Political Constitution and in human rights treaties would be violated, namely, judicial independence. Hence, this type of regulation is only valid if incorporated into constitutional and conventional law. Therefore, in Costa Rica, provisions that make the arguments of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">constitutional</span> or <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">international</span> courts binding for all cases <span style="text-decoration: underline;">would not</span> be unconstitutional, as this is permitted by higher-ranking norms such as, respectively, Article 13 of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional</span> —a law of reinforced value, derived from constitutional article 10— and article 27 of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties</span> in relation to the value of supreme interpreter that each convention stipulates for certain bodies. However, provisions established in common laws or regulations that seek to impose the criterion of one body on the others endowed with jurisdictionality (a constitutional principle) <span style="text-decoration: underline;">beyond the specific case</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">would indeed be contrary to the supreme norm</span> (since, for the specific case, the issue of hierarchy and constitutional suitability that it entails prevails, in addition to the legal certainty already mentioned). For this reason, this tribunal descends to the diverse arguments set forth in votes (both from other appellate tribunals and from the Sala Tercera) and does not assume them, as the prosecutor intends, as unquestionable arguments (which is a fallacy of authority), even though the Criminal Procedure Code (an ordinary law) has alluded to the intention of unifying criteria (Article 468 paragraph a), given that this regulatory body cannot contradict one of higher value. The second relevant situation, arising from what has been said, is that this equal value of jurisdictional criteria has been the underlying historical reason for tribunals to be formed in an odd number: if they were an even number and the criteria of their members were evenly divided, as all votes have the same value and the quantitative aspect cannot be used, the decision would be impossible. For this same reason, historically, the higher-grade body has usually been composed of a greater number of members compared to the lower-grade body: to avoid ties in total jurisdictional criteria. For example, consider the case where a trial instance body resolves, by majority, in one sense, and one judging person holds a different opinion. This arrives on appeal to a collegial tribunal composed of the same number of people as the <span style="font-style: italic;">a quo</span> and there the decision is again divided, but now in the opposite direction (the majority of the <span style="font-style: italic;">ad quem</span> agrees with the dissenting trial judge's criterion, and the person who issued the dissenting vote on appeal coincides with the majority of the <span style="font-style: italic;">a quo</span>). In such a case, there would technically be three votes in favor of one thesis and three against it. If the jurisdiction exercised by each judge has the same value, a technical tie would occur that can only be resolved <span style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">by resorting to extra-argumentative solutions</span>, that is, hierarchical or authority-based solutions, i.e., stating that the criterion of some is worth more than others, a matter in which the democratic-argumentative design is deteriorated. Unfortunately, this is the criminal procedural system that the country has had for quite some time, a product of the reforms implemented with the stated discourse of addressing the country's condemnation in the case of Mauricio Herrera Ulloa (judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of July 2, 2014): a collegial tribunal of three persons at trial instance can decide in a divided manner, and the appeal corresponds to a higher-grade body composed of the same number of judging persons. The same occurs in single-judge resolutions of a criminal judge regarding a contraventions judge, and between a criminal judge and a trial judge. Despite this structural defect, given that this is the legally designed system and this body is governed by the principle of procedural legality, it must be adhered to; however, the foregoing is set forth only as evidence of the implications this can have for argumentative quality and the principle of jurisdictionality.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt;">Nor does this mean that is what has occurred in the present case. Although to date, four judging persons (three from the first annulled decision and the dissenter in the vote under review) have considered that the defendants must be acquitted and five (three from the prior appeal, because they found errors in the construction of the decision, and two from the trial instance in the judgment now appealed, because they are convinced of guilt) have considered that acquittal is not appropriate, it remains for this chamber to make the determination from a new analysis. Although theoretically it could happen that such an "argumentative tie" occurs (if the vote of this tribunal were divided and the majority joined the criterion of the other four judges, and the dissenting vote joined the other five, in which case it would be 6-6) and thus the last decision would prevail, regardless of its rationality, the truth is that this panel will try to demonstrate argumentative errors, both in the majority and minority votes and in the allegations of the parties, so as to generate a unanimous judgment of conviction. It is worth concluding by saying that, although fallacies and biases may be exposed in the reasonings of other procedural subjects, this does not in any way mean that there are none in this same argumentation, without our realizing it, despite the care that has been taken to avoid them, a task that falls on the parties to demonstrate.<span style="-aw-import: spaces;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt; -aw-import: list-item; -aw-list-level-number: 0; -aw-list-number-format: '(%0)'; -aw-list-number-styles: 'upperRoman'; -aw-list-number-values: '100'; -aw-list-padding-sml: 18.64pt;"><span style="-aw-import: ignore;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">(C)</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">The specific case examined in light of the stated tools. </span>If we start, then, from strictly applying the argumentative-legal rules, which is what the regulations require of legal professionals, we can begin to dismantle a series of affirmations (contained in the majority criterion, minority criterion, and in the arguments of the parties) that incorporate legal or conceptual inaccuracies or start from fallacies and biases, and we can make evident actions or omissions that are not sufficiently explained in legal terms. Let us see:</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt; -aw-import: list-item; -aw-list-level-number: 1; -aw-list-number-format: '%0.%1'; -aw-list-number-styles: 'upperRoman decimal'; -aw-list-number-values: '100 1'; -aw-list-padding-sml: 16.03pt;"><span style="-aw-import: ignore;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">C.1</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></span>Firstly, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">legally, the principle of impartiality must be respected</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">(Article 39 of the Political Constitution) of the deciding tribunal, as this is an integral part of due process</span> (Voto 1739-92 of the Sala Constitucional). This is part of the Rule of Law and the Constitutional State. For this reason, it has been maintained (since the vote of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Mauricio Herrera case referenced above) that the tribunal which issues a criterion on the probability of criminality for the purposes of issuing pretrial detention cannot form part of the deciding body because, in such a case, it has already advanced a criterion, even at the level of probability, on the involvement of the accused (in this regard, one may consult, among many others, the resolution of the Sala Constitucional number 7531-1997, reiterated in resolution 2006-17737). It should be recalled that the cited pretrial detention requires not only the probability of commission of the act but also a procedural danger. In this case, it is on record that judge Shirley Mayorga Espinoza (who formed part of the majority of the deciding body) ordered the pretrial detention of [Name 009] (according to resolution 184-2025-B of 14:37 on January 27, 2025, which appears in the minute visible on folio 574 of tome II and in the audiovisual file that was sent by the trial instance body at the express request of this tribunal, as it did not appear in the official records). That decision was issued within the framework of a partial record certification (testimonio de piezas) that had been issued against said defendant for his non-attendance at a prior debate, but later, the same current panel of the deciding body annulled what they themselves had previously done regarding the other defendant (the debate against him was underway, although evidence had not yet been received and it was suspended, within the statutory period, pending the appearance of the official), re-joined the cases, and restarted the debate against both. Originally, the audiovisual file of that proceeding, as stated, was not located in the digital case file of this matter, nor in the physical annexes, and it was necessary to request it from the deciding body, which demonstrates the procedural disorder of this matter, evidenced by partial record certifications, de-consolidations due to default, new consolidations due to the appearance of the defaulter, annulments of the ongoing debate, and repetition and changes of foliation. From the analysis of the content of said hearing, it appears that the judging officer based the probability required for pretrial detention (articles 239 and 243 of the Criminal Procedure Code) on the fact that it was a referral and, therefore, there was an accusation, thus avoiding conducting the jurisdictional analysis of the probable involvement of the defendant or the evidentiary sufficiency and transferring it to the accusing party. It must be taken into account that in the expedited proceedings (flagrancy) process there is, formally, no order of opening of trial (auto de apertura a juicio) issued by a different jurisdictional authority that allows one to avoid that descent into the facts of the specific case, which is constitutionally required (articles 422 to 429 of the Criminal Procedure Code and 37 of the Political Constitution), so that any ordering of pretrial detention in expedited proceedings must examine the requirements thereof, which was not done. Thus, although the judging officer avoided advancing a criterion on the merits of the matter in order to be able to form part of the deciding body (she herself indicated, in that hearing, that there was another similar initiated process that had been annulled to consolidate it with this one), she thereby evaded part of the control inherent in pretrial detention. In any case, for the sake of transparency, she ought to have expressly advised the parties, at the beginning of the debate, of that intervention, to avoid suspicion and enable them to exercise possible recusal motions in order to better safeguard the principle of impartiality. Although she did not do so and, in principle, it is verified, ex officio, that there was no advance of criterion that affects her intervention in the trial or generates an absolute defect (Article 178 of the Criminal Procedure Code), it is advisable to make evident the impropriety of such practices so that, in future cases, they are not incurred.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: 35.5pt; -aw-import: list-item; -aw-list-level-number: 1; -aw-list-number-format: '%0.%1'; -aw-list-number-styles: 'upperRoman decimal'; -aw-list-number-values: '100 2'; -aw-list-padding-sml: 16.03pt;"><span style="-aw-import: ignore;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">C.2</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></span>Secondly, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">it is not legally correct to maintain</span> —as the majority vote and the prosecutor before this body do— <span style="text-decoration: underline;">that the only two drug transports permitted by the legal system are those carried out for the purposes of self-consumption or in compliance with the legal duty of the police</span> when the latter carries out seizures. In order to subsume conduct under the respective criminal offense type, the scope of the latter must be determined. As is well known, there is a difference between article, offense type, and criminality, since a single article may contain many criminal offense types (sanctioned conducts that are structured with a subject, a verb, and conditions of manner), and the judgment of criminality involves, in addition to the scrutiny of the objective elements, that of the subjective ones (dolus, culpability, or preterintentionality) which, in most cases, are not expressly contemplated in the criminal offense types but are extracted (starting from a systematic but restrictive interpretation) from the rest of the criminal norms, in this case, from the general part of the Penal Code, which starts from the premise that the rule is dolus and for there to be culpability, there must be an express indication (<span style="font-style: italic;">numerus clausus</span> system: Articles 30 and 31 of the Penal Code). In the specific case, the parties have invoked article 58 of Law No. 8204, called <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&amp;nValor1=1&amp;nValor2=48392&amp;nValor3=93996&amp;strTipM=TC"><span style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">Ley sobre estupefacientes,</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&amp;nValor1=1&amp;nValor2=48392&amp;nValor3=93996&amp;strTipM=TC"><span style="font-style: italic; color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&amp;nValor1=1&amp;nValor2=48392&amp;nValor3=93996&amp;strTipM=TC"><span style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">sustancias psicotrópicas, drogas de uso no autorizado, actividades conexas, legitimación de capitales y financiamiento al terrorismo</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&amp;nValor1=1&amp;nValor2=48392&amp;nValor3=93996&amp;strTipM=TC"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a>(hereinafter abbreviated as</p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">"Ley sobre psicotrópicos") which provides: "<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">sin autorización legal</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">distribuya, comercie, suministre, fabrique, elabore, </span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">refine, transforme, extraiga, prepare, cultive, produzca, transporte, almacene o venda</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley, o </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">cultive</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> las plantas de las que se obtienen tales sustancias o productos</span>." Therefore, a single article contains 15 criminal offense types (which are actually 14 because, as will be seen, "cultivate" is provided for twice), since the relationships of the initial and final elements must be made with each verb.

Thus, the resulting criminal offenses would be:

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, distributes (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) trades (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) supplies (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) manufactures (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) elaborates (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) refines (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) transforms (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) extracts (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) prepares (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) cultivates (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) produces (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) transports (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) stores (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) sells (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." (emphasis added).

• "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization, (...) cultivates the plants from which such substances or products are obtained." (emphasis added).

It can be seen that, even from a legislative drafting standpoint, a first error is palpable, not only because of the number of conducts but because "cultivation" is mentioned twice: both in the initial list of verbs and in the final phrase of the article.

For our purposes, the fourth criminal offense (counting from back to front in the list provided) is of interest, which, at the risk of being tedious to cite again, is necessary to have at a glance when breaking it down into its elements: "A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on whoever, without legal authorization (...) transports (...) the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law..." If a "taxonomy" of this last criminal offense is made following the parameters given by substantive criminal legal theory (which is important for drawing various consequences in the Theory of Crime as well as in issues of co-perpetration, participation, etc.), it can be classified as a criminal offense that, by gravity, is a felony (delito) (it is neither a crime nor a contravention); by the modalities of action, it is an offense of commission (it does not admit commission by omission as it is not a result crime according to the stipulations that, for Costa Rica, are set out in Article 18 of the Penal Code); by the active subject, it is a common offense, since any person may fit their conduct there, even if they have addiction problems, since this issue is not relevant for the purposes of criminality (tipicidad), although it may be so for others pertaining to other segments of the Theory of Crime or for topics related to procedural matters (evaluation of evidence); by the relationship between action and object (or modality of the objective part), it is a mere activity or pure action offense (all abstract danger crimes are located there; as opposed to result crimes).

Due to its typical construction, that danger is assumed and need not be proven, although this does not entirely eliminate some discussions about harmfulness typical of material unlawfulness); **by the form of consummation** it is an **instantaneous offense** (the action is consummated in a single moment, as opposed to continuing or permanent offenses); **according to the relationship between the objective and subjective parts of the statutory definition (tipo)** **it is a congruent statutory definition** (as opposed to incongruent penal definitions, whether due to excess of the objective definition —such as negligent or preterintentional offenses— or due to excess of the subjective definition —such as attempt, offenses of truncated result, two-act mutilated offenses, or those of intensified internal tendency, this last reason being why, in effect, the trial court is correct that no additional element beyond intent (dolo) is required, no further purpose, although from this the consequences that the majority of the court seeks to derive do not follow, as will be seen later); **by the protected legal interest**, it **seeks to protect public health**; **according to the number of actions** **it is a penal definition of a single elemental or simple action** (as opposed to penal definitions constructed by the legislator as involving several actions, which include compound definitions —with their subclassification of two-act mutilated offenses, mixed, complex offenses, and those of transcendent internal tendency, this last characteristic not being present in the one at hand—, continued offenses, and mixed alternative definitions) since, in effect, to transport is to move between two points, although, as will be seen, the intended consequences do not follow from this because these are matters of a different order; **according to the procedural form** **they are offenses prosecutable by public action** (Article 17 of the Código Procesal Penal); following **other classifications** it is ruled out that the offense at hand is a crime of expression, nor a breach of duty offense, nor is it an offense of determined means, and it is an autonomous offense (not a relationship, connection, or linking offense as money laundering is) and, finally and perhaps most relevant for these purposes, is that **following the structure of the statutory definition** it is an open penal definition because, to ascertain the prohibited conduct, it is not enough to read that provision; instead, the conduct must be completed by resorting to other provisions. In effect, the penal definition contemplates **normative elements**, specifically **of a legal nature**:

**(i)** on one hand it mentions “**without legal authorization (sin autorización legal)**”. This phrase in the construction of penal definitions is problematic and discouraged in sound legislative technique, as it introduces, as an element of the statutory definition, an issue that should pertain to unlawfulness (antijuridicidad). In principle, any typical conduct only becomes an offense if, in addition to that typicity, there are no permissions or grounds of justification that justify it within the rest of the Legal System. Therefore, in all cases it will always be necessary, per the Theory of Crime (Teoría del Delito), to carry out, after the analysis of objective typicity (and of the others that apply), the examination of formal unlawfulness. However, when the penal definition introduces this type of phrases, it elevates to the rank of an element of the statutory definition issues and problems that, in the Theory of Crime, were analyzable but in other strata, generating a problem of specialty: if something is in the typicity it must first be analyzed there and, therefore, the general rules of the Código Penal (which would treat it in other segments of the Theory of Crime) are displaced by the rule of typicity that requires its primordial analysis. The aphorism, proper to arithmetic and specifically to multiplication, which is the commutative property according to which the order of the factors does not affect the product, does not apply here. In these cases, the order in which a topic is approached does affect the final result because, incorporated into objective typicity, an error concerning this element becomes an error of type (error de tipo) and ceases to be an indirect error of prohibition (error de prohibición indirecto), as dealt with in dogmatics, with disparate consequences, on which it is not necessary to elaborate further than citing what has already been indicated by this same chamber in **vote number 2024-452** returning to previous criteria from other panels:

«…in certain types of offenses, where the penal definition was constructed in such a way that in said description the legislator introduced aspects such as "illicitly, illegitimately" or similar, there may be discussion about the nature of the error that falls upon that specific element. This has been determined by this Tribunal, with a panel partially similar to the current one but which is shared here, by indicating: “**On the nature of the error invoked.** *In principle, there is no great confusion when error of type is defined as that which falls upon the objective elements of the penal definition nor when referring to error of prohibition as that which occurs both when the agent is unaware of the norm, considers it not in force, or mistakenly interprets it (direct) and when he is mistaken about the existence or limits of justifications (error of permission or indirect prohibition). Although there is an important discussion regarding the nature and manner in which, in Costa Rica, the error concerning the factual circumstances of a ground of justification or error of permission type must be treated (...), the truth is that this issue is not relevant to define this matter, so it will be bypassed. What is necessary,* ***is to determine the nature of the error involved when the penal definition is constructed in such a way that, in its objective elements, it introduces terms such as*** **“illicitly”** ***“illegitimately” “illegally” “unlawfully”, etc. since these terms then become normative elements of a legal nature which, by forming part of the penal definition, would eventually cause the error alleged concerning them to be, no longer an error of prohibition but an error of type.** *On this matter, doctrine states: ¬ "...it was M.E. MAYER himself who realized the novelty that the normative elements of the statutory definition 'discovered' by him posed in general terms; stated succinctly: despite being components of unlawfulness, as they do not cease to be elements of the statutory definition, they would fall, for this author, under the rule of error concerning factual circumstances (...) that is, they would require—unlike unlawfulness—to be encompassed by the intent of the subject, as they would form part of the factual presumption upon which the value judgment of unlawfulness falls, such that an error concerning a normative element of the statutory definition would be what we call today an error of type, or if preferred, in more neutral terminology, an error excluding intent." DIAZ Y GARCÍA CONLLEDO, M. El error sobre elementos normativos del tipo penal. La Ley, 1st edition, Madrid, 2008, p. 42. Thus understood, the intent of the active subject must also encompass that normative-legal element. The issue has been addressed by the jurisprudence of this Tribunal, with different panels than the current one, in the following terms: ¬ "Subsection a- of Article 61 of the Ley Forestal (Number 7575) contains a normative element which is the permit from the Forest Administration, that is, in this case, for the active subject to commit the offense, it is required that they have a permit (...) as the criminal figure is defined, the permit constitutes a normative element of the penal definition, so that an error concerning its existence does constitute an error of type (Art. 34 of the Código Penal); it is an error of type of law, a situation that introduces, eventually, confusion, because between this, which excludes the penal definition, and error of prohibition, which excludes culpability, there exists a conceptual proximity (...) Normative elements of the statutory definition, when they refer to legal requirements or concepts, have a close proximity to the categories that make up the judgment of reproach for culpability, however, such proximity does not justify confusion between one concept and the other" Tribunal de Casación Penal, vote number 20031113 of 09:50 hrs. on October 31, 2003 (Cruz, Dall'Anese and Salazar)...." Tribunal de Casación Penal, vote number 20070358 of March 29, 2007 (Chirino, Morales and Gullock).» Tribunal de Casación Penal of San José (R. Chinchilla, E. Salinas and H. Sbravatti) vote number 2011-398. In the same vein from the same body, vote number 641-2010 (R. Chinchilla, U. Zúñiga and I. Estrada).

For the purposes of interest here, the topic of error (of type) is not at stake but rather the discussion, introduced by the reporting judge for the majority, the dissenting judge, and the prosecutor in his response, about whether another purpose is typically required in the penal definition. The statutory definition does not contemplate it **directly**. Certainly, this is not, as the reporting judge for the majority rightly stated and has already been noted, a penal definition of **transcendent internal purpose** nor does it contain subjective elements distinct from intent where, for example, the spirit of profit or something similar is necessary in the active subject to configure the conduct. Here there is no such further subjective element nor is anything else described, objectively. However, **the fact that this is so** **does not mean, as might lightly be thought, that merely transporting** **drugs is sufficient for typicity**, but rather that **said transport must be “****without legal authorization (sin autorización legal)****”.** That is, from one of the guidelines for classifying the penal definition, of the many that exist, it cannot be concluded that it is unnecessary to verify the other rules of classification (each with different purposes) nor can it be concluded that it is possible to obviate the scrutiny of other institutes proper to both the Theory of Crime and procedural law. To proceed in that manner would be to incur the informal fallacy of irrelevant conclusion, as there is no relationship between the premises and the conclusion.

The expression “**without legal authorization (sin autorización legal)**” qualifies all the typical verbs detailed above and, to fill it with content, as far as transport is concerned, the entire legal system must be reviewed because, as happens with grounds of justification, these are not **numerus clausus** but **apertus** (for favoring liberty, as a constitutional value). For the reporting judge of the majority opinion, the only two transports of drugs permitted by the legal system (although initially he only mentioned one, he later expanded it) are when the transfer is made for purposes of personal consumption (autoconsumo) or when carried out by judicial authorities in compliance with the legal duty of the police. This reasoning is partially correct, from the point of view of the elements of the statutory definition because, although in effect, these are cases where the transport of drugs, by being done **with legal authorization**, ceases to be typical: in one case because it thus derives from the constitutional principle of autonomy of will —(Article 28 of the Constitution) developed by provision 79 of the “Ley sobre Psicotrópicos” No. 8204 insofar as it “only” provides for a security measure (which could be unconstitutional, as there is no prior wrong) to whoever consumes drugs in public places— and, in the other, because it is regulated by the general clause of Article 25 of the Código Penal, what is erroneous is considering that they are “the only scenarios”. It is not correct to state that those are “the only” cases that exclude the illicitness of the conduct, because they are not. **On one hand**, the normative evolution must be taken into account, where more recently it is possible to find cases of decriminalization of use (and therefore of transport) of drugs for various purposes. On this matter, this chamber has already advanced, on other occasions and for similar discussions, the following:

«…although hypothetically the purposes of sale were referred only to possession and this was not related to the other verbs, **the legal system must** **be interpreted as a whole**, on one hand and, on the other, in the theory of crime (teoría del delito) the scrutiny of harmfulness (lesividad) is necessary, from which it is concluded that supplying, manufacturing, elaborating, transporting, or fulfilling **any of the other mentioned verbs** **for one's own consumption is not an offense** because that provision 58 must be related to provision 79 of the cited law that decriminalized personal consumption and if the final conduct (more serious) is not an offense, the prior phases of the **iter criminis** cannot be either. On the other hand, **neither is any of those verbs an offense when they relate** **specifically to the substance** ***cannabis sativa*** **and medicinal purposes** **are invoked** (which are not in Law No. 8204 but in a later one). Note that, with the approval of the *Ley del cannabis para uso medicinal y terapéutico y del cáñamo para uso alimentario e industrial* No. 10113, published on March 9, 2022, the landscape regarding the criminalization of said substance partially changed because the cited law states: “*ARTICLE 1- Purpose. The purpose of this law is: 1) Regulate and* ***permit*** *the access and use of cannabis and its derivatives* ***exclusively for medicinal and therapeutic use*** *, in order to guarantee the fundamental right to health of the entire Costa Rican population.* 2) To authorize the production, industrialization and commercialization of hemp for industrial and food use and psychoactive cannabis for exclusively medicinal and therapeutic purposes, and their derivative products. 3) To promote economic and social development and the adequate distribution of wealth in the rural areas of our country, by incentivizing the production, industrialization and commercialization of hemp and psychoactive cannabis for exclusively medicinal and therapeutic purposes, and their derivative products; as well as the promotion of productive linkages (encadenamientos productivos) that primarily benefit small agricultural producers” (the underlining has been added).» [Court of Criminal Appeals of San José, vote number 541-2023 (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas, and K. Jiménez; some highlights are from the original and others added).]

With what has been said before, it is not intended to exhaust the list of possible decriminalizations, because not only is the legislative landscape dynamic (there are other initiatives in parliamentary proceedings that could be approved) but it is also very profuse, whereby a detailed examination of the thousands of laws in force could yield other conclusions. Therefore, to the two cases that the majority reporting judge mentioned (which the prosecutor accepts), it must be added that, in the case of cannabis, its use be medicinal or therapeutic (a topic that, it is worth noting in advance, the majority did not even mention, which makes the reasoning incomplete).

On the other hand, it is also necessary to add all the defenses (justificantes) that the legal system provides (and which, under usual conditions, would be treated as part of the unlawfulness [antijuridicidad] but here, due to the peculiar construction of the regulation, become subject to mandatory scrutiny within the objective actus reus [tipicidad objetiva]). Which ones? Such as any situation that can be fitted into other fulfillments of legal duties other than police action, which was mentioned by the majority (Article 25 of the Penal Code), including that of other judicial officials (prosecutors, experts, etc.) but also of other types (administrative officials of the health authorities for sample analysis, health personnel regarding substances included in the lists, etc.).

Also contemplated is any situation that falls within the legitimate exercise of a right (Article 25 of the Penal Code), in cases typical of justifying states of necessity (estados de necesidad justificante)—for example, someone who uses other types of regulated substances, thereby violating an abstract legal interest, to save a concrete one of a higher degree such as the life or physical integrity of a patient suffering from pain, etc. (Article 27 of the Penal Code)—, among other cases. Therefore, this chamber considers that the lower court's (a quo) reference (endorsed by the prosecutor) is partially erroneous in that it lists two sole cases of exclusion, without considering that, by introducing that element (“sin autorización legal”) into the offense description, the scrutiny must be broad and exhaustive and must be sought throughout the entire normative order with the rank of law.

(ii) The second normative element contained therein is “drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley.” This expression creates a blanket criminal offense (tipo penal en blanco) which, in principle, is classified as improper (impropio) because, to fill in the content of the foregoing, one must look to another provision of legal rank, specifically the first article of that law, which states:

«Article 1°.- This Law regulates the prevention, supply, prescription, administration, handling, use, possession, trafficking, and commercialization of narcotics (estupefacientes), psychotropic substances, inhalable substances, and other drugs and pharmaceuticals capable of producing physical or psychological dependencies, included in the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, of May 30, 1961, approved by Costa Rica through Law No. 4544, of March 18, 1970, as amended by the Protocol Amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, Law No. 5168, of January 25, 1973, as well as in the Vienna Convention on Psychotropic Substances, of February 21, 1971, approved by Costa Rica through Law No. 4990, of June 10, 1972; likewise, in the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, of December 19, 1988 (1988 Convention), approved by Costa Rica through Law No. 7198, of September 25, 1990.

Furthermore, the lists of licit narcotics, psychotropics, and similar substances, to be prepared and published by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería, MAG) in La Gaceta, are regulated. Likewise, the regulations that these Ministries will issue on the matter are ordered.

Also regulated are the control, inspection, and supervision of activities related to inhalable substances, drugs or pharmaceuticals and the products, materials, and chemical substances involved in the elaboration or production of such substances; all without prejudice to what is ordered on this matter in the General Health Law, No. 5395, of October 30, 1973, and its amendments; the General Law of the National Animal Health Service, No. 8495, of April 6, 2006, and its amendments; the Law ratifying the Loan Agreement signed between the Government of Costa Rica and the Inter-American Development Bank for a Livestock Development and Animal Health Program (Progasa), No. 7060, of March 31, 1987.

Additionally, financial activities are regulated and sanctioned, in order to prevent money laundering and actions that may serve to finance terrorist activities, as established in this Law.

It is a function of the State, and is declared of public interest, to adopt the necessary measures to prevent, control, investigate, avoid or repress any illicit activity related to the subject matter of this Law.» (Highlighting added).

But note that that first blanket criminal offense, classified as "improper," makes a further referral: in some cases to treaties ratified by Costa Rica through laws or to other laws, as is the case in the first and third paragraphs highlighted above, in which case it remains an improper criminal norm, and, in others, it refers to norms of lower rank than the law, such as lists, guidelines or decrees issued by the Ministry of Health (second paragraph), in which case there is a clear violation of the principle of legality. The regulation of cocaine (and its derivatives) and cannabis (and some of its derivatives) is found, among others, in Articles 26 and 28 of the Single Convention of 1961, so on that point there is no discussion. The issue arises regarding ketamine as noted, among others, in vote number 541-2023 (R.

Chinchilla, P. Vargas, and K. Jiménez):

«(...) the accusation refers to ketamine and the prosecutor assumes, in his arguments, that this substance is illicit. However, what this tribunal has already previously noted must be taken into account. Specifically, in vote number 2022-464 this same panel stated: «III.- [...] it is appropriate to advise the trial court and the prosecution that when it attributes, as it does here, conduct related to ketamine, it has the duty to analyze whether, as of the date of the accused facts, said substance was illicit. Although in this case such a thing does not have major actus reus (tipicidad) repercussions (because, together with that substance, the transportation of others that are illicit is attributed), the truth is that it could have such repercussions if it were the only one mentioned in the prosecutorial documents, without the court pausing to make the minimum analysis on the subject of objective actus reus. It must be borne in mind that this tribunal, with a panel partially similar to the current one (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas, and E. Salinas) in vote number 2021-548, stipulated: «...all courts are obligated to conduct an analysis (and not just mentions) of the actus reus, not only because, in this case, the vast majority of references in the lower court judgment allude to the generic term "drogas" and, when they become concrete, what stands out most (although it is not the only term) is "ketamine" and the question that immediately arises is... is ketamine found in those lists? According to the official website of the Institute on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (Instituto sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia, IAFA), ketamine (hydrochloride) is an anesthetic and analgesic used to regulate pain and anxiety and was created in the 60s especially for veterinary purposes but, due to its hallucinogenic effects or opioid properties, is currently used under the names "Gati," "Kit Kat," or "Special K" especially among adolescent populations. It is said that it can generate greater addiction than marijuana and cocaine and damages memory and cognitive abilities. The point on the subject is that, for 2015, in the 58th Session period of sessions of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs was just beginning the discussion, in response to China's proposal, to include ketamine in Schedule I of the 1971 Convention (See the complete document E/CN.7/2015/7... on the website:

https://www.tni.org/files/cnd_document_on_mefedrone_and_ketamine_v1408359_esp1.pdf). Indeed, a quick review of the web allows one to infer that the discussion was still ongoing in subsequent years. For example, the European Parliament carried out a review of its regulations and incorporated it as an illicit substance only in October 2017 (See the MICOF page. Very Illustrious Official College of Pharmacists of Valencia.

“Spice, ketamine and ‘cannibal drug’: the list of prohibited substances in Europe grows”. Locatable at… https://www.micof.es/ver/12831/spice--ketamina-y-%C2droga-canibal%C2-crece-la-lista-de-sustancias-prohibidas-en-europa.html). This implies that the court should have questioned, and did not, whether, for the period stipulated in the accusation, ketamine was included in the lists accepted by the laws referred to in the first paragraph of Article 1 of Law No. 8204. However, the picture does not end there because, as transcribed, in subsequent paragraphs of Article 1, the content is complemented by referring to “…the lists of licit narcotics, psychotropic substances, and similar substances, which will be prepared and published, in La Gaceta, by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería, MAG). Likewise, the regulations that these Ministries will establish on the matter are ordered,” with which the issue here takes on another level because it ceases to be an open criminal type (with a normative element of a legal nature that allows it to be filled) to become a blank criminal law (for this Chamber, clearly violating the principle of legality) since the lists of medications would be created by decree or similar norm but not by law. None of this was questioned by the court. (The original typography is preserved except for the underlining, which is added). In a similar vein, vote number 646-2022 (Chinchilla, Vargas and Jiménez).

Ketamine is included in the lists of the Ministry of Health of Costa Rica according to ministerial resolution MS-DM-RM-1912-2022 of 12:00 hours on April 1, 2022 (page 25) and circular 002-2015 of December 14, 2015, which records what was decided by the Drug and Narcotics Surveillance Board (Junta de Vigilancia de Drogas y Estupefacientes), session 2996 of December 4, 2015, Article 3. However, these sources are inferior to the law, and the World Health Organization, to the best of this court's knowledge, has not incorporated it into its lists as a prohibited substance, whereby the criminal type would be completed in violation of the principle of legality. This would merit a judicial consultation on constitutionality, but it also turns out that the formalities were not observed because the trial court omitted any allusion to this aspect, which was highly relevant insofar as the consumption of ketamine was an indication valued by the majority as decisive for the decision adopted. Therefore, there is an evident lack of reasoning (fundamentación) on this aspect, which undermines numeral 142 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Código Procesal Penal).

C.3 It is not legally correct to support an argument based on criteria of authority without descending to the scrutiny of the argument to verify its adequacy to the prevailing rules. Even less so when the invoked precedents do not examine all the edges of an issue or when they involve cases that are not comparable to each other, due to the lack of similarity of the factual and legal premises. Despite the fact that in the votes invoked, both by the majority of the trial court and by the prosecutor, the Third Chamber (Sala Tercera) omits to carry out the aforementioned scrutiny, their use, without evaluating the rigor or the possibility of argumentative extrapolation, constitutes a clear fallacy and bias of authority. Note that, in the first place, due to the date of the vote (prior to many of the normative reforms referred to above), what was indicated there about the illegality of all transports of prohibited substances is not accurate to maintain now. In the second place, the aforementioned pronouncement does not address the issues already referred to regarding the construction of the criminal type and the referral it makes to normative elements of a legal nature. For a criterion of authority to be legally invocable, it must contain an analysis of a case exactly equal to the one being resolved; a solid argument that encompasses the edges at play, and that does all of this from an interpretive methodology valid for the discipline in question (in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedural Law, it is restrictive interpretation, but also taking into account the law as a whole and the tools provided by the Theory of Crime). The parties must be clearly aware that in a conflict between the law—applied according to the methods in force for a discipline—and jurisprudence, the latter must give way in its value with respect to the former. Not because this court affirms it, but because it thus derives from the hierarchy of norms contained in the Legal System (Ordenamiento Jurídico) both in the Political Constitution (Constitución Política) itself (Articles 7, 39, and 154), and in the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de la Administración Pública) (Articles 1, 2.1, 3.1, and 6) and the Civil Code (Código Civil) (canons 1 to 10), among many other sources. Not accepting it in this way, invoking criteria of authority, not only introduces a fallacy in the reasoning but also seeks to undermine judicial independence by making criteria applicable that are alien to the edges of the particular case, solely because of the source from which they emanate and regardless of their explanatory correctness. Working democratically with the legal implies convincing or persuading, not defeating or imposing. Previously, this court (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas, and K. Jiménez), in vote number 541-2023, has referred to a thesis now shared by this panel:

“...it is convenient to make two additional precisions. i) This is not the first time that this Chamber observes the prosecutorial reasoning that claims to be based on votes of the Third Chamber (Sala Tercera) according to which no intent to sell by the active subject is required to configure a drug-related crime when the governing verbs of the conduct are those of distributing, transporting, or other similar ones described in the respective criminal type. Such a criterion is not shared by this panel, whether it involves an incorrect interpretation by the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) or emanates from the Third Chamber, whose jurisprudence is not binding and from which this body may depart by virtue of the higher-ranking principle (constitutional and conventional) of judicial independence. It should be remembered that ordinary jurisprudence has only a guiding criterion—except for the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (by effect of Articles 62 and 68.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights and 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, both signed by the country) and of the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) (by effect of numerals 13 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional) and 10 of the Political Constitution)—and judges, as well as prosecutors guided by the principle of objectivity, must rely on the law and the restrictive way of interpreting it. In this case, numeral 58 of the Law on Narcotics, Psychotropic Substances, Drugs of Unauthorized Use, Money Laundering, and Related Activities (Ley sobre Estupefacientes, Sustancias Psicotrópicas, Drogas de Uso No Autorizado, Legitimación de Capitales y Actividades Conexas) No. 8204 provides: “Article 58.-A prison sentence of eight to fifteen years shall be imposed on anyone who, without legal authorization, distributes, trades, supplies, manufactures, elaborates, refines, transforms, extracts, prepares, cultivates, produces, transports, stores, or sells the drugs, substances, or products referred to in this Law, or cultivates the plants from which such substances or products are obtained. The same penalty shall be imposed on anyone who, without due authorization, possesses those drugs, substances, or products for any of the expressed purposes, and on anyone who possesses or trades seeds with germinative capacity or other natural products to produce the referred drugs.” (Emphasis supplied). And from there it could be concluded that the reference to consumption purposes is only circumscribed to possession, but it turns out that in order to transport, store, supply, or perform any of the other verbs, one must possess.

In other words, possession, which is the having of something, is the basis of any of the other conducts since one can only do something with a thing if one first holds it." **C.4** It is not legally correct to separate the evidentiary and objective criminality analysis from the way an accusation was formulated, which is a limit on the jurisdictional decision. According to Article 365 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Código Procesal Penal), accusations constitute the factual limit of the sentences. These cannot overflow it because new facts, being surprising, can generate defenselessness for the accused party who, from the beginning of the process, has the right to have the facts and evidence set forth in detail. It is useless if facts that can be subsumed under a criminal type emerge from the evidence received at a trial if such events were not properly attributed or imputed. In the present matter, the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) attributed to the defendants that, at the time, date, and place described, "on a public road (...) [Name 009] and [Name 016] **possessed and transported for trafficking purposes** 60 doses of cocaine, crack base, one point of a drug, and twenty-two points of the drug marijuana **respectively**, wrapped in transparent plastic bags, while they walked from one side to the other, from East to West. At this same time and place, Public Force officers were conducting a routine patrol, they observe both defendants walking together on a public road, being (sic) that upon approaching and noticing the police presence they take a suspicious attitude, being (sic) that [Name 016] flees running from the site, being closely followed by Public Force officers, at which moment scarcely 10 meters away he throws a plastic wrapper onto the roof of one of the dwellings, being detained at that same site and locating the plastic package that he had just thrown onto the roof, which contained 22 joints of the drug marijuana. At the same time, Public Force officers carry out the detention of [Name 009], who remained static upon noticing the police presence, finding on him 60 doses of the drug cocaine, crack base, and one point of Ketamine, for which reason both defendants were formally detained and the seizure of the drug described before is carried out." (Emphasis added). It is important to note that the prosecutorial document states a specific purpose for which the drug was possessed (trafficking, not the supply assumed by the majority of the court) and does not allude to any prior plan or functional distribution that would make the rules of co-perpetration (coautoría) applicable. It must be remembered that action in Criminal Law is highly personal and that principle can only be broken in cases of perpetration (autoría) that allow attributing to one person what another did if there is a prior plan and functional distribution which, in this matter, was not imputed. This is particularly relevant because, then, it is not possible to attribute to one defendant the drugs and effects that the other had, and even less so, to combine both quantities of substances to attribute them to both. It is in this context that the dissenting judge — although in a sparse, underdeveloped manner and interrupted in his idea by a defendant who wished to leave the courtroom while he was presenting — stated that the criminal type was a kind of "catch-all" into which everything fit and, therefore, the imputation was not adequately formulated. If, as has been explained, it is not true that all drug transports are illicit nor that there are only two or three exceptions to that, but rather that there are many more authorized ones, it is the duty of the prosecutorial entity to stipulate the purpose for which the transport is carried out and it was in that context that the judge alluded (at least that is how this court understands it) to the fact that mentioning "trafficking purposes" for the transport and introducing there any of the typical verbs was not adequate, especially when later that purpose is changed to "supply". That is, the criticism was directed at a correlation issue that, indeed, was not addressed. Despite the *ad hominem* and high-sounding arguments with which the prosecutor responds, the truth is that if the prosecutorial document, unnecessarily, alluded to a specific purpose of the individual drug possession of each accused person, the very least the majority of the court should have done, and did not, was to question whether changing that purpose affected the correlation and whether the possession of substances by each defendant could be combined when co-perpetration (coautoría) had not been attributed. By omitting such reasoning, numeral 142 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Código Procesal Penal) was violated.

**C.5** It is not legally correct to depart from the content of the evidence to base conclusions that, therefore, are not derived from those elements. The majority of the court dismissed the defendants' thesis (that they possessed and transported the drug for personal use purposes) by carrying out an indiciary analysis of the statements of the accused. In that exercise, the judge and female judge of merit found contradictions and inconsistencies in their versions over time. One indication (indicio) that was given much weight is that a point of ketamine was seized from [Name 009], but (according to the majority judging persons) neither of the two said, at any procedural moment, that they consumed that substance. From this, the majority concluded that the presence of that substance among what was seized was indicative that it would not be destined for personal use. Likewise, this was weighed alongside the fact that the police officer who testified at trial, Mr. [Name 012], according to the same members of the court, did not see them being under the influence of any drug, nor having signs or behaviors related to drug consumption (see time sequence 37:44 to 38:25 of the file containing the sentence). However, this argumentation incurs in confirmation bias because the judge and the female judge only remembered information that confirmed their belief or expectation, but set aside other information that refuted it. In the audiovisual file 240001051092PE-02022024092111-2_Multi 1 (which contains the data intake of the accused persons before the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público)) at the timer mark 15:33 when [Name 016] is being asked if he has addictions, he says that he consumes drugs of all kinds, and in the audiovisual file 240001051092PE-03022024041657-2_Multi --01 (which refers to the initial flagrancy hearing, in which jurisdiction is assumed), Judge Melissa Bogantes reads those data to the defendants to verify if they are correct or should be adjusted, and at that moment [Name 009] (minutes 1:31 and 4:32 to 5:15) says that legally he consumes everything, but that "right now", "in the last year" "thank God", what he has consumed most is mota (marijuana) and rock. On the other hand, on February 6, 2024, a legal medical examination was performed on [Name 016] and there he said he was an addict, since he was 18 years old, to various drugs and mentioned ketamine (as summarized by the judge at trial at minute 28:10 to 28:11 and is recorded on folio 65 where he alluded to the consumption of this drug from age 18 to the present, inhaled every three days). Then, the assertion that neither of the two alluded, at any procedural moment, to ketamine does not derive from the evidence. On the other hand, the police officer [Name 012], when testifying at trial, affirmed (as the majority resumed to give credibility to his account) that he knew the defendants from having seen them, together or separately, both at points of sale or bunkers (*búnkers*), and on street corners or wandering about (see audiovisual file 240001051092-PE-28012025065237-2_Multi ). To this must be added that, upon receiving his oral police report, in file 240001051092PE-02022024084517-2_Multi 1, the cited law enforcement agent said, starting at timer mark 10:56, that he knew the defendants because he had previously made interventions for drug consumption, since a lot of drugs are consumed in the place and sometimes there are incidents on 9-1-1 of "certain subjects" selling, without specifying to whom he was referring, phrases that the majority of the court does not take into consideration, in an evident preterition of evidence on essential issues, since they are the ones that serve as support for the majority decision. Then, if both defendants tested positive for the consumption of some psychotropic substances according to the toxicological tests, if in their medical examinations they gave narratives alluding to the consumption of various drugs and one said he had consumed ketamine, if one behaved crazily and under the influence of drugs at the time of detention according to the police officer, and if what they carried was not a significant quantity, all those elements should have been weighed together by the court (with others, such as the price of the substance, the occupation and socio-economic conditions of each one, the attitude of one of them upon seeing the police, etc.), without the majority having done so, but rather they proceeded to isolate some of those indications (indicios) and to give them not only greater importance than others but a sense inverse to the one they really had. With this, the rules of sound criticism (sana crítica) were violated. Consider, moreover, that if that person who ran had erratic behavior according to the police, that is relevant not for the purposes of the culpability capacity of the Theory of Crime (as the prosecutor expounds), but to determine if, under the conditions he was in, it was possible to demand behavior typical of the average human being or if, under such conditions, he could consider that, even having drugs for consumption, these would be seized from him since it is part of the rules of experience that the police seize whatever illicit substance they find on people, regardless of whether it is a lot or a little. This last argument was what the minority judge tried to make explicit. The prosecutor counters by indicating that this defendant was in his "five senses" and had full awareness of his actions but, by doing so, he mixes, once again, the analytical planes, because that is important to calibrate not for substantive Criminal Law effects, but for procedural issues: interpreting whether the indication (indicio) of running under his circumstances is univocal or amphibological. Furthermore, the minority judge correctly states that not all people act, before the same event, in the same way or rationally, so the contrary cannot be claimed. None of that can be described as far-fetched or contrived, as the prosecutor expresses referring to the minority criterion, although a more extensive explanation would have been desirable which, due to the circumstances of the case (the length of the oral sentence, the time it was issued, and the fact that a defendant asked to leave, as he indeed did under police supervision, an aspect that interrupted the judge's account), could not be achieved. For all of this, concluding that a defendant ran out of a feeling of guilt, and that this is applicable to the other, introduces vices in the reasoning that render it illegitimate for the intended purposes.

**C.6** It is not legally correct to assume that the accused persons (or their technical defense) must demonstrate the facts on which they base their defensive strategy. Despite the onslaughts of punitive populism, the principle of innocence remains a constitutional norm (Article 39) that is reinforced with conventional protection, both at the regional level (Article 8.2 of the American Convention on Human Rights) and the universal level (canon 14.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). Derived from this, the law (Article 9 of the procedural code) adopts the principle *in dubio pro reo*. The aforementioned constitutional and conventional principle means that the rules of the burden of proof, of the dynamic burden of proof (each one proves what they affirm), or of the *onus probandi*, typical of other areas of law, are excepted for criminal matters. This last thesis, characteristic of private law or other matters, has been intended to be uncritically overlaid onto Criminal Law, forgetting that there is a constitutional norm that prevents it. This translates into the fact that it is the State (or those who exercise the private accusation) who is responsible for demonstrating the **crime (delito)**. Crime (delito) is a typical, unlawful, and culpable action. Hence, it is erroneous to allude to the fact that the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) must prove criminality (tipicidad) and the defense must prove the rest of the strata, since it is the former who is responsible for demonstrating the entire crime (delito), even if it must avail itself, inclusive, of indiciary elements to discard the doubts that may be generated by the defense in the last segments of the Theory of Crime. It is sufficient for the defense (technical or material) to raise a reasonable doubt about the facts for a decision to be made in favor of the accused person. The Constitution, treaties, or law do not require the technical or material defense to demonstrate anything: only to break the certainty of the contrary thesis in the assessment of the material provided, which it can do, inclusive, with argumentation. It is enough for dubitation to be generated for the accuser to be responsible for demonstrating that this doubt is discarded with another piece of evidence, including indiciary evidence, reaffirming the certainty in the commission of the attributed ***crime (delito)***. Therefore, it is necessary to differentiate two distinct analytical planes: on one hand, whether the accusing entity proved, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the seized drug was for purposes different from those authorized by law (which we have already seen are not only one or two, but several) and, on the other, whether one indication (indicio) used to establish the prosecutorial thesis is univocal or amphibological. Note that indications (indicios) are valid evidence to reach that certainty, provided they are analyzed as a whole and are univocal, not amphibological. The prosecutor, by responding and referring to the minority judge's argument, makes this overlapping of analytical planes. The minority judge indicated that the fact that one of the defendants ran was not indicative that he was transporting drugs for trafficking purposes since *he could have done so* for multiple reasons: because each person's reaction changes, because he intended that the substance not be taken away from him, etc. In this exercise, the minority judge sought to demonstrate that the indication (indicio) was not univocal and that, therefore, the argumentation was not solid. The prosecutor responds by indicating that those possibilities do not derive from any evidence and, although this is so, that argument is not capable of distorting the evidentiary value of the indication (indicio): weak from the moment its mere presence does not lead to a single conclusion but admits other analytical possibilities. When the defendants testify and allude to their consumption and provide evidence (medical-legal and toxicology opinions in this regard) they are introducing fissures into the contrary thesis, and it is up to the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) to discard them by any lawful means, without it being valid to conclude that, since their version was not as conclusive as purported (as the statements had some inconsistencies), they should make a greater evidentiary effort. The majority should have, rather, asked itself if those statements from both defendants, even with the stated inconsistencies, generated cracks in the prosecutorial theory of the case. If the answer was affirmative, there was doubt and the consequences thereof are set by the Legal System. It is not acceptable to convict from dubitative judgments. The majority at the **time counter 34:55** of the file containing the sentence stated that the way the drug was individualized (22 marijuana joints, 60 doses of crack, and the point of ketamine) shows it was not destined for personal consumption, but rather *could* be carried for distribution or commercialization. That "could" is probabilistic and not a judgment of certainty like the one required for a conviction.

**C.7** It is not legally valid to incorporate the private knowledge of the legal operators if this does not derive from the evidence. The prosecutor intends to support the majority's conclusions based on elements that not only substitute or complement the arguments stated by the decision-making body, but also emanate from private knowledge and it was not possible to subject them to the adversarial process. In his brief before this court, the prosecutor makes a series of assertions regarding the time window in which, according to gas chromatography, the presence of drugs can be detected in a person's organism and maintains: "...on folio 65, [Name 016] relates having consumed **ketamine the very day of his detention, February 2, 2024**. However, in the opinion DCF 2024-00546 TOX, performed with the samples taken barely on February 6, 2024, at 1:11 p.m. (and not a year later, as the public defender falsely says), it is reported that **no ketamine was detected in the urine of that defendant** -see folio 80-.

Here it is important to state that, in this case, gas chromatography was used to detect ketamine in urine, and this method can detect amounts of 0.1 mg/ml of the compound, according to the toxicological literature. According to (sic) the same medico-legal literature, the maximum detection time is approximately 72 hours for a single dose. However, it is noted that in users with habitual or addictive consumption, as the accused [Name 016] claimed to have, ketamine can take up to more than 7 days to be eliminated [The nonmedical use of ketamine. Part two. A review of problem use and dependence. J Psychoactive Drugs 2001 (…) cited in J. Royo “ La “keta” (ketamina), del fármaco a la droga de abuso. Clínica biopsicosocial del consumidor y algunas propuestas terapéuticas, in Revista Elsevier No. 34, volume 3 (…)]. This situation, likewise, makes it scarcely credible that the drug in question had been consumed by the accused with the frequency or habitualness to which he referred, on the date he stated, and that the carrying of that substance was also for a genuine purpose of self-consumption (…).” Although this may be so in the literature, it turns out that it does not derive from any evidence (the prosecutor did not request an expansion of the expert opinions in that sense) but only emerges from the private knowledge of the official, not subject to the filter of orality, immediacy, and contradiction, and, most relevantly, was not an argument used by the majority. As if that were not enough, the prosecutor introduces a fact that also does not derive from the various statements of the accused (that he had a habitual consumption of ketamine allowing detection in urine 72 hours earlier, i.e., three days prior), because what [Name 016] said in his initial data was that he consumed all types of drugs, and on February 6, 2024, when the medico-legal examination was performed on him, [Name 016] stated that he had been addicted, since the age of 18, to various drugs and mentioned ketamine (on folio 65, he alluded to the consumption of this drug since the age of 18 to the present, inhaled every three days). Thus, the prosecutor gives content to the concept of “habitualness” different from what the accused stated and from what the medical literature mentions. On this would depend whether the substance shows up in urine at three days or at seven days from the sample (in this case, there were four days from the arrest to the taking of the sample).

**C.8** It is not legally appropriate to defend a judgment using arguments that it does not contain, except when hypothetical incorporation exercises are performed. Much has been insisted upon that nullity in and of itself is not permissible if it does not violate substantive rights or guarantees that cannot be remedied or validated by other means, because the pro sentencia principle (which, according to Constitutional Chamber vote number 1739-92, forms part of due process) and the constitutional principle of prompt and complete justice (Article 41) prevent it. In this vein, it is the obligation of every legal operator who analyzes an act and notices defects or omissions to perform exercises of hypothetical inclusion (of overlooked evidence or arguments) or hypothetical exclusion (of improper evidence or arguments) to verify whether the adopted conclusion changes in any way. However, that exercise is very different from trying to sustain a decision with arguments that it did not use in its adoption and exposition, and without noting anything about it. The prosecutor notes that the accused's version is not credible because “Another aspect that equally, and with grounds, called into question the claim that the drug carried by the accused was for self-consumption was the detail set forth by [Name 009] in the sense that he and [Name 016] had opened a small bag of cocaine and both had consumed from it shortly before the arrest. However, [Name 016] did not present cocaine metabolites in blood (see Expert Opinion No. 2024-0546 TOX, folio 80), and no powdered cocaine was seized from either of the accused, so once again the version of ([Name 009]) is scarcely credible.” (Cf. prosecutor's response). This version does not derive from the tribunal's summary of the accused's statements, nor was it considered by the judge and female judge of the majority. This chamber could not hypothetically introduce it into the decision either, because it is not the only aspect omitted from the judgment; there are others, also relevant, to the decision to be adopted. Note that the toxicology expert opinion 2024-544-TOX performed on [Name 009] (folios 72-73) records that, on the date of sample collection (February 6, 2024), “there was exposure to cocaine in the person's organism,” and the medico-legal expert opinion performed on him on a similar date records that “…no clinical signs compatible with acute consumption of drugs of abuse were found, but there was a sepia stain on the upper and lower dental arch's central and lateral incisors and a sepia stain and hyperkeratosis at the pulp level of the first and second fingers of the right hand; which is a chronic, non-specific sign compatible with the chronic consumption of marijuana and tobacco and of crack, respectively” (expert opinion 2024864 from folio 36, emphasis added). Finally, in the expansion of the medico-legal expert opinion of [Name 016], it is recorded that “it is indeed possible that a person who has been a drug consumer since the age of 11 (13 years of consumption in the case of the examinee) does not present clinical signs of chronic or acute drug consumption, since these are not pathognomonic signs, but compatible findings (…) therefore, they are not determinative for concluding whether the examinee is a chronic consumer of some type of illicit drug” (folios 146). The majority made absolutely no allusion to any of this. Therefore, attempting to hypothetically introduce the aspects mentioned by the prosecutor would necessitate also introducing the others, overlooked in the judgment, and everything together could indeed modify what was decided and generate a single-instance decision, hence the exercise cannot be done because it is only valid when the adopted conclusion remains unchanged. This highlights, once again, that there was a biased process of selecting information to evaluate and that important material was overlooked.

**C.9** It is not legally acceptable that, in the act of evaluating oral evidence, greater weight be given to what a person expressed many years after the occurrence of an event, despite the fact that, at the very moment it occurred, said person gave a different version of what happened, and without there being a weighty reason for the change: According to the rules of psychology explained above, memory tends to deteriorate as time passes between an event and the recollection, except in cases of amnesia or traumatic blocks and other memory disorders which, for this matter, have been neither discussed nor accredited. That is, the closer to the event one testifies, in principle, the more details and reliability the testimony has, since memories tend to fade with the passage of time, especially in persons such as law enforcement officers, who are exposed to many similar situations that can cause the transposition of data between one matter and a similar one. Therefore, if in the written report submitted and signed by officer [Name 012] and in the oral report's reception it was recorded that only [Name 016] ran (and after him, two officers) but [Name 009] remained still (and accompanied by the other police officer); if those were items of evidence admitted and incorporated into the trial; if this was the same thing officer [Name 012] stated in the first trial held in mid-2024 —which, although it is true it was annulled, does not make the recordings of it disappear, as they become documents solely for the purpose of evaluating a deponent's credibility— and if there is no valid reason to understand why the change in position occurred, if all of this is so, the majority judge and female judge did wrong by giving greater value to the police officer's statement in the final trial than to what he expressed at other times, because, in doing so, they violated the rules of psychology that form part of sound criticism. Of course, this also presupposes that the parties assume their role in the interrogation in the terms indicated in votes of this chamber number 1247-2015 (R. Chinchilla, L. García and A.L. Jiménez) and 014-2015 (R. Chinchilla, L. García and J. Campos), in which it was indicated:

«(A) Is it possible to incorporate, and evaluate, the statements given in an annulled trial or in an audiovisually recorded interview, without the formalities of a jurisdictional advance? (...) with the Criminal Procedure Code, in force since 1998, the norms were modified to expressly prohibit that actions from the investigation phase have evidentiary value (Article 276 of the Criminal Procedure Code), unless they had been received under the rules of definitive and irreproducible acts, of the jurisdictional advance of evidence, or were cases provided for by law as exceptions to orality (see numerals 276, 277, 293, 327, and 334 of the Criminal Procedure Code), without, in any case, some of those possibilities being beyond criticism, especially when, for reasons of urgency, the parties do not participate in the acts, an aspect that escapes, for now, the object of the question to be resolved in this matter. In parallel, a shift in jurisprudential practices was taking place, to the point of settling the thesis that, although the complaint, expert reports, and documents are exceptions to orality susceptible to being incorporated into the trial by reading (Article 334 of the Criminal Procedure Code), it was impossible to refer to the content of such documents, insofar as they reproduced testimonial statements, since it was a way of circumventing the aforementioned guarantee and, with it, those principles were violated. It was in that context that, for example, this Chamber (…), under the name of the Criminal Cassation Tribunal of San José, through vote number 2007-844 bis, indicated: "First of all, it must be noted that under no circumstance can it be understood that what a person states before a legal physician or another professional who intervenes in the preliminary inquiries, at the time of preparing an expert opinion or report about some circumstance, constitutes, in a formal sense, a 'declaration' or 'testimony,' because it is not even provided with the prescribed formalities. It has already been insisted that, under the new procedural scheme, it is undeniable that testimonial evidence is only that which is received in the hearing, except for exceptional cases of evidence of that nature, received by jurisdictional advance, where witnesses are received under the conditions specific of the trial, that is, in compliance with the principles of immediacy, orality, concentration, and, very particularly, the adversarial principle. Only this testimony, received exceptionally in that manner, can be incorporated into the trial. Before that, one cannot formally speak of a declaration but rather of simple references. The only legally provided possibility for the witness to refer to, or even be expressly questioned about, those 'informal' versions is made by the third paragraph of Article 352 of the Criminal Procedure Code, when it points out that the prosecutor may interrogate the witness about the statements made in the investigation phase. The legal authorization for such prosecutorial behavior occurs because it primarily attends to facilitating the process of ascertaining the real truth, as well as the principle of freedom of evidence. These referential elements can be brought into the interrogation in order to clarify certain aspects of the declaration in trial, but such action does not imply that they are being given the value of testimony" (bold supplied). (...) In this line of reasoning... could the exercise of the adversarial principle, of attacking the credibility of a deponent, be limited by the fact that the version considered to be modified is contained in a document, for whose reception the principles of the trial were not taken into account? For example, can a witness, who in trial states 'x' but on a radio or television program spontaneously said '-x', that is, the opposite, not be interrogated, after the incorporation of that document, about this variation, under the pretext that, on the radio program, he did not declare in accordance with the trial principles?

It would seem there is no rule, or legal principle, that would make such a limitation possible, since proceeding in that way, supposedly to respect the principles of immediacy and the adversarial principle, would disrespect others that are equally part of constitutional due process and, perhaps, of greater weight, such as the adversarial principle, the freedom of proof, and the right of defense. Therefore, **pursuant to the interpretive rule contained in numeral 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, one must adhere to a broad exercise of those powers, consequently accepting the incorporation of any document containing a different version and permitting interrogation on such points. It is true that the recording (of the interview in the Gesell Chamber or of the annulled oral hearing), which is a document under the broad terms established by numeral 368 of the Code of Civil Procedure (a movable object with representative value), contains a statement that, in the first case, was not gathered under the principles of the adversarial principle and immediacy; that is, it is not a jurisdictional advance of evidence. Nevertheless, it is not that document, understood in this way, that is the evidentiary element to be considered, but rather it will be the witness's statement at trial, whose truthfulness seeks to be supported, or undermined, through cross-examination. In other words, to the extent that a document (in the broad sense, including recordings) is used at the plenary hearing to question a witness and, in this way, sustain their credibility or lack thereof, no legal violation is observed**, which would indeed occur if one were to attempt, without carrying out that exercise of interrogation, to give value to that document over the statement in the oral hearing. **The documentary value is limited to supporting, or not, the credibility of the witness, because, otherwise, we would be turning our backs on reality if we indicated that any reference by the deponent prior to the trial could not be assessed, even if the reliability of the witness or the verisimilitude of their statement might depend upon it.** It should be noted that, in this way, orality and the adversarial principle are enhanced, which would not happen if the attempt were made to contrast at moments other than the interrogation, such as in closing arguments or by way of appeal, preventing the witness from giving explanations of what happened" (...). All of this must be weighed, at the appropriate time.» (Some emphasis is from the original and some added).

In any case, in this matter, in addition to the statement of Officer [Name 012] in the annulled oral hearing (in a different sense than that given at this trial regarding whether one or both of the accused ran upon noticing his presence at the place), there was the police report and the oral complaint in which he recorded that only one of them ran. Why is this relevant? Here again the parties and judges are mixing analytical planes. Of course, the fact that only one person runs gives rise to a psychological indication that enables police action. That is to say, even if there were no news of a crime regarding them nor any operation justifying the detention and search, that act of running in the presence of police allowed the authorities to intervene, detain, and validly seize objects, and that makes the obtained evidence lawful. This plane of evidentiary lawfulness (which was the one emphasized at other times) is different from other analytical planes: whether the psychological indication of running is univocal regarding the purpose for which the substance is possessed, and whether the fact that only one person ran can be transferred to the other accused as an indication against him. It should be remembered that, as already noted, the charge was not formulated in terms of co-perpetration, with a prior plan and functional distribution between the two. That co-perpetration could have existed, but the charge did not formulate it in that way, and that created a limit on that pleading given the principle of correlation (article 365 of the procedural Code). Therefore, the fact that one ran cannot be attributed to the other as an indication (whether univocal or ambiguous) because the charging instrument was not formulated in that way, and co-perpetration is one of the legal concepts that allow the principle of the personal nature of the action to be overcome. Nor is it acceptable to consider that content of the policeman's statement (whether one ran or both) to be irrelevant, because although it may be so for purposes of defining the lawfulness of the police intervention, it is not for purposes of establishing the historical fact that truly occurred and extracting from it elements of intent and co-perpetration of the accused who did not run. Yes, the police approach is lawful, even if only one of the subjects ran, and therefore the evidence obtained is lawful and does not contravene what was indicated in the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">case of Fernández</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">Prieto and Tumbeiro vs. Argentina (judgment on merits and reparations of September 1</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">, 2020)</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/resumen_411_esp.pdf"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a>which indicated:

«<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">79. The Court notes that </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(...)</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"> temporary detention for identification purposes must be duly founded on circumstances that "give reason to presume that someone has committed or could commit some criminal or minor offense act." In that sense, in the specific case, the Court considers that none of the reasons the police gave for detaining Mr. Tumbeiro and requesting his identification constituted, in themselves or together, sufficient and specific facts or information that would allow a reasonable observer to objectively infer that he had probably committed or was about to commit a criminal or minor offense act. On the contrary, the reasons that motivated the detention for identification purposes of Mr. Tumbeiro seemed to respond to preconceptions about how a person transiting in a certain place should look, how they should behave in the presence of police, and what activities they should carry out in that place. 80. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(...) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">The Court recalls that stereotypes consist of preconceptions of the attributes, behaviors, roles, or characteristics possessed by persons belonging to an identified group. The use of stereotyped reasoning by security forces can lead to discriminatory and, consequently, arbitrary actions. 81. In the absence of objective elements, the classification of a certain behavior or appearance as suspicious, or of a certain bodily reaction or expression as nervous, is due to the personal convictions of the intervening agents and the practices of the security forces themselves, which entails a degree of arbitrariness that is incompatible with Article 7.3 of the American Convention. When additionally these convictions or personal assessments are formulated based on prejudices regarding the characteristics or behaviors supposedly typical of a certain category or group of people or their socio-economic status, they can lead to a violation of Articles 1.1 and 24 of the Convention. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(...) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">82. The use of these profiles implies a presumption of guilt against any person who fits them, and not a case-by-case evaluation of the objective reasons that effectively indicate that a person is linked to the commission of a crime. Therefore, the Court has indicated that detentions carried out for discriminatory reasons are manifestly unreasonable and therefore arbitrary. In this case </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(...)</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">, the lack of explanations about the suspicious nature attributed to Mr. Tumbeiro beyond his nervousness, his manner of dressing, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">and the explicit indication that this was not typical of the "humble people's" area </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">through which he was walking, show that there were no sufficient and reasonable indications about his participation in a criminal act, but rather that the detention was carried out prima facie due to the sole circumstance of not reacting in the way the intervening agents perceived as correct and using an outfit judged by them as inappropriate based on a subjective preconception about the appearance that the inhabitants of the area should maintain, which entails discriminatory treatment that makes the detention arbitrary.</span>» <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span>Unlike that scenario, running simply because of coming face-to-face with a patrol car enables the police intervention regarding that subject, but, unless a co-perpetration is attributed to the person accompanying them and not running (which was not the case in the record), it would not enable it for the person who is alongside them and remains unaltered. Nor can that subjective indication (whether univocal or ambiguous) be transferred to such a companion. None of that was analyzed by the majority.

**C.10** <span style="text-decoration: underline;">It is not legally acceptable to assess indications in isolation and not as a whole</span>. It was already noted that not only were the words of Officer [Name 012] distorted (regarding the state of one of the accused and the prior interventions he had made on them) and those of the accused (regarding the type of substances they consumed and their periodicity), but also the content of the medicolegal and toxicological expert opinions on the precise meaning of the findings documented on the bodies of the defendants was not taken into account. The evidence was also poorly assessed regarding the significance of running in the presence of police and its imputation to the one who did not do it (according to the first version given by the intervening police officer), and regarding the form of packaging of the substances, since it was assumed that the fact they were individually dosed was presumptive of distribution or sale, but not of personal consumption, an assertion that is not accurate, since a consuming person, when acquiring, does so in doses according to their economic possibilities or consumption habits, in order to have the substance divided for ingestion at each moment. If a person acquires drugs for consumption, they can do so pre-dosed for the purpose of measuring their own consumption over time, since the acquisition continues to be a risky activity precisely because of the thin line separating it from illicit activities with which it can be confused, hence it is usually acquired for longer time units (weeks, months) according to economic possibilities which, in the case, were not analyzed. That is to say, the indication of individual packaging is not univocal of the affirmed conclusion either. In the dissenting vote, topics unaddressed by the majority were mentioned, such as that <span style="color: #323130;">the policeman did not remember whether the accused had elements for consumption at the time of their detention, and the trial prosecutor's assertion (that this must be somewhere like the logbook or the Clerk's Office) is not valid because these were not elements introduced at trial, whereas </span><span style="color: #323130;">the accused would have said that they did have lighters. This implies a lack of reasoning in the majority vote under the terms of numeral 142 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.</span><span style="color: #323130; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span> **C.11** <span style="text-decoration: underline;">It is not legally acceptable to distort the arguments set forth in the dissenting vote to draw other conclusions</span>. The minority judge suggested (because his arguments were certainly not extensive and he had interruptions in the delivery of his reasoning) that, faced with an event punished with such a high penalty, greater precision in the formulation of the charge and a more solid investigation of the purposes for which the drug was possessed were required, since, even if it were a case of flagrancy, some investigation, however brief, must exist. That is drawn from the context of his argument. The prosecutor indicates, instead, that if the said judge had doubts about the constitutionality of the penalty, he should have made the consultation, but in responding this way, he not only transmutes the meaning of that judge's words to a topic that was not invoked, but also makes use of the *tu quoque* fallacy explained above, by pointing out the inconsistency of the supposed argumentation. Although, this chamber believes, doubt is legitimate regarding such a high punitive reaction for illicit retail drug trafficking activities that are equated, in the sanction, to the trafficking of large quantities of drugs, the truth is that the constitutionality consultation was already an exercise previously carried out by this court (under the designation of the Criminal Court of Cassation of San José) through <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">vote number</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">2011</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">-</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">742</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-515145"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a>, composed of R. Chinchilla, L. García, and E. Salinas) and by which the Constitutional Chamber, by majority, issued <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">vote</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">number</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="color: #0563c1; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a> <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">2011</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">-</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0563c1;">11697</span></a><a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-541132"><span style="color: #000000; -aw-import: spaces;"> </span></a>according to which: «<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">The consultation formulated is resolved in the sense that Article </span> <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">58 of the Law on Narcotics, Psychotropic Substances, Drugs of Unauthorized Use, Related Activities, Money Laundering, and Financing of Terrorism, number 7786 of April 30, 1998, and its amendments, is not contrary to the principle of proportionality. Magistrates Armijo and Cruz dissent and declare that the consulted norm is unconstitutional</span>.» That pronouncement is binding according to the rules referred to above (article 13 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction). However, the issue raised by the minority judge was not that, but rather intended to show that if criminal judging always requires restrictive interpretation of substantive and procedural rules, univocal indications as well as certainty and not probability, in cases where the reaction was so high, that analytical and argumentative exercise must be taken to the extreme to avoid errors. This approach, which is what this chamber infers from the dissenting vote, is, in our understanding, an adequate stance in light of the responsibility involved in judging human beings. Acting accordingly is not, as the prosecutor says, extrapolating the law.

On the contrary, this is extrapolated when, in procedural terms, the statements of declarants are distorted, when the evidence is not analyzed as a whole or are amphibological or when, in substantive terms, the criminal type is filled with circulars from the Ministry of Health against which state agents do not react with the functions that the law entrusts them (objectivity and impartiality). It is not entirely exact to affirm that the dissenting judge said that a "figure of criminal transport without content" has been created "span style="font-style: italic;">without content" (which he later rectified to " or "with content of evidence" ) and this is how it should be understood: "the permission that defines the criminal type) and the same jurisprudence constitutional" have indicated that the penalty cannot be increased based on the existence of the antecedents (Voto N° 5746-93) has been imposed on the subject, more than the minimum, and comparatively, because it is the same reaction punitive than regarding of conducts much more harmful as would be the great international traffic. And the situation changes, since it was not found any irregularity on the point, this in the vote number 742-2011 (R. Chinchilla, L. García and E. Salinas) regarding whether amounts of penalties are proportional for sanctioning persons with a low role in the chain of trafficking of narcotics and which were seized a scarce quantity, the majority of the constitutional body did not find any abnormality on the subject, and the vote number 2011-11697 above mentioned). The court held that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with the functions that the law entrusts them with In other words, for [Name 016] the sole basis for the precautionary measure that has existed until now was the sentence, and upon that sentence being vacated, the foundation upon which that measure rested loses its support and cannot be validly sustained, so that the release must be executed by the authority holding him at its order, the only one empowered to do so.

As for [Name 009], the situation is different, since he was declared a fugitive (rebeldía) earlier (and his pretrial detention (prisión cautelar) was ordered by the same trial judge in a ruling prior to the sentence, although it was extended therein), meaning that the risk of flight (peligro de fuga) persists and is a procedural ground; therefore, for him, the precautionary measure must be maintained under the terms ordered by the lower court, that is, expiring on August 2, 2025, given that in order 184-2025-B of 2:37 p.m. on January 27, 2025 (see folio 574 of volume II) the judge analyzed the risk of flight based on the declared fugitive status, and the probability that the act was committed arises from the very accusation under discussion (Article 303 of the procedural legislation). Thus, the measure must be maintained for the period decreed by the a quo (the only respect in which the decision remains valid because, although it was resolved within the sentence, it can be considered a separate order), during which period the remand (reenvío) ordered must take place, and without prejudice to the measure being varied, if deemed appropriate, either sua sponte or at the request of a party. (B) Lastly, this matter is being remanded for the third time, an aspect mentioned so that the lower court may appreciate the level of responsibility it bears, as it is unacceptable that a flagrancy matter has been pending for more than a year, comprises two volumes of the case file (expediente) (due to the numerous copies made), has three remands to its record, and the case has yet to be properly concluded. Likewise, it should be noted that an acquittal (sentencia absolutoria) was previously issued, such that, if a second one is issued in that vein (an aspect mentioned only because it is one of the possible outcomes, without prejudging the final decision to be adopted), it would close off the possibilities for criminal appeal (impugnación) due to the prohibition on double jeopardy (doble conforme) (Article 466 bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure) and, in such a case, the final responsibility for any jurisdictional error would fall exclusively on the deciding body. Therefore, whatever the decision adopted, the new panel must strive to make it without any error because if it convicts and errs, it will be the fourth remand, and if it acquits and errs, it fully assumes responsibility for the decision in the absence of a further appeal (recurso).

POR TANTO:

The appeals (recursos de apelación) filed by licensed attorney Esther Salazar Rojas as public defender for the accused and by licensed attorney Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, private defender for the accused ([Name 009]), are declared formally admissible and upheld. The lower court sentence is annulled (except as regards the precautionary measure for [Name 009] contained in that decision) and a remand (reenvío) is ordered before an authority that has not previously intervened, respecting the principle of prohibition of reformatio in peius. The pretrial detention (prisión preventiva) of [Name 009] is maintained until August 2, 2025, without prejudice to any change that may be decreed. The immediate release of [Name 016] cc. [Name 016] cc. [Name 016] is ordered if no other cause prevents it, which release must be executed by the court at whose order the accused is held, for which purpose the immediate communication of this decision is ordered. NOTIFÍQUESE.

Rosaura Chinchilla Calderón Ivette Carranza Cambronero Kathya Jiménez Fernández Judges of Criminal Sentence Appeals (Juezas de apelación de sentencia penal) Imputado: [Name 009] Ofendido: La salud pública Delito: Transporte de droga

Resolución: 2025-0619 TRIBUNAL DE APELACIÓN DE SENTENCIA PENAL. Segundo Circuito Judicial de San José. Goicoechea, a las siete horas con cincuenta minutos del veintiuno de abril de dos mil veinticinco.

RECURSOS DE APELACIÓN interpuestos en la presente causa seguida contra [Nombre 009], quien es mayor de edad, costarricense, con cédula de identidad número [Valor 001], nacido el 30 de diciembre de 1998, de 25 años de edad, hijo de [Nombre 002], en unión libre, padre de dos hijas menores de edad, ayudante de construcción, vecino de Tirrases de Curridabat y contra [Nombre 016] (cc. [Nombre 016]) [Nombre 016], quien es mayor de edad, nicaragüense, en condición migratoria irregular, nacido en Managua, Nicaragua, el 11 de noviembre de 1999, pasaporte nicaragüense número [Valor 002], de 25 años de edad, hijo de [Nombre 006] y de [Nombre 007], en unión libre, padre de un hijo, cursó secundaria incompleta, labora como peluquero a domicilio, vecino de Dos Cercas de Desamparados, por el delito de TRANSPORTE DE DROGAS en perjuicio de LA SALUD PÚBLICA. Intervienen en la decisión de los recursos, las juezas Rosaura Chinchilla Calderón, Kathya Jiménez Fernández e Ivette Carranza Cambronero. Se apersonaron en esta sede la licenciada Esther Salazar Rojas como defensora pública de los encartados; el licenciado Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, defensor privado del encartado ([Nombre 009]) y el máster Héctor Chacón Chang como fiscal del Ministerio Público y,

RESULTANDO:

I.- Que mediante sentencia número 122-2025 de las 16:00 horas del 02 de febrero de 2025, el Tribunal Penal de Flagrancia del Segundo Circuito Judicial de San José, por mayoría, resolvió: "POR TANTO: De conformidad con los artículos 39 y 41 de la Constitución Política; artículos 1, 11, 14, 18, 19, 20, 30, 31, 45, 54, 59, 60, 62, 63, y 71, todos del Código Penal; artículo 58 de la Ley N° 8204, artículos 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 239, 249, 258, 265, 266, 360, 361, 363, 364, y 367, todos del Código Procesal Penal; por mayoría de los jueces CARLOS NÚÑEZ NÚÑEZ y SHIRLEY MAYORGA ESPINOZA, se declara a los encartados [Nombre 009] Y [Nombre 016] [Nombre 016] autores responsables de UN DELITO DE TRANSPORTE DE DROGA, por el que se les impone la siguiente pena: al condenado ([Nombre 009]) OCHO AÑOS DE PRISIÓN y al condenado [Nombre 016] la pena de NUEVE AÑOS DE PRISIÓN. Por improcedente NO se les otorga a los condenados el beneficio de ejecución condicional de la pena, ni se le sustituye la misma por el arresto domiciliario con monitoreo electrónico o la prestación de servicios de utilidad pública. Se ordena comunicar al Registro Judicial para lo de su cargo, en relación a (sic) la revocatoria del beneficio de ejecución condicional del condenado [Nombre 016], que se realizó mediante sentencia n° 625-24 de las 16:25 horas del 23 de julio del 2024 del Tribunal Penal de Flagrancia del II Circuito Judicial de San José, en causa n° 24-000685-1092-PE, la cual tampoco se encuentra inscrita. Se ordena la prisión preventiva del imputado [Nombre 016] por el plazo de SEIS MESES a partir del día de hoy y hasta el 02 DE AGOSTO DEL 2025, y se prorroga la prisión del imputado [Nombre 009] por el plazo de SEIS MESES, desde el día de hoy y hasta el 02 DE AGOSTO DEL 2025. Se ordena comunicar lo resuelto a la Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería, para lo de su cargo, con relación al (sic) condenado [Nombre 016]. El juez WARREN JUGO MADRIGAL salva el voto, absuelve a ambos encartados de toda pena y responsabilidad y ordena su inmediata libertad, si otra causa no lo impide. En virtud de haberse resuelto de forma oral e integral quedan todas las partes debidamente notificadas en el acto y a su disposición esta resolución en formato digital. Carlos Núñez Núñez. Shirley Mayorga Espinoza. Warren Jugo Madrigal.” (sic, folios 600-602).

II.- Que, contra el anterior pronunciamiento, interpusieron recurso de apelación la licenciada Esther Salazar Rojas como defensora pública de los encartados y el licenciado Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo como defensor privado nombrado por el sindicado ([Nombre 009]).

III.- Que, verificada la deliberación respectiva de conformidad con lo dispuesto por el artículo 465 del Código Procesal Penal, el tribunal se planteó las cuestiones formuladas en los recursos de apelación.

IV.- Que en los procedimientos se han observado las prescripciones legales pertinentes.

Redacta la jueza Chinchilla Calderón; y,

CONSIDERANDO:

I.- Cuestiones de trámite. (A) Admisibilidad. La licenciada Esther Salazar Rojas, como defensora pública de ambos encartados, interpuso recurso de apelación contra la sentencia dictada en autos, decisión que es impugnable por dicho sujeto procesal (taxatividad subjetiva) y en esta vía (taxatividad objetiva). Esta impugnación se planteó mediante escrito motivado, aportado ante el órgano de instancia y dentro del plazo legal pues se entregó el 21 de febrero de 2025 a las 18:00 horas según el sello de recibido del documento adjunto al expediente (folios 611 a 617). De igual manera, ese mismo 21 de febrero de 2025, el defensor privado —nombrado el 03 de febrero de 2025 por el encartado ([Nombre 009])—, licenciado Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, aportó un escrito de apelación (folios 607-610). Dado que la sentencia integral se emitió oralmente el 02 de febrero de 2025 (ver folio 598), el plazo de 15 días hábiles no vencía sino hasta el 22 de febrero de 2025 y, por ello, deben admitirse los recursos, sin que sean necesarias ulteriores formalidades pues, de lo contrario, se incumpliría el mandato establecido en el artículo 8.2.h de la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos y lo resuelto por la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos en el caso de Mauricio Herrera Ulloa contra Costa Rica, sentencia de 02 de julio de 2014. El fiscal detalla que el encartado [Nombre 009], desde el 03 de febrero de 2025 (folio 599), dejó sin efecto la representación que ejercía la Defensa Pública y nombró, como su defensor de confianza, al licenciado Rafael Jenkins Grispo, por lo que, en opinión del máster Chacón, la defensora carecía de legitimación para gestionar en su nombre. Aunque, en efecto, los datos que suministra este profesional corresponden a lo sucedido en autos, lo que no toma en cuenta él es que la regla es que cualquier cambio de representación jurídica opera desde que la variación es aceptada por el tribunal y no desde que se hace por el encartado, sin perjuicio de que, aún luego de la renuncia, el anterior profesional siga atendiendo los intereses de su patrocinado por hasta 10 días hábiles más (artículo 46 del Código de deberes jurídicos, morales y éticos del profesional en derecho), esto porque la persona nombrada puede no ser profesional en derecho, estar suspendida, el encartado tener deudas que honrar con otra representación letrada antes designada (como, incluso, sucediera con este profesional en esta misma causa, en que hubo renuncia de él y no pago de honorarios según consta en folio 574 vuelto). Esa aceptación jurisdiccional de sustitución de la defensa no operó sino hasta el 21 de febrero de 2025 (por resolución del órgano a quo de las 20:01 minutos visible en folio 618, decisión notificada a todas las partes en esa misma fecha, según consta en folios 619 a 621), por lo que al momento en que la defensora pública presentó su escrito, no había sido liberada formalmente del cargo y en atención al artículo 102 del Código Procesal Penal, que obliga a la defensa removida a mantenerse en el puesto hasta que el sustituto intervenga, su escrito es atendible, como lo es también el del defensor privado que se aportó en esa misma fecha, antes de la sustitución (a las 16:10 horas), pero luego de nombrado formalmente por el encartado. En todo caso, como se verá ambos recursos abordan, para ese encartado, temas similares. (B) Recuento procesal. La sentencia dictada proviene de un reenvío ordenado por este tribunal (con la integración de M. Escalante Quirós, R. Badilla Rojas y E. Montero Mena) en el voto número 2024-1882 (tomo I, folios 192 a 196) donde, al conocer de un recurso fiscal contra una primera absolutoria de ambos encartados (dictada por las juezas A. Sobrado, M. Salas y el juez K. Durán), anuló integralmente aquel pronunciamiento y ordenó un nuevo juzgamiento. Por ello, se ha constatado que en la tramitación de la causa no hay transgresiones al principio de imparcialidad en la integración de esta cámara, se ha respetado la competencia de reenvío y no se transgrede la cosa juzgada material ni el principio doble conforme. (C) Cuestiones de trámite. (i) En este asunto, tanto por el reenvío antes dicho como por testimonios de piezas ordenados, se han duplicado y acumulado las mismas actuaciones, al punto que “la sumaria de flagrancia” cuenta con más de 600 folios distribuidos en dos tomos. En folio 501 (que encabeza el tomo II) se ordenó crear el tomo II y a partir de allí se nota una actuación errática de la foliatura pues primero siguió el consecutivo anterior (aunque haciendo saltos de numeración inexplicables), luego eso se tachó y empezó desde 1 una nueva numeración para, finalmente, esta cámara renumerar todo para respetar estrictamente el consecutivo. Esta última digitación es la que se referenciará en esta sentencia, por lo que no necesariamente es la que citan las partes. (ii) Finalmente, el nombre del encartado aparece en documentos oficiales escrito de dos modos diferentes; “[Nombre 016]” y “[Nombre 016]”, por lo que se respetará la alusión del nombre que en cada caso se haga, advirtiendo que esta situación originó, en otro momento, que el registro de antecedentes del encartado se hiciera aparte, uno con cada nombre, pero se trata de la misma persona.

II.- En el primer motivo de la impugnación de la defensora pública se expone la queja por la determinación de los hechos pues, aduce, esta fue producto de una errónea valoración de la prueba y de una inadecuada fundamentación probatoria intelectiva. Tras describir los hechos acusados (transporte de 22 dosis de marihuana por [Nombre 016] y de 60 piedras de crack y una dosis de ketamina por [Nombre 009]) y la forma de intervención policial (los encartados caminaban y, al ver la presencia policial, uno corrió y lanzó la bolsa y el otro permaneció en el sitio y al requisarse se halló el total referido, distribuido entre lo que cada cual portaba) la defensa afirma que se portaba la droga con fines de consumo personal, que las pericias toxicológicas denotan que ambos son consumidores y que, el que uno de ellos corriera, no es un elemento unívoco para establecer el fin de tráfico, pues puede tener por objetivo evitar su detención y la supresión de la sustancia de la que depende. Dice que la cantidad decomisada no es significativa y, a falta de otros elementos (por ejemplo, operativos o ventas), se imponía la absolutoria por duda. Estima sesgado el análisis del tribunal sentenciador pues este, en su opinión, invirtió la carga de la prueba respecto de que los encartados debían demostrar que la droga era para su consumo, cuando era al ente fiscal a quien le competía acreditar que el transporte se hacía con fines de venta. Añade que la narración del único testigo recibido en juicio, el oficial de policía (quien dijo haber visto a los encartados consumir droga), no fue objeto de controversia, sino que lo importante era si la droga decomisada tenía, o no, como fin el tráfico y, a partir de esto, el voto de mayoría usa las declaraciones de sus patrocinados para afirmar ese extremo. Así, se afirma que los encartados no se pusieron de acuerdo para efectuar un consumo conjunto sino que cada cual fue a hacer compras individuales y se encontraron en el camino y allí decidieron consumir juntos, suministrándose mutuamente droga, lo que si bien es ilícito no fue acusado de ese modo ni se menciona en los hechos probados. Al asumirse en la sentencia una finalidad diferente, afirma el apelante que se violentó la correlación. Critica que, en el voto de mayoría, no se les diera credibilidad a los imputados bajo el argumento de que en el dictamen toxicológico no se alude al consumo de ketamina, cuando la presencia de drogas en el cuerpo depende de muchos factores, incluyendo los días transcurridos entre el consumo y el examen. Afirma que es el voto de minoría el que resuelve el punto de forma correcta. Alude a que las dos pericias toxicológicas muestran consumo por parte de ambos encausados y que en la historia médico legal de [Nombre 016] se consigna que él dijo que consumía ketamina desde los 18 años y su última ingesta fue el 02 de febrero de 2024, lo que explica que no apareciera evidencia de la sustancia en el dictamen toxicológico. Pide la ineficacia de lo resuelto. En el único motivo del recurso del licenciado Jenkins Grispo se alega la falta de fundamentación intelectiva y la errónea valoración de la prueba respecto de ([Nombre 009]). Dice, de forma algo confusa (para quien no conoce el contexto), que entre un juicio y otro, un oficial de la Fuerza Pública varió su versión: “…en el primer juicio que se anuló, el oficial de Fuerza Pública nos comenta que fue que él corrió y que su compañero se quedó con mi cliente, y mi cliente habla que nunca le quitó la droga que se aduce en el parte, y que posteriormente aparece como prueba, en el segundo el policía cambia esa versión, no solo de manera somera, es decir la cambia de manera que le da un giro de 180 grados, logrando corregir el error que dio con la sentencia del primer juicio anulada. El único testigo del juicio el oficial relata bajo juramento algo que posteriormente varía en el segundo juicio, es decir, qué fue lo que pasó, en cuál faltó a su verdad, en cuál se dio el perjurio, en el primer juicio o en el segundo.” (Cfr. escrito de apelación). Además, mientras el Ministerio Público, en la acusación, refirió que solo un encartado corrió y [Nombre 009] se quedó estático, el policía, en su deposición bajo juramento, manifestó que ambos sujetos corrieron, lo que genera dudas sobre la verdad real de lo acontecido. Añade que en la acusación no se menciona el fin y este no fue demostrado en juicio, por lo que la sentencia hace recaer este punto en los encartados, invirtiendo la carga de la prueba. Agrega que el total de la droga dividido, en dos, sí permite estimar que era para consumo personal y que el que no apareciera en el cuerpo de su patrocinado ketamina no significa que no quisiera probarla ese día. Considera que lo resuelto por el juez disidente era lo correcto porque no hay afectación o daño a terceros con el consumo de ellos y pide anular la sentencia en cuanto a [Nombre 009], ordenar su libertad (pues fue detenido por la sentencia condenatoria) y que se ordene el reenvío. Al contestar los alegatos la contraparte pidió que se rechazaran. Hizo un resumen de lo sucedido en otros momentos (absolutoria de ambos encartados), de los hechos probados por la mayoría, las pruebas incorporadas (el dicho de [Nombre 012], de ambos encartados quienes no negaron poseer la sustancia que les fue decomisada, las actas de decomiso y el dictamen de química analítica, los análisis toxicológicos de los endilgados y el dictamen médico legal de uno de ellos) y de los razonamientos expuestos en el voto, tanto de mayoría como de minoría, para evidenciar lo que califica de “intersubjetividad” del punto en discusión. Describe que, aunque hay una diferencia entre la denuncia oral de los policías y su relato en juicio respecto de si uno o ambos sujetos corrieron, el que solo uno lo hiciera hace lícita la intervención policial, la cual no fue cuestionada y que el tema en discusión es el fin de la posesión. A este respecto, el fiscal señala que, en el voto mayoritario, los jueces —así en el memorial, aunque el órgano jurisdiccional al que alude está integrado por un hombre y una mujer y pese a que la Convención sobre la eliminación de todas las formas de discriminación contra la mujer (CEDAW por sus siglas en inglés), instrumento debidamente suscrito, ratificado y vigente en el país, obliga, en su artículo 2 incisos d), e) y f), al funcionariado público a desterrar patrones de discriminación que incluyen el uso sexista del lenguaje— analizaron que ninguno de los procesados dijo consumir ketamina ni esta sustancia apareció en los dictámenes toxicológicos que se les practicaron: ([Nombre 009]), en su indagatoria inicial, dijo consumir solo marihuana, pero luego agregó que también crack o cocaína y aunque [Nombre 016] afirmó consumir ambas sustancias, solo presentó, en orina, rastros de marihuana. En el fallo prevaleciente se indicó que si uno transportara droga para suministrar al otro era algo típico, la ketamina no encontraba asidero en la tesis defensiva y la forma en que iban embaladas las 66 dosis de crack, los 22 puchos de marihuana y la huida de [Nombre 016] ante la presencia policial eran indicios del fin de tráfico. El fiscal describe el voto de minoría (que se basa en la duda sobre si la droga era para consumo) y dice, con apoyo en votos de la Sala Tercera, que para que se dé el delito solo basta transportar de un punto a otro droga y que no sea para autoconsumo. Añade que: “…la posesión y transporte de esta última droga por parte de [Nombre 009], que fue objetivamente demostrada, es relevante, ya que la ketamina decomisada en las condiciones demostrativas del caso subexamine presentó una franca imposibilidad para ser asociada plausiblemente a un fin de autoconsumo de ([Nombre 009]). A diferencia de [Nombre 016] [Nombre 016], el encausado [Nombre 009] en ningún momento afirmó ser adicto a la ketamina, y su alegación defensiva se limitó a decir que la intención de él y de [Nombre 016] era confeccionar bazuco con la marihuana que portaba [Nombre 016] y las piedras de crack que llevaba [Nombre 009]. Tampoco el acusado [Nombre 009] afirmó en juicio que, al ser arrestado, portaba esa droga para “usarla por primera vez". Por tal razón, la alegación que se hace en ese sentido por parte del estimado abogado Jenkins Grispo, proviene de la mera imaginación del citado colega, que carece de todo sustento probatorio y que es puramente conjetural.” (Cfr. contestación fiscal, se corrige el uso indebido de mayúsculas generalizadas en los nombres propios, pero se mantiene la grafía que usa el apelante para estos). Agrega que los encartados incurrieron en contradicciones a lo largo del proceso sobre su condición de adicción, lo que les restó credibilidad: “[Nombre 009] aseveró que solo consumía marihuana y así se lo dijo al tribunal en presencia de su defensa. No refirió que consumiera primordialmente bazuco, que es una mezcla de crack y marihuana. Tampoco dijo ser adicto a la cocaína. Tampoco aseveró que consumiera ketamina. Y esto es relevante, pues en ningún momento a [Nombre 009] se le decomisó marihuana. Lo que se le decomisó y lo que transportaba era crack -cocaína- y ketamina. Ergo, si [Nombre 009] no transportaba drogas a las que manifestó que era adicto al momento de la audiencia inicial, es harto lógico que [Nombre 009] no podía transportar esas sustancias para autoconsumo personal antes de esa audiencia inicial (…) En relación al (sic) acusado [Nombre 016] [Nombre 016], tampoco el hallazgo de la ketamina puede asociarse a una finalidad de autoconsumo. Ciertamente, al ser entrevistado por el médico forense este acusado dijo consumir ketamina, inhalada, cada 3 días, y así se hizo constar en el dictamen médico legal 2024-000918. Si bien esa experticia tiene fecha 7 de febrero de 2024, la valoración fue realizada el día anterior. En ella, tal cual obra a folio 65, [Nombre 016] relata haber consumido ketamina el mismo día de su detención, 2 de febrero de 2024. Pero, en el dictamen DCF 2024-00546 TOX, realizado con las muestras tomadas apenas el 6 de febrero de 2024 a las 13:11 hrs (y no un año después, como falsamente dice la defensora pública) se informa que no se detectó ketamina en la orina de ese encausado -ver folio 80-. Acá es importante decir que para detectar la ketamina en orina en este caso se utilizó la cromatografía de gases, pudiéndose por ese método detectar cantidades de 0,1 mg/ml del compuesto, acorde a la literatura toxicológica. De acuerdo a (sic) la misma literatura médico legal, el tiempo máximo de detección se sitúa en las 72 h, aproximadamente, para una dosis única. Sin embargo, se advierte que en usuarios con un consumo habitual o adictivo, como dijo tener el acusado [Nombre 016], la ketamina puede tardar hasta más de 7 días en eliminarse [The nonmedical use of ketamine. Part two. A review of problem use and dependence. J Psychoactive Drugs 2001 (…) citados en J. Royo “ La “keta” (ketamina), del fármaco a la droga de abuso. Clínica biopsicosocial del consumidor y algunas propuestas terapéuticas, en Revista Elsevier Nº 34, volumen 3 (…)] situación que, igualmente hace poco creíble que la droga de interés hubiera sido consumida por el acusado con la asiduidad o habitualidad que refirió, en la fecha en que lo dijo y que la portación de esa sustancia obedeciera además a un verdadera finalidad de autoconsumo (…) Otro aspecto que igualmente puso, fundadamente, en tela de juicio el alegato que la droga que portaban los acusados fuera para autoconsumo, lo fue el detalle expuesto por [Nombre 009] en el sentido de que él y [Nombre 016] [Nombre 016] habían abierto una bolsita de cocaína y ambos habían consumido de ella poco antes del arresto. Sin embargo, [Nombre 016] [Nombre 016] no presentó metabolitos de cocaína en sangre (ver dictamen Nº 2024-0546 TOX, folio 80), y a ninguno de los imputados se les decomisó cocaína en polvo, por lo que de nuevo resulta poco creíble la versión de ([Nombre 009]). De igual modo, tampoco es posible creer que lo que supuestamente consumieron los acusados fuera ketamina y no cocaína, al confundir la segunda con la primera pues desde un punto de vista objetivo, ninguno de los dos resultó con rastros de ketamina en orina” (Cfr. contestación fiscal, se corrige el uso indebido de mayúsculas generalizadas en los nombres propios pero se respeta la grafía de estos). Por esas inconsistencias y porque los encartados variaron el fin de autoconsumo a suministro del otro y “…[Nombre 016], en un signo de conciencia culpable, puso pies en polvorosa cuando notó la presencia policial e intentó ocultar la droga lanzándola a un techo vecino” (Cfr. contestación fiscal, se corrige el uso indebido de mayúsculas generalizadas en los nombres propios respetando su grafía) el fiscal estima que la condena fue correcta. Acto seguido, el representante del ente acusador hace una extensa disquisición de las razones de política criminal y de dogmática penal para no perseguir o sancionar el autoconsumo, acción diferente del suministro. Afirmó que no es esencial si ambos encartados corrieron o si lo hizo solo uno, según el cambio de versión del policía, pues es comprensible que esta varíe por el tiempo transcurrido y los diversos juicios existentes y que el que [Nombre 009] no haya huido al ver a la policía no excluye su conocimiento de que estaba trasladando del sitio de compra al del arresto 66 piedras de crack y un envoltorio de ketamina, y que el fin de ese traslado, en lo que respecta al menos a parte de ese alijo, no era el autoconsumo personal, según lo admitió en su relato. Afirma que no hubo inversión de la carga probatoria sino análisis de indicios, que el ser consumidor de droga no da patente para realizar las conductas típicas, que aunque a los encartados se les abordó sin investigación previa para demostrar el fin de su posesión eso no genera agravio pues cada uno de ellos, debidamente asesorados, aceptó que la droga que cada cual transportaba estaba destinada al trueque mutuo y que la explicación de la defensora del motivo por el cual corrió [Nombre 016] ante la presencia policial es una simple conjetura que no deriva de la prueba en tanto el oficial refirió que no logró detectar que, en ese momento, él estuviera bajo los efectos de la sustancia. Argumenta que es superfluo el no decomiso de dinero o la escasa cantidad de sustancia pues los endilgados aceptaron que iban a permutar droga en donde, según el artículo 1100 del Código Civil, el dinero es sustituido y que, aunque se menciona por la apelante que hay sesgos en el voto de mayoría, estos no se explican. Acepta que la acusación no menciona el fin de suministro o distribución, pero sostiene que para la configuración del ilícito solo se requiere del dolo común que es transportar y se descartó que fuera para el consumo personal, todo lo cual fue acusado y por ello no se transgrede la correlación, de donde todo lo demás es periférico. Añade que “…los mismos acusados de forma libre y voluntaria, una vez que fueron advertidos de su derecho de abstención y a sabiendas que cualquier cosa que dijeran podría ser usada en su contra, trataron de crear un alegato de autoconsumo, sin lograrlo, pues el alegato de defensa material de [Nombre 009] y [Nombre 016] terminó degenerándose, degradándose y naufragando en la admisión de un fin parcial de suministro o distribución a tercero a cuenta de la permuta de drogas que cada uno transportaba de manera individual, lo que, quiéralo o no la recurrente, y quiéralo o no el respetado juez disidente (…) desnaturalizó palmariamente la tesis de un transporte supuestamente para mero autoconsumo individual de cada acusado. Vale decir además que este despropósito defensivo fue llevado a cabo por medio de sendas declaraciones de los acusados, rendidas con todas las garantías procesales y que además, no fueron responsabilidad del Tribunal (…) ni del Ministerio Público, lo que cabe considerar a los efectos del principio nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem (nadie puede alegar su propia torpeza), que se halla contemplado en el art. 439 del CPP.” (Cfr. contestación fiscal, se corrige el uso indebido de mayúsculas generalizadas en los nombres propios, aunque se respeta su grafía). Explica por qué, a su juicio, no se violó el principio in dubio pro reo y desciende al análisis del voto minoritario respecto del que critica varios temas fundamentales: uno, que la duda no debe recaer sobre temas esenciales o no explicables por las reglas de la psicología y que, en el caso de la variación en la versión del oficial sobre quién corrió, esto podía explicarse por el paso del tiempo; un segundo tópico, relativo a que se parte de una conjetura al mencionar la posible razón de la huida, pues el encartado no dijo que lo hiciera para que no le quitaran la sustancia, a más de que si bien el policía manifestó que [Nombre 016] estaba “atacado” o emocionado, el oficial no describió una conducta que evidenciara que tuviera su conciencia alterada, por lo que no es racional que, si solo pretendía que no le quitaran la droga, la lanzara al techo de donde otros podían tomarla o a él se le dificultaba recuperarla. Por esto califica esta duda de “rebuscada y artificiosa (…) marcadamente absurda e incluso contradictoria”. La tercera crítica que hace el fiscal al voto de minoría es que resulta irrelevante indicar en la acusación si el fin es de tráfico, pues el tipo penal solo necesita conocimiento y voluntad de transportar drogas y que lo que llevaban los encartados (ketamina, cocaína base crack y marihuana, lo eran) y se descartó el autoconsumo pues la permuta cae fuera de esa esfera. En cuarto lugar, critica el fiscal que el “tráfico de drogas” sea un “concepto bolsa”, como indicó el juez disidente, en donde todo cabe, para lo cual alude a los tratados sobre la materia ratificados por el país y al contenido del artículo: “No es verdad que el voto de mayoría expusiera en su fundamentación que una vez demostrado el transporte, cualquier destino sería un acto de tráfico de droga. Lo que el Tribunal señaló en su voto de mayoría fue que dadas las inconsistencias y contradicciones entre las manifestaciones de los acusados a lo largo del proceso acerca de las sustancias a las que decían ser adictos y los resultados de las pruebas toxicológicas, y el modo en que los acusados portaban drogas de diferente tipo, en dosis embaladas para su venta al detalle, junto a las mismas manifestaciones de los acusados acerca de la intención que tenían de suministrarse y distribuirse las drogas por medio de un trueque, debía excluirse tajantemente que el transporte de drogas obedeciera a un verdadero fin de autoconsumo individual.” (Cfr. contestación fiscal, se respeta la grafía original). En quinto término, tampoco comparte el argumento del voto minoritario de que sea importante si la investigación fue escasa o no existiera para acreditar otras finalidades. El fiscal se ampara en el criterio de la “Sala de Casación Penal” —cuyo nombre consigna mediante el uso gramaticalmente incorrecto de mayúsculas generalizadas, pese a que el previsto en la ley especial, artículo 56 de la Ley Orgánica del Poder Judicial, que prevalece sobre la general, es otro— para estipular que ese órgano ha indicado que no se requiere nada más que demostrar el transporte y el dolo simple y que el ente requirente tiene autonomía de investigación, de modo que el resto de afirmaciones del juez son, afirma, solo opiniones. “Tampoco es realidad, que el voto de mayoría condenó a los imputados porque no demostraron la finalidad de autoconsumo. Fue más bien que las declaraciones rendidas en juicio por los encausados, sumados (sic) al resto de indicios aspecto que ostenta máxima utilidad si se tiene en cuenta que la sentencia se dictó integralmente de forma oral de modo que, para descender al análisis de su contenido, conviene plasmarla (aunque de forma resumida) en un medio de más fácil manipulación como es el texto escrito. Luego, en otro apartado, se descenderá al análisis de los argumentos allí vertidos frente a los de ambas partes, no sin antes, en este segundo momento, hacer una introducción sobre lo que es esperable en una decisión jurisdiccional de cara a las reglas de argumentación jurídica, dejando de lado opiniones o pretensiones personales no derivadas de los documentos, pruebas o reglas jurídicas, conclusiones no derivadas de las premisas usadas o ataques personales o ideológicos.

(A) Resumen procesal. La acusación fiscal les atribuyó a los procesados lo siguiente: “El día 2 de febrero de 2024, al ser las 14:30 horas aproximadamente en San José, Curridabat, Tirrases, frente a Barrio Colonia Cruz, Calle El Mirador, en vía pública, los acusados [Nombre 009] y [Nombre 016] poseen y transportaban con fines de tráfico 60 dosis de cocaína, base crack, una punta de droga y veintidós puntas de la droga marihuana respectivamente, envueltos en bolsas plásticas transparentes, mientras caminaban de un lado de un lado, de Este a Oeste. En este mismo momento y lugar, oficiales de la Fuerza Pública se encontraban haciendo un recorrido de rutina, observan a ambos acusados caminando juntos en vía pública, siendo (sic) que al acercarse y notar la presencia policial toman actitud sospechosa, siendo (sic) que [Nombre 016] huye corriendo del sitio, siendo seguido de cerca por oficiales de Fuerza Pública, instante en que escasos 10 metros lanza un envoltorio plástico al techo de una de las viviendas, siendo detenido en ese mismo sitio y ubicando el paquete plástico que recién lanzó el techo, el cual contenía 22 puchos de la droga marihuana. Al mismo tiempo, oficiales de la Fuerza Pública realizan la detención de [Nombre 009], quien se quedó estático al notar la presencia policial, ubicándole 60 dosis de la droga cocaína, base crack y un pucho de Ketamina, por lo que ambos acusados fueron detenidos formalmente y se realiza el decomiso de la droga antes de descrita.” (El destacado es agregado, ver folios 88 a 89 del expediente físico).

En el juicio de reenvío —ordenado por otra integración de este tribunal (M. Escalante Quirós, R. Badilla Rojas y E. Montero Mena) luego de una primera sentencia absolutoria unánime apelada por la representación fiscal y cuyo recurso fue acogido según voto número 2024-1882, anulándose integralmente lo entonces decidido— compareció como testigo el oficial [Nombre 012] y se incorporó la prueba documental y pericial consistente en el informe o parte policial, el acta de decomiso de la droga y resultado de prueba de campo, dos dictámenes médico legales y dos toxicológicos de los encartados y su ampliación, dictámenes de química analítica de las sustancias decomisadas, datos de identificación de los encausados y certificación de sus antecedentes. La decisión se emitió oralmente, por mayoría, y está respaldada en un archivo audiovisual con una duración total de 1:03:54. Formalmente, en el apartado así denominado, se tuvo por demostrado lo siguiente: “ÚNICO: El día 02 de febrero del 2024, al ser las 14:30 horas aproximadamente, en San José, Curridabat, Tirrases, frente a Barrio Colonia Cruz, Calle el Mirador, en vía pública, los acusados [Nombre 009] y [Nombre 016] poseían y transportaban, con fines de tráfico, 60 dosis de cocaína base crack, una punta de ketamina y 22 puchos de marihuana, envueltos en bolsas plásticas transparentes, mientras caminaban de Este a Oeste.” (Minuta escrita de sentencia y marcador horario 12:42 en adelante del archivo audiovisual que contiene la sentencia oral, el énfasis es agregado). No obstante, la construcción de ese apartado denota que no fue lo exhaustiva que debió ser (para lo que se remite al voto de este tribunal, con una integración parcialmente similar a la actual: R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas y K. Jiménez, número 830-2022, en donde, entre otras similares, se explica el sentido y fin de las formas procesales que debe reunir una sentencia penal), pues de la exposición de la sentencia por la mayoría, entendida como unidad de sentido lógico-jurídico, se colige que esta tuvo por acreditados eventos adicionales como los que de seguido se enumerarán, no sin antes aclarar que la unión de ideas que se hará la efectúa esta cámara, pues la exposición de esos eventos fue dispersa a lo largo de todo el fallo, ocasión en que la cojueza (fuera de micrófono) complementaba la exposición del juez relator de mayoría (quien agregaba el dato que aquella le daba). Tampoco se usaron las mismas palabras para describir estos sucesos: a) Mientras circulaba la unidad policial, se topó a los encartados, quienes caminaban por la vía pública, momento en que [Nombre 016] corrió y lanzó una bolsa a un techo, fue perseguido y detenido por dos oficiales ([Nombre 012] y [Nombre 017]) y se determinó que dicho envoltorio contenía 22 puchos de cannabis sativa o marihuana con una masa de 6,17 gramos (contador horario 13:54 a 16:12 del archivo audiovisual que contiene la sentencia oral).

• b)Al requisar, el tercer policía de [Nombre 018], a [Nombre 009] le encontró 60 dosis de crack (de las que se analizaron, al azar, 45, con una masa estimada 105,40) y una punta de polvo sólido de algo que resultó ser ketamina y no cocaína, como se pensó inicialmente. [Nombre 016] narró eso al oficial [Nombre 012], quien fue el único que declaró en juicio (contador horario 16:38 a 19:17 del mismo archivo antes dicho). c) El 06 de febrero de 2024 se le hace el examen médico legal a [Nombre 009] y allí dijo ser adicto a crack y marihuana, que el crack (en cantidad de ocho piedras) lo consumió seis días atrás (sería el 31 de enero) y la marihuana cinco días antes de esa fecha (1 de febrero). En la valoración médica se indica que muestra signos clínicos compatibles con el consumo habitual de drogas. Luego en el dictamen toxicológico, que analiza una muestra tomada en la misma fecha, se determinó que dio positivo por cannabinoides, es decir, por consumo de marihuana; negativo por ketamina y confirmatorio en orina de metabolito de cocaína bensoilenonina (contadores 26:44 a 27:13 y 28:39 a 29:08 ibídem). d) El 06 de febrero de 2024 se le hace el examen médico legal a [Nombre 016] y allí dijo ser adicto, desde los 18 años, a diversas drogas: cocaína (dijo haberla consumido inhalada tres días atrás, sea el 02 de febrero), crack, ketamina —28:10 a 28:11—, clonazepam, tusi, cartones, etc. En la exploración médica no se encuentran signos de adicción ni de consumo prolongado a las drogas. Sin embargo, en una aclaración posterior de la pericia se indica que eso podría variar entre personas y que podría haber otros signos no contenidos en el dictamen. La prueba toxicológica dio negativa por cannabinoides, ketamina y metabolito de cocaína (contador 27:39 a 29:08 y 29:33 ibídem). e) El encartado [Nombre 009] carece de antecedentes penales y [Nombre 016] los tiene por portación ilícita de arma permitida (se le impuso dos años y seis meses con el beneficio que luego le fue revocado) y por robo agravado (pena de siete años de prisión).

Aunque la sentencia no consigna expresamente ningún apartado de “hechos no probados”, sí se deriva de su contenido que, para las personas integrantes de la mayoría del tribunal, hubo uno en ese carácter pues se tuvo por no demostrado que los encartados poseyeran o transportaran las sustancias que se les encontraron para consumo personal.

En cuanto al análisis intelectivo y fundamentos de la decisión apelada, esta, que fue condenatoria, se adoptó, como ya se dijo, por mayoría —con el voto salvado de un juez que absolvió—. En ninguna parte de lo resuelto se explica el método de deliberación usado (escalonada o total: para lo que se remite, entre otros, al voto de esta misma integración número 2024-1233), por lo que este tribunal debe inferir que fue la segunda habida cuenta que, respecto de la pena, nada se consigna. Los argumentos de mayoría para la condena fueron explicados a partir del minutero 13:50 en los siguientes términos que ahora, simplemente, se resumen, respetando el sentido de lo indicado, aunque sin usar, necesariamente, las mismas palabras: i. La patrulla, según dijo el oficial, va en sentido contrario a aquel en que caminan, juntos, los dos sujetos (que, a la postre, se identifican como los aquí encartados). Al estar a la par de ellos, el vehículo se detiene y es en ese momento que [Nombre 016] salió corriendo hacia la calle en que fue detenido. Dos oficiales lo siguen y ven que tira una bolsa al techo de una casa; lo detienen, buscan una escalera y bajan lo lanzado, determinándose que era marihuana. En el parte policial se dice que [Nombre 009] se quedó estático y por eso lo custodió el oficial [Nombre 016], pero en juicio el policía que declaró ([Nombre 012]) dijo que él también corrió y que aquel policía lo detuvo. Esa contradicción —dice el juez relator del voto de mayoría— no es grave ni incide en la decisión de considerar que el abordaje policial y la detención fueron legítimas, porque uno corre y a ambos se les decomisan sustancias que, en las pruebas de campo, se identifican como droga. En esos sucesos —fecha, hora, modo y lugar de la detención y de los decomisos, así como personas involucradas— no hubo controversia, pues los partes policiales y las actas coinciden con el dicho de los encartados y del oficial [Nombre 012], a quien se le da credibilidad pues no es enemigo de los acusados, sino que solo los conoce por haberlos visto, juntos o separados, tanto en puntos de venta o búnkers, como en las esquinas o deambulando, pero la intervención fue casi aleatoria, por salir corriendo. ii. No hubo ruptura de la cadena de custodia y lo analizado en los laboratorios fue lo mismo decomisado, determinándose que era droga: marihuana, crack y ketamina (esta última originalmente confundida por la policía con cocaína). iii. La discusión radica —sigue diciendo el juez relator del voto de mayoría— en el fin del transporte (aceptado por ambos) de esas sustancias. La única finalidad lícita de transporte es que sea para consumo personal, labor personalísima, cualquier otra está prohibida por la ley. Los acusados, en debate, dicen que son consumidores, que no se han puesto de acuerdo para ninguna compra de droga, sino que solo se encontraron a la salida del búnker cuando ya habían adquirido y toman la decisión de consumir juntos. [Nombre 009] había comprado crack (con un valor de 30 mil colones) y ketamina; dijo que consume crack “bañado”, prensado o en bazuco (en boleta, pone cuatro o cinco piedras con marihuana picada), no en tubo o piedra pero en los datos de identificación él refirió que solo fumaba marihuana (en juicio agrega que también consume crack). [Nombre 016] aludió a que consumía crack y marihuana (en juicio agregó la cocaína). Ninguno dijo, entonces, que consumía ketamina. De los dictámenes médicos y toxicológicos se colige que “…hubo un consumo de cannabinoides confirmatorio para ambos: confirmatorio en orina para [Nombre 016] y positivo presuntivo para el caso de [Nombre 009]. Pero ninguno, todos negativos, para el tema de la ketamina (…) Acá, entonces, lo que tenemos acá es una muestra de que, si bien es cierto ambos podrían consumir drogas, esteeee, de uso no autorizado, según estas pruebas toxicológicas, lo cierto del caso es que ustedes portaban ese día una droga en las condiciones en que las portaban, una por un lado, esteeee, en estas piedras de crack y una punta de ketamina, de la cual ninguno de los dos aparece como consumidor de ese tipo de droga, y por el otro lado la marihuana que portaba don [Nombre 016]” (ver secuencia horaria 29:58 a 30:55). Las declaraciones de los encartados pierden credibilidad y peso de que fueran a consumir por “…las posibilidades de que (…) por lo menos la punta de ketamina fuera destinada al consumo en primer lugar, y que la marihuana sola iba a ser destinada al consumo, dadas las formas en que ustedes dicen consumirla, según la declaración (…) de que en ese momento ustedes portaban esa droga para luego irla a consumir de la manera en que indicaron acá (…) aun y cuando nosotros dijéramos que, bueno, que iban a consumir esta droga, que iba a haber un consumo de ambos de esta droga, que era solo para el consumo y no tenía otro fin, otro distinto al establecido para el consumo, o sea cualquier otro fin que está prohibido para su transporte, entonces tendríamos que aceptar que ambos, al encontrarse en la calle y que deciden —tal y como ustedes aceptan— encontrarse, iban, entre ustedes, a distribuirse droga que ustedes no compraron con previo acuerdo. Es decir, ustedes fueron a un punto de venta, cada quien compró de manera individual o adquirió o llegó a hacerse poseedor de manera individual de distintos tipos de droga, y si fuera realmente la tesis de ustedes del consumo entre ustedes, de la forma en que ambos dijeron que la iban a consumir, que era un bazuco que requería la combinación de ambas drogas, quiere decir que [Nombre 009] tendría que haber distribuido y esa era su finalidad (la finalidad creyendo la tesis de defensa), su finalidad sería distribuir crack a [Nombre 016] para que consumiera crack y la finalidad de [Nombre 016] sería distribuir, suministrar, aunque sea de manera gratuita, suministrar marihuana a [Nombre 009] para que pueda consumir un bazuco. Y esa actividad es ilícita, es una actividad ilícita, es una actividad prohibida, el consumo es propio, es personalísimo, cualquier otro suministro, cualquier otra entrega de la droga es prohibida por ley. Entonces, aunque el tribunal considera, de todas maneras, que esa droga no era para el consumo, por lo menos no de la manera en que ustedes indicaron que iba a ocurrir, no había ni siquiera, inclusive su propia declaración destierra la posibilidad de que ustedes dos han llegado a un común acuerdo, hacer una banca, para ponerse a consumir la droga que ambos habían comprado, lo cierto del caso es que el tribunal, no teniendo por demostrado ni siquiera ese punto, ese aspecto, como transporte ilícito, lo cierto del caso es que la otra tesis planteada por ustedes también los lleva a un ilícito penal, que es el transporte de droga para la distribución y el suministro de la droga, sí, para suministrárselo mutuamente.” (Ver secuencia horaria 30:54 a 34:19). iv. La forma en que la droga iba individualizada (22 puchos de marihuana, 60 dosis de crack y la punta de ketamina) muestra que no estaba destinada al consumo propio, sino que podía (34:55) llevarse para la distribución o comercialización. [Nombre 009] portaba una punta de ketamina. Esto es importante porque ninguno admitió que era adicto, consumía o pensara ese día consumir la ketamina, entonces ¿qué iba a ocurrir con esa ketamina? Ese es el tema que nos habla, precisamente, de un transporte ilícito de una droga que no está permitida (minutero 34:37 a 35:33). v. El juez de mayoría alude al artículo 58 de la ley 8204 y a sus diversos verbos, todos individuales. Reitera que la única forma lícita de transporte de droga es para consumo personal o propio o por la policía cuando la decomisa y la lleva a las autoridades, lo cual es un permiso por cumplimiento de un deber legal. Agrega que se configuró el transporte típico porque los encartados sabían lo que llevaban y que era ilícito, al punto que hay una actitud evasiva al encontrarse la policía. [Nombre 016] dijo que eso fue porque venía muy pegado, muy loco, pero la policía no los ve consumiendo ni que vinieran bajo los efectos de ninguna droga. Don [Nombre 012] no les ve signos ni comportamientos relacionados con el consumo de drogas. (Ver secuencia horaria 37:44 a 38:25). vi. A partir del contador horario 41:35 del archivo audiovisual que contiene la sentencia, luego de que el juez relator ha aludido a los segmentos de la Teoría del Delito, se refiere a la sanción y justifica la pena mínima, de ocho años de cárcel, para [Nombre 009] por ser de limpios antecedentes y joven, sin reducción porque no hay circunstancias que hagan presumir que tenga vulnerabilidad por consumo ni se pueden otras sanciones. Para [Nombre 016], a partir del minuto 43:02 y hasta el 45:07, se indica que la situación es diferente porque cuenta con antecedentes por portación ilícita de arma permitida (dos años y seis meses de cárcel), se le había dado un beneficio de ejecución condicional de la pena que fue revocado por otra sentencia penal que lo encontró responsable de robo agravado, le impuso siete años y le sumó aquel otro monto. Refiere el juez que hubo un problema con el Registro Judicial por la forma de escribir el nombre ([Nombre 016] en una y [Nombre 016] en otra) pero ya hay dos condenas. Por eso, la pena mínima no es adecuada y se fijó la sanción en nueve años de cárcel, proporcional por ser joven. vii. Se dispuso la prórroga de la prisión para ambos para hacer efectiva la sentencia, aunque luego se aclaró (por observación de la cojueza) que a [Nombre 016] se le dictaba esa medida en ese momento porque antes no tenía. No se aludió a los peligros procesales de ninguno. También se decidió comunicar lo decidido a la Dirección General de Migración dada la situación irregular de [Nombre 016] (esto solo en la parte dispositiva).

Desde el contador horario 46:36 del archivo audiovisual que contiene la sentencia oral, el juez disidente expuso su voto de minoría sobre la base de las siguientes consideraciones: i. Hay temas fácticos entre la actuación policial y lo que se dice en la pieza acusatoria. Estima creíble, en su mayor parte, el dicho del policía [Nombre 012], máxime por el tiempo transcurrido desde la intervención hasta su declaración en este juicio. Aquí dijo que ambos sujetos corrieron y, al preguntársele qué habría sucedido si no lo hubieran hecho, el policía, transparentemente, manifestó que no los habrían intervenido. La acusación dice que [Nombre 009] no corrió sino que se mantuvo estático y aunque aquí el policía manifestara que sí lo hizo, hay una contradicción importante que incide en la intervención de la policía ¿hasta qué punto se le puede atribuir a [Nombre 009] la acción sospechosa de [Nombre 016] al correr? ii. Si se acepta la tesis fiscal, de que correr no es propio de quien va a consumir, se hace una suposición muy grande porque nadie puede aludir a una reacción atípica o anormal, también se puede pensar que se corra para evitar que le quitaran la droga y, por eso, la lanza al techo. iii.

La acusación cita el término genérico “fines de tráfico”, es como una bolsa donde cabe todo. (Justo en este segmento, minutero 52:29, es interrumpido porque uno de los acusados habla y manifiesta que se desea retirar, como en efecto se le permite y es sacado de la sala por los custodios). Para la mayoría cualquier finalidad que no sea consumo es ilícita, salvo el permiso de transporte de los policías. Todos tenemos por confirmado el transporte, ustedes (dirigiéndose a los encartados) no lo niegan. La mayoría dice que ese transporte era para la distribución o suministro entre ustedes dos, sin mediar acuerdo antes de la compra. Es inaceptable, sigue diciendo el juez de minoría, que —si el artículo 58 alude a 16 ó 17 verbos, cada uno de los cuales describe actividades ilícitas— el Ministerio Público venga con una investigación tan escasa que no permita decir a cuál de esas actividades era a la que se estaban dedicando los acusados. La hipótesis de distribución o suministro surge de la deliberación del tribunal, nunca la menciona el ente fiscal, quien se escuda en un elemento tan arcano e impreciso como es el “tráfico”, sin describir cuál actividad iban a realizar. Sí, es un asunto en flagrancia; sí, la investigación es corta, pero no significa que no amerite alguna, máxime cuando la pena es tan alta. Alude a los principios última ratio e inocencia y “…lo que se está, por lo menos a juicio de quién salva el voto, de quién vota disidentemente, lo que se está diciendo acá es que como ustedes no pudieron probar el tema de consumo y dijeron cosas que hacen pensar en un tema de suministro, entonces ergo, deben de ser condenados, cuando se supone que quien debía probar esa actividad diferente al consumo es el Ministerio Público dentro de la avalancha de posibilidades que hay con lo que ustedes declararon y de los hechos, el tribunal no puede, por lo menos yo no puedo, extraer como tribunal, fehacientemente que la droga no haya sido para el consumo, tal y como lo descartan los compañeros con los elementos indiciarios que utilizaron y que a los cuales no me voy a referir tantísimo porque son ya conocidos.” (Cfr, contador horario 55:40 a 56:34). De ese voto, y de otros de distintos tribunales, continúa exponiendo el juez disidente, se infiere que se ha invertido la carga de la prueba y se ha determinado un transporte sin contenido, o con contenido de indicio, como una actividad penalizada. iv. Jurisprudencialmente se ha establecido una diferencia entre que haya consumo con o sin acuerdo previo. Aquí se dijo que no hubo acuerdo previo. No comprendo —sigue diciendo el funcionario— en qué cambia el peligro a la salud pública. Muestra su desacuerdo con esa tesis. Si ambos llevan droga para consumir y se intercambian algo ¿cuál es el peligro para la salud pública con ello? Si no se hubieran encontrado, probablemente hubieran ido a consumir la droga de la misma manera, si la finalidad era el consumo y si era otra finalidad, en este juicio no se pudo demostrar, porque no había ningún elemento para mencionar la venta. Inclusive el juez expresa dudas porque el policía no recuerda si los acusados tenían elementos para el consumo; el fiscal dice que eso debe estar en alguna parte, el libro de entradas o de Oficialía, pero no los trajo. Los acusados dicen que sí andaban encendedores, situación que descalifica la mayoría del tribunal, sin que se sustente esta tesis de la mayoría en forma certera en la prueba. La duda también es sobre la lesión al bien jurídico, la intervención de la Fuerza Pública y las actuaciones que cada cual realizó, así como la diferencia entre el acuerdo previo o posterior para el consumo y eso no genera certeza y, por eso, se absuelve.

(B) Un excurso (largo, pero necesario) sobre el instrumental conceptual a aplicar. Este asunto, tanto por la naturaleza de los hechos, como por el contenido de la pieza fiscal, la historia procesal (diversos resultados extraídos por distintas personas juzgadoras), la argumentación de jueces y jueza de instancia así como, ante esta sede, de las partes, pone en evidencia la necesidad de enfatizar que, en los Estados de Derecho, las personas operadoras jurídicas no pueden apartarse de las normas que las vinculan, aunque estas no tengan el contenido que pretenden, ni pueden desligarse de la prueba, pues no son sus conciencias las que orientan el hacer. Por ello, esta cámara encuentra relevante hacer énfasis en tres temas fundamentales para la persona estudiosa del Derecho:

i.- por un lado, el rol de la jurisdiccionalidad en la solución de las controversias, frente a la cual todas ostentan la misma importancia y han de ser atendidas con la misma diligencia y cuidado. Por tal motivo en la dogmática procesal se parte de que la jurisdicción (como potestad estatal de resolver los conflictos) es una sola —a diferencia de la competencia, que es divisible en áreas temáticas— y la ejerce, en su integridad, tanto la persona juzgadora de una zona rural en un asunto contravencional como quien integra tribunales del máximo escalafón en la pirámide. De allí que, valga la aclaración tangencial, se incurre en una imprecisión dogmática al aludir a “jurisdicción de delincuencia organizada” “jurisdicción penal de hacienda”, etc. pues estas son sub-competencias materiales de la competencia, en este caso, penal. De lo dicho se colige que no hay “caso pequeño” y si alguien, impropiamente, cree que alguno puede serlo (como el decomiso, en flagrancia, de una pequeña cantidad de droga en manos de dos personas) se puede llevar la “sorpresa” de que allí se involucran enormes discusiones jurídicas, como algunas de las que aquí se van a abordar pues aquella consideración parte del sesgo de anclaje o el efecto DunningKruger (a los que se hará referencia más adelante) en donde, a mayor desconocimiento de un tema —y todos los seres humanos desconocemos, más o menos, la mayoría de tópicos, pues el conocimiento es procesual y las fuentes de información son, hoy, casi que inabarcables, aspecto que, en la filosofía griega, se sintetizaba con la frase, atribuida a Sócrates, “solo sé que no sé nada”—, mayor temeridad al hacer afirmaciones de ese tipo. Por lo mismo, el valor de la decisión de cada persona juzgadora es el mismo, independientemente del rol que tenga cuando está inserta en sistemas procesales donde opera el escrutinio vertical o grados y con independencia, también, de si queda en mayoría o minoría en un órgano colegiado que integre. Evidentemente si, frente a ese igual valor de todos los criterios jurisdiccionales, el ordenamiento jurídico no planteara ulteriores remedios, se podrían generar situaciones caóticas y se daría al traste con el fin del Derecho, que es la decisión civilizada de las controversias entre las personas. Así las cosas, para mitigar los efectos que esa equivalencia de valor en la decisión de cada juez o jueza pueda producir, los sistemas jurídicos —por decisión de política legislativa y en atención al principio constitucional de seguridad jurídica— adoptan reglas numéricas, tanto en las votaciones como en la integración de los tribunales. Así, por ejemplo, las decisiones dentro de un mismo órgano terminan aceptándose como válidas a partir de cierta mayoría (incorporación del principio constitucional democrático del numeral 1 de la Constitución Política vigente) y se establece el sistema de recursos, según el cual las decisiones de las personas juzgadoras de los órganos de control (que suelen tener, legalmente, mayores requisitos de selección) prevalecen, en el caso concreto, frente a las de quienes integran órganos de inferior rango, incorporándose así el principio constitucional de idoneidad previsto en el canon 192 constitucional. Ahora, esto, como tesis de principio, pues el que una decisión se adopte por mayoría o por un órgano superior no la hace “legítima per se” (esto es, extensible a otros casos por la fuerza de su armazón argumentativa), sino solo cuando, descendiendo a su contenido, este sigue las reglas prefijadas en el respectivo ordenamiento, en atención, precisamente, al respeto al principio de independencia judicial que, constitucional (artículo 154 de la norma superior) y convencionalmente (vgr. canon 8.1 de la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos) se prevé como una garantía de las personas, para que sus controversias sean decididas al margen de otros factores ajenos a lo jurídico. Y allí, entonces, surgen los límites jurisdiccionales (de cualquier tribunal, con independencia del grado, materia o integración), uno de los cuales está dado por:

ii.- la trascendencia de la argumentación jurídica en la decisión adoptada. En sistemas de juzgamiento de acento romano-germánico o continental-europeo como es el nuestro —en contraposición a las reglas que existen en otros sistemas jurídicos, como los anglosajones, indígenas, etc. pues, contrario a lo que solemos normalizar, el que usamos no es el único sistema jurídico válido— este tema es el que marca la validez de algunos razonamientos sobre otros (sin perjuicio de límites, que también deben estar en la normativa, para evitar discusiones eternas). Dicho de otro modo: una decisión de minoría puede estar mejor estructurada que una de mayoría, la cual puede presentar vicios que la invaliden, caso en el cual el asunto puede ser anulado para que se construya nuevamente la resolución integral. Asimismo, una decisión de un órgano de instancia puede ser más convincente y razonable (“más apegada a las reglas del derecho”) que una de un órgano superior en grado, situación en la cual, aunque esta última prevalece por seguridad jurídica, sus firmantes asumen la responsabilidad ante la ciudadanía y eximen de ella al otro órgano. La argumentación jurídica está inserta en todo trabajo con el Derecho: desde su creación (legislativa) hasta su aplicación (judicial). Entonces, si hiciéramos un “sobrevuelo” sobre nuestros sistemas jurídicos (en general) podríamos indicar, a grandes rasgos, que estos se caracterizan porque, para diseñarlos:

ii.a)- se debe legislar partiendo de un marco constitucional en el que se prevé la existencia de un Estado, es decir, un tercero que —en ejercicio del poder soberano que le fue dado en ese documento fundante (Constitución Política) reconocido como válido— va a resolver, inclusive, coactivamente, los conflictos de su población que se encuentren en su territorio. Por ello, es impropio que, en este contexto, se aluda a “ciudadanía” (como se menciona varias veces en el escrito fiscal de contestación) pues esta condición solo la tienen nacionales de cierta edad y en ejercicio de sus derechos políticos, mientras que la decisión de conflictos también involucra a personas extranjeras, menores de edad o, aún, inhabilitadas políticamente. Asimismo, a esa primera norma y en su texto mismo, se le da un valor dogmático que otras no pueden contradecir y, a partir de esa supremacía constitucional se desglosa una jerarquía de fuentes del derecho, en donde las reglas de menor rango no pueden contradecir a las de grado superior. Esto será importante retomarlo cuando se analice, por ejemplo, si la ketamina es una droga prohibida en este momento en el país o si lo que la jurisprudencia dice que contiene la ley prevalece al texto de esta según las reglas hermenéuticas utilizables en esa materia. Ese Estado Constitucional, además, fue definido, en el artículo 1 vigente, como Democrático, esto es, hay toma de decisiones por mayorías, sean simples o absolutas (lo que, como se dijo, se incorpora también a los sistemas decisorios de tribunales colegiados), pero en donde las minorías, por esa sola posición, no pierden la dignidad inherente a su condición de seres humanos ni renuncian a sus derechos fundamentales, sino que están amparadas por un as de instrumentos internacionales, suscritos y ratificados por el país que, por decisión nacional (artículo 27 de la Convención de Viena sobre el Derecho de los Tratados y votos número 282-90, 3435-92, 2315-93 , 2313-95, 1319-97, 4356-98 y 6830-98 de la Sala Constitucional), se incorporan al derecho interno y predominan por sobre regulaciones de menor rango. Asimismo, ese calificativo implica que hay una apuesta por la protección reforzada a la libertad, en sus múltiples manifestaciones (personal, de tránsito, de pensamiento, de expresión, de asociación, de reunión, económica, de culto, de cátedra, etc.) y por las garantías individuales, que incluyen las reglas de juzgamiento conforme al debido proceso. Ese Estado Democrático y Constitucional es, también, un Estado de Derecho y Republicano, es decir, donde quienes detentan el poder (tanto fáctico como institucionalizado) se someten a reglas jurídicas preexistentes en las que se establece un diseño de pesos y sobrepesos, con funciones definidas y en donde, en el caso costarricense, producto del conflicto de los años 40, se incorporaron a los tres poderes clásicos (Ejecutivo, Judicial y Legislativo), otros órganos de control (el Poder Electoral, autonomías reforzadas de algunas instituciones, Contraloría General de la República, etc.). Como puede verse, los calificativos constitucionales del “Estado” costarricense son muchos más que los que enumera el fiscal en su contestación y no es tan exacta su expresión según la cual “Nuestro Estado liberal, democrático y republicano tolera (no legitima) que alguien transporte…” pues justamente en atención al principio de autonomía de la voluntad (artículo 28 constitucional) y a esas otras características del régimen político, la libertad se convierte en la regla (dándole sustento a los principios constitucionales pro libertatis y pro persona) y la prohibición es la excepción (de allí la definición del Derecho Penal como un ‘orden discontinuo de ilicitudes’, porque la continuidad está dada por la libertad). Por ende, no es que el Estado tolere la libertad (lo no prohibido) sino que la potencia y esta es la esencia del sistema. Todo lo no prohibido queda legitimado por el principio de libertad. Como se expondrá enseguida, quien juzga debe analizar si las reglas jurídicas (tanto formales o procesales como sustanciales o de fondo) que aplica son conformes a ese modelo o si, por ejemplo en la definición del contenido de lo penalmente prohibido, se violenta o no ese esquema. ii.b) Se debe juzgar partiendo de reglas legítimas, vigentes y válidas (conforme a lo dicho atrás). En el derecho de fondo se trata de aplicar los métodos de interpretación (gramatical o restrictivo, histórico, teleológico, sistemático, analógico, genealógico, lógico…) adecuados a cada subdisciplina, así como los principios generales del derecho (vgr.: ley posterior deroga la anterior; ley especial prevalece sobre la general) y las reglas de vigencia en el tiempo, espacio y personas. Para la materia penal, en lo procesal, respecto de la valoración probatoria y la determinación del hecho histórico acaecido (y como principio cada vez más extendido a otras materias), se parte de un sistema de libertad probatoria donde, como regla general (con sus excepciones reguladas) cualquier hecho puede acreditarse por cualquier medio legítimo de prueba (artículo 182 del Código Procesal Penal). Esto introduce el sistema de libre valoración de la prueba o sana crítica (en contraposición a sistemas basados en la prueba legal o tasada o en conciencia o íntima convicción) en donde juegan un papel fundamental otras áreas del conocimiento humano, como las ciencias sociales dentro de las cuales es altamente relevante la psicología para valoración de las manifestaciones y el comportamiento humano, las ciencias formales para efectuar una argumentación explicativa lógica, derivada de la prueba y no meramente especulativa —aunque esto no quiere decir que sean admisibles, como prueba, indicios con sentido anfibológico, temas que no deben confundirse—, completa (es decir, sin preterición de prueba o argumentos) y no contradictoria. También se ubican las ciencias “duras” (para extraer principios de la física en dinámica de hechos, conocimientos de balística, del cuerpo humano, de Medicina Legal, criminalística, etc.). En múltiples ocasiones esta misma integración ha insistido en que las nociones de libertad probatoria y sana crítica no constituyen patentes de corso con las cuales disfrazar la subjetividad o arbitrariedad de las personas decisoras o de las partes que argumentan a favor de sus tesis. Antes bien, la dogmática procesal contemporánea explicita una serie de criterios —válidos a esta fecha según el estado actual del conocimiento humano— para decidir cuál medio o elemento de prueba prevalece sobre otro, si varios se complementan o excluyen entre sí, cuál versión es aceptable y cuál no, etc. Así se ha dicho que:

«…en la misión de objetivar el nivel de verificabilidad de la información introducida a un juicio, entre los que se menciona (i) algunos relacionados con la persona declarante por sí misma, enfatizándose en la ausencia de incredibilidad subjetiva, es decir, que sin entrar a analizar minuciosamente el relato, objetivamente no haya razones para considerar que la versión se emita por móviles espurios para culpar indebidamente o exculpar a alguien en forma deliberada por la obtención de beneficios procesales, económicos o personales (vgr.: personas condenadas por falso testimonio; documentos alusivos al pago por beneficios, alegatos de venganza, obediencia, incapacidad física de ver u oír y hacer referencias de este tipo, etc.). Aquí es necesario atender a las características propias?de?la personalidad del declarante, fundamentalmente a su desarrollo y madurez mental y (ii) otros alusivos al contenido de lo narrado que incluyen verificar lo siguiente: (a)?Coherencia del relato: se analiza la estructura de la declaración para verificar si esta posee contradicciones internas en su propio hilo discursivo actual o con el resto?de?las probanzas y descartar que la versión sea absolutamente fantasiosa o increíble y que se dé la persistencia en la incriminación y de sus detalles a lo largo del tiempo. (b)?Contextualización?de?la declaración: de tal forma que permita inferir circunstancias temporales, ambientales, espaciales en que sucedieron los hechos narrados, pues la percepción mental no suele concentrarse en un tema sino captar el conjunto. (c)?Corroboraciones periféricas con datos objetivos: es decir, se trata de la posibilidad de que aún temas secundarios encuentren soporte en otros medios o elementos probatorios que les den verosimilitud o que confirmen algunos extremos. (d)?Aparición?de?detalles oportunistas en la declaración: esto permite enfocar cómo, a través?del interrogatorio incluso sobre temas menores, pueden aparecen nuevos detalles que permiten confirmar o falsear la declaración y hacer un mejor control?sobre su logicidad y lo completo de esta. Un análisis pormenorizado de esos factores permite descartar la asunción de decisiones en íntima convicción, disfrazadas con un lenguaje analítico, al estilo de esbozar una serie de palabras (creíble, confiable, veraz, etc.) pero sin darles contenido. Sin embargo, no basta que alguno de ellos esté presente para que, ipso facto, se descalifique la prueba, sino que obliga a ser más escrupuloso en el examen (…) parece requerir exactitud en las declaraciones para darles credibilidad, olvidando que la falta de esta no necesariamente es signo de mendacidad pues cada persona narra los hechos según el desarrollo cognitivo, cultural, lingüístico y de memoria que tenga. Se sabe que la capacidad para entender, verbalizar y reproducir los hechos varía en cada ser humano y para comprenderlo ha surgido la psicología del testimonio (rama de la psicología que, como toda ciencia, está en constante evolución y no es estática), la cual se ha ocupado, entre otras cosas, de explicar la funcionabilidad de la memoria, describiendo cómo en el recuerdo de los sucesos convergen tres elementos: la memoria sensorial (que depende de la percepción que tenga quien declara y que, a su vez, está influenciada por factores como su capacidad de visualización, de escucha, de atención, el nivel visual en que se encuentra, la distancia, luminosidad, duración del evento, edad de la persona que percibe, su estado emocional, etc.), la memoria de corto plazo (que codifica y descodifica la información trasmitida por la memoria sensorial, ya sea de forma visual, espacial o verbalmente y da significado a lo percibido por los sentidos) y la memoria de largo plazo (la cual utiliza dos fuentes: la memoria semántica que recupera el conocimiento cognitivo general según coordenadas de espacio y tiempo de quien aprende y la memoria autobiográfica o episódica que almacena nuestras experiencias en forma de “huellas mnémicas”. Sin embargo, esos rastros de la memoria no permanecen intactos, sino que se van modificando por varios factores. Uno de ellos es la degradación por el paso del tiempo en cuanto a detalles menos consistentes con el esquema general; otro factor tiene que ver con el proceso de recodificación de la información original, lo cual se da por actividades mentales superiores del ser humano [Cfr. Ferrer, Francisco; Dieuzide, María (2018). Psicología del testimonio: los siete pecados de la memoria en testigos y víctimas. Revista Pensamiento Penal, Argentina y Atkinnson, R. y Shiffrin, R. (1983) Human memory. A proposed system and its control processes. En: K. W. Spence y J.T. spence (eds.). The psychology of learning and motivation: advances is research and theory. Nueva York: Academic press (trad. cast. En M.V. Sebastián, comp. Lecturas de psicología de la memoria, Alianza Universidad)]. En virtud de lo anterior, tan sospechoso puede ser un relato que se modifica constantemente denotando la ausencia de un núcleo que haya marcado una impronta en el recuerdo, como una versión que permanece invariable en el tiempo, aún en los detalles más pequeños (lo que es contrario a la gradación de la huella mnémica por la insignificancia de lo captado). Inclusive, muchos de los argumentos del profesional que impugna parten de este sesgo, pues cuestiona y califica como anómalo (cuando no necesariamente lo es) que haya habido variaciones u omisiones en el relato entre el momento de la denuncia y la declaración en juicio sin que tal proceder sea irregular, según la literatura especializada, sino que suele ser común no necesariamente por el solo paso del tiempo y madurez de las personas sino, sobre todo, por el proceso terapéutico y de empoderamiento al que una persona se ha sometido para recordar sin ‘bloqueos’ y sin dolor, máxime ante sucesos traumáticos o violentos como los que se describen en esta causa…» Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia Penal de San José, voto número 452-2024.

Las neurociencias y el estudio de los fenómenos de atención, percepción, orientación y memoria dan mayores insumos para valorar, de mejor manera, ciertos medios de prueba. Asimismo, hay ciertos trastornos que afectan la memoria (como la amnesia en sus diversos tipos: retrógrada, anterógrada, lacunar, disociativa o global que es una pérdida de recuerdos, hechos, información y experiencias; la paramnesia o vivencia de delirios como recuerdos; la criptomnesia o memoria implícita que considera una idea original cuando se trata de un pensamiento inducido o previo producto del entorno y la ecmesia en que hay una vivencia de situaciones del pasado como si fueran actuales) que, por tanto, introducen distorsiones en la información que se obtenga en un proceso. Más adelante, cuando descendamos al caso específico, veremos por qué este marco conceptual es relevante.

ii.c) Por último, se debe decidir a partir de las reglas de la sana crítica (brevemente enunciadas atrás), pero se debe motivar lo resuelto siguiendo las reglas del lenguaje, tanto del idioma oficial a usar como del sub-lenguaje jurídico, usando correctamente los términos jurídicos para no generar confusiones semánticas respecto de los sentidos de las palabras que, en cada disciplina, tienen un significado acotado (por ello se insiste, a título meramente ejemplificativo, en la diferencia entre plazotérmino, caducidad-prescripción, vulva-vagina, entre muchos otros conceptos que, con no poca frecuencia, se usan indistintamente de modo erróneo). En no pocas ocasiones la decisión adoptada por un tribunal es correcta (verbigracia a quién se le cree, qué prueba prevalece sobre otra, qué sucedió, quién lo hizo) pero se falla en la explicación de esa decisión. En esa labor de explicitar una decisión, es fundamental la lógica, subdisciplina derivada de la filosofía que nos conduce a desterrar los paralogismos o falacias argumentativas, tanto formales —que generan una inferencia no válida entre las premisas y hacen surgir un error que descansa en la estructura del argumento, entre las que se enumera la negación del antecedente que usa un condicional y cuando se niega el primer elemento, se infiere incorrectamente que el segundo también queda negado (“si le doy un regalo será mi amigo; si no le doy regalo, no será amigo”); la afirmación del consecuente que también parte de un condicional, pero afirma el segundo elemento y de esto se infiere incorrectamente como verdadero el primero (“Si apruebo, descorcho el champán; descorcho el champán, por ende aprobé”); el término medio no distribuido o silogismo disyuntivo falaz en donde el elemento central del silogismo que conecta a dos proposiciones no aparece en la conclusión (“Todo francés es europeo, algún ruso es europeo, por tanto algún ruso es francés”); la negación falaz de la conjunción se produce cuando no se da un fenómeno como resultado de un conjunto de elemento, por lo que se niega uno de esos elementos (“Un buen pastel requiere harina y huevos; el pastel no quedó bien, por tanto no se le puso harina”); el silogismo categórico con premisas negativas donde ambas premisas son negación y de ellas no se puede concluir válidamente nada (“Ningún mamífero tiene plumas; ningún ratón tiene plumas; ergo, ningún mamífero es un ratón”); la falacia de cuatro términos en donde uno de los términos tiene dos significados y el silogismo parte de solo tres elementos para su validez (“El hombre es el único animal capaz de crear la rueda; la mujer no es un hombre; la mujer no puede crear una rueda”); la falacia de conversión ilícita en que se invierte incorrectamente la relación de los términos de una proposición (“Todos los perros son mamíferos, por lo tanto, todos los mamíferos son perros”), la falacia de la premisa existencial en que se extraen conclusiones sobre la existencia de algo a partir de proposiciones universales, sin premisas que lo justifiquen (“Los dragones escupen fuego. Ergo, los dragones existen”) o la afirmación de una falsa disyuntiva o alternativa excluyente (“Es A o B; si es B, no es A”)— como no formales. En estas últimas el error de razonamiento se basa en el contenido de las premisas, no en la estructura del argumento. Son múltiples los ejemplos, por lo que, sin perjuicio de profundizar más adelante en algunas aplicables al caso concreto, solo se mencionarán algunas falacias informales:

*ad populum o sofisma populista (la validez de la información se basa en la cantidad de gente que apoya la premisa); *ad ignorantiam (como no se puede demostrar que la idea es falsa, se acepta como verdadera). Dentro de esta categoría se ubica la falacia de conclusión inatinente o ignoratio elenchi en que muchas veces de forma intencionada, para distraer la atención, se busca probar el punto equivocado que no está relacionado con el tema tratado; *ad hóminem (se desacredita el mensaje atacando al emisor por alguna de sus características personales); *ad baculum (la estructura de un argumento se sustenta recurriendo a la imposición, la amenaza o la violencia para persuadir); *ad antiquitatem (se acude a las tradiciones como guía básica para proceder en la cotidianeidad); *ad novitatem (se acude a la novedad como respaldo de veracidad); *ad nauseam (repetir una misma idea las veces suficientes para hacerla real a la persona interlocutora); *ad misericordiam (se acude a la lástima o piedad para reforzar la idoneidad de lo que se pretende lograr); *ad crumenam y ad lazarum (en el primer caso, se atribuye la veracidad al argumento porque quien lo usa es rico y, en el segundo, porque es pobre); *de ambigüedad o antanaclasis que se subdividen en: equívoco partiendo de los diferentes contenidos de un término; anfibología en sentido similar al anterior pero la confusión surge de las premisas de la oración y no del contenido de las palabras; énfasis, acento o ambigüedad fonética en que el entendimiento errado del mensaje surge de un error en la entonación; de composición en que el todo es de la misma naturaleza que las partes tipo “el limón es ácido, la torta es de limón, la torta es ácida” y de división que atribuye que lo que es cierto para el conjunto lo es para las partes del tipo “la universidad A es excelente; Juan es de la Universidad A, Juan es excelente”; *ad verecundiam o de autoridad (se vincula la veracidad de la proposición a la autoridad de quien la defiende); *ad consequentiam (la validez o no de una idea depende de si lo que se puede inferir de ella es deseable o no); *de generalización apresurada (de datos individuales, insuficientes para extrapolarlos, se extraen conclusiones generales); *de evidencia incompleta o anecdótica (se llega a conclusiones desde información de mala calidad); *del “hombre” de paja (la idea no se refuta siguiendo el hilo argumental expuesto, sino con un argumento distinto: “queremos que los jóvenes lean literatura; o sea, quieren que los jóvenes dejen de hacer deporte”); *de composición (si algo es verdadero en su conjunto se parte de que todo dentro de ese conjunto lo sea: “dentro del universo cada fenómeno tiene una causa, ergo, el universo tiene una causa”); *del punto medio, moderación o compromiso (se adopta una postura equidistante a dos en pugna sin considerar si alguna de las premisas en pugna es de mayor valor que la otra); *falacia tu quoque: se crea la ilusión de refutar un argumento señalando que la persona que lo propone no actúa en consecuencia con esa idea y, *post hoc ergo propter hoc (si un hecho sucede después de otro, se asume que este es consecuencia de aquel: “el dólar bajo y el volcán hizo erupción, ergo el volcán hizo erupción porque el dólar bajo")— [para un desarrollo amplio de este tema, cfr. Arroyo Gutiérrez, José Manuel y Rodríguez Campos, Alexander (2002). Lógica jurídica y motivación de la sentencia penal. Escuela Judicial, San José, Costa Rica].

También integra el correcto entendimiento humano la experiencia (que no debe confundirse con el conocimiento privado del tribunal, el cual, de usarse, genera un yerro al imposibilitar a las partes contrarrestar la información de allí derivada) y la psicología elemental. Mientras que la lógica, de la filosofía, aporta el instrumental analítico de las falacias, la psicología, de las ciencias sociales, incursiona en los sesgos cognitivos o heurísticas que, grosso modo, pueden conceptualizarse como atajos mentales en la toma de decisiones para economizar recursos y garantizar la eficiencia o la supervivencia, pero que generan distorsiones de la información y del razonamiento. Aunque, en algunos casos, hay similitud en los nombres y efectos de falacias formales o no formales y algunos sesgos cognitivos o heurísticas, estos vicios del razonamiento surgen en momentos distintos. Los últimos aparecen en el percibir o actuar inmediato de las personas, las primeras en la exposición más pensada y mediatizada de las ideas. Así, cuando las personas que integran un tribunal toman decisiones inmediatas, al calor de las circunstancias y exponen verbalmente sus ideas, como sucede en el dictado de sentencias orales, es más probable que se identifiquen sesgos en tanto que si las exponen por escrito más detallado la probabilidad conduce a identificar falacias. Sin embargo, las líneas pueden cruzarse y unas no excluyen a las otras. El listado de sesgos cognitivos o heurísticas es enorme, pero entre los más comunes pueden ubicarse:

*el de confirmación (se trata de la tendencia a encontrar y recordar la información que confirma nuestras opiniones o percepciones, temas ahora exponenciados por los algoritmos de las redes sociales); *de anclaje (se confía demasiado en la primera información ofrecida al tomar decisiones); *de supervivencia (se incurre en un error en la selección de objetos, personas o datos al confiar solo en los casos de éxito y omitir los negativos en donde puede estar la clave de la explicación); *retrospectivo (tendencia a reconstruir el pasado para compatibilizarlo con el conocimiento actual y olvidando las limitaciones del tiempo anterior) y de retrospección idílica (juzgar el pasado de forma desproporcionadamente positiva respecto del presente, al estilo de “todo tiempo pasado fue mejor”); *de correspondencia, de error de atribución o de efecto de sobre atribución (sobrevalorar los motivos internos al intentar explicar un fenómeno o comportamiento, dejando de lado o minusvalorando motivos externos. A las demás personas se les juzga por su personalidad pero a cada uno de nosotros mismos por la situación); *de favoritismo del endogrupo (se muestra la preferencia y se favorece a quienes pertenecen a un mismo grupo, en comparación con quienes están fuera de él, lo que en nuestros ambientes suele estar ligado a la cita de pronunciamientos de nuestras mismas oficinas y no de otras); *de arrastre o efecto Bandwagon (tendencia de las personas a adoptar creencias, comportamientos o actitudes simplemente porque un gran número de personas piensan o asumen tal comportamiento o creencia, por ejemplo, recientemente, el efecto en redes sociales de hacer imágenes al estilo Ghibli sin analizar sus efectos en la entrega de datos de reconocimiento facial, el medio ambiente o el empleo); *de falso consenso (tendencia a pensar que muchas personas piensan parecido a cómo cada cual lo hace, tópico explotado por las redes sociales con sus algoritmos que generan “burbujas” de afinidades); *del mundo justo (parte de que las personas obtienen lo que merecen: las personas justas recibirán cosas buenas y las malas, cosas malas; es una tendencia de protección de la autoestima); *el efecto Dunning-Kruger (personas con capacidades limitadas en ciertos campos, por esas limitaciones, sobreestiman su capacidad y desempeño pues no pueden visibilizar sus falencias); *la taquipsiquia (toma su nombre del síntoma de la esquizofrenia o el trastorno bipolar relativo al aceleramiento del pensamiento pero se trata de la distorsión que a veces tenemos los seres humanos respecto del paso del tiempo); *la maldición del conocimiento (una persona, en el proceso comunicativo, asume que la persona interlocutora posee su misma información y puede entender lo que está explicando, lo que se muestra, en este asunto, cuando el defensor privado, en frases alambicadas que se transcribieron al resumir su alegato, no explica adecuadamente qué fue lo que sucedió con la versión del policía en los dos juicios y presupone que este tribunal tiene sus mismos datos, lo que, entonces, hizo ininteligible lo que inicialmente indicó, que se aclaró al descender al examen de los registros históricos de este caso); *el efecto halo (nuestra impresión o valoración de una persona, idea u objeto la hacemos surgir de la forma en que se valora una propiedad de esa persona, idea u objeto. Si a primera vista surge algo positivo, o negativo, de la persona o situación se tiende a extender eso al resto); *la disponibilidad (tendencia de los seres humanos a juzgar la frecuencia o disponibilidad de un acontecimiento por la facilidad de pensar ejemplos de esa situación. Lo determinante es la facilidad de imaginación o recuerdo que se extiende a otros aspectos: si recientemente ha sucedido un accidente de aviación se tiende a pensar que viajar es avión es más peligroso que hacerlo en auto, por ejemplo, pues aquel era el recuerdo disponible en la mente); *la cascada de disponibilidad (ante la necesidad psicológica de aceptación social, las creencias colectivas terminan aceptándose por repetición pública, fenómeno explotado por los boots informáticos en redes sociales); *el realismo ingenuo (tendencia a creer que las demás personas son irracionales o no están informadas, pero nosotros sí observamos la situación de forma objetiva, muy propio del litigio que enfatiza en los argumentos que estima “correctos” sin evidenciar otros que subyacen o no se quieren ver); *el efecto de tercera persona (como el considerar que son los demás, y no nosotros, los afectados por los sesgos subliminales de los procesos comunicacionales); *prejuicio de punto ciego (creer que no se tienen prejuicios, pero los demás sí); *sesgo de disconformidad (realizar un escrutinio crítico de la información cuando esta contradice lo que se cree pero no hacerlo si la información es congruente con las creencias propias); *el efecto forer (hacer atribuciones o descripciones vagas que se pueden aplicar a muchas situaciones, como en astrología, grafología o adivinación o como cuando los tribunales copian “machotes” de lo que es la fundamentación pero no la hacen o los y las litigantes dicen cómo debe ser la decisión pero no efectúan la crítica de la argumentación específicamente dada); *el sesgo de automatización (confiar demasiado en los procesos automatizados obviando que son alimentados por personas o que la programación puede fallar. Por ejemplo, la creencia de que la Inteligencia Artificial o ChatGPT es infalible; que la justicia automatizada será mejor, etc.); *sesgo del status quo (valorar más lo que permanece estable, de allí que “la jurisprudencia” tiende a tener más valor que un pronunciamiento que vea de forma distinta o nueva el mismo fenómeno); *efecto spotlight: (tendencia a sobreestimar la cantidad de personas que notan la apariencia o el comportamiento de uno); *el efecto Zeigarnik (recordar las tareas incompletas y no las que se han completado); *sesgo cultural (interpretar los fenómenos a partir de los estándares de la propia cultura o universalizarlos sin dejar de ver su impronta reducida); *sesgo de autoservicio (usar la información ambigua como beneficiosa para nuestros propósitos); la atribución defensiva (la persona observadora atribuye las causas de un fenómeno a una causa falsa para minimizar su miedo de ser víctima o causa de algo similar); *la homogeneidad de grupo (las personas de un grupo ven a los de otros grupo como más similares entre sí que a los de su grupo. Por ejemplo, en materia de reconocimientos en rueda de personas, cuando un sujeto es indígena, afrodescendiente o asiático y quien reconoce no pertenece a ese grupo, este tiende a ver a todos los de esas nacionalidades o pertenencias con similares características por lo que el riesgo de error es mayor, y a la inversa); *sesgo de autoridad (se confía en la información porque la emite una autoridad); *sesgo de efecto placebo (error cognitivo o de percepción que hace atribuibles efectos a causas que no los generan); *la ley de Parkinson de la trivialidad o bikeshedding (las personas tendemos a perder más tiempo en aspectos sin trascendencia, lo que resulta problemático cuando eso genera frustración y no bienestar); *el efecto Ikea (dar mayor valor a un producto solo porque la persona ha contribuido a su fabricación) y (entre cientos más), el metasesgo (creer que nosotros no tenemos sesgos pero sí los demás).

También son sesgos los estereotipos que son ideas simplificadas que tiene un grupo sobre la realidad o las características identitarias de otras personas (nacionalidad, etnia, sexo, género, edad, religión, etc.) derivadas de la matriz cultural en que se está inserto y que, por eso, imposibilitan ver otras realidades o características y se asumen como únicas válidas, generando una jerarquización entre lo que comparte mi estereotipo (con mayor valor) y lo que no (que pasa a ser un ‘otro’ desterrado). Por ejemplo, partir de que nuestro sistema de juzgamiento es el único válido (idea muy generalizada en Occidente) es un estereotipo, como también lo es considerar que el lenguaje es objetivo o neutro y, por ello, negarse a usar un lenguaje inclusivo para las distintas poblaciones, desconociendo que las reglas idiomáticas oficiales surgen o emanan de órganos de poder con ciertas características asumidas culturalmente y minimizando la importancia de un sistema normativo, convencional (jerárquicamente superior a las reglas idiomáticas), que obliga a los órganos estatales desterrar expresiones discriminatorias contenidas en las estructuras oficiales del léxico— [para un desarrollo amplio del tema de los sesgos cognitivos, que suele pasarse desapercibido en nuestro medio, cfr. Porter Aguilar, Raymond (2024). Razonamiento y argumentación jurídica. Antología. Escuela Judicial, FIAJ, San José, Costa Rica].

Ahora se entiende que la perorata anterior pretende evadir el sesgo de la “maldición del conocimiento”, según el cual se asume que todas las personas operadoras jurídicas parten de las mismas bases conceptuales y hacen uso del mismo instrumental de razonamiento, cuando no necesariamente es así.

Entonces, para cerrar la idea inicial, si la jurisdicción es una sola y esta se expresa argumentativamente, el valor de convencimiento de un razonamiento estará dado ya no por simples temas numéricos (voto de mayoría o minoría) o jerárquicos (rol de los órganos) sino por la mayor rigurosidad que se tenga tanto al momento de examinar la prueba, extraer los datos relevantes de ella y usar las reglas jurídicas, procesales y de fondo, para el escrutinio de los datos fácticos y jurídicos que deban aplicarse como de exponer ese proceso. Por supuesto que, ya se dijo, en atención a la seguridad jurídica, quien legisla puede estipular, y con frecuencia lo hace, topes normativos (como el dotar de valor indiscutible la decisión de un órgano en la cúspide; el regular el doble conforme, la cosa juzgada formal y material, etc.) todo ello en el afán de evitar discusiones interminables y zanjar la controversia. Aunque esto es válido, el contenido de la argumentación, si no cumple con aquellas reglas, no es extrapolable a otros casos. Por ello se afirma, sin ambages, que en un sistema jurídico democrático es la rectitud argumentativa bajo aquellos parámetros, y no las falacias o los sesgos, lo que debe predominar. El tercer elemento por destacar es, iii.- la importancia de un diseño arquitectónico-legislativo adecuado del sistema judicial para potenciar la razón y no la autoridad: desarrollar este tema escapa a las pretensiones de esta decisión, pero basta ejemplificar con dos situaciones que pueden observarse en este caso sobre cómo un inadecuado diseño normativo de la arquitectura judicial puede dar al traste con los esfuerzos argumentativos, y con ello, con el valor de la jurisdiccionalidad. El primer ejemplo es cuando la legislación común le da potestad a un órgano de imponer su motivación fáctica e interpretación del derecho a todos los demás jueces y juezas (que, como ese órgano, desarrollan en igualdad de condiciones, la jurisdiccionalidad). En esos casos se estaría violando un principio que, en la jerarquía de normas estipulada en la Constitución Política y en los tratados de derechos humanos, prevalece, cual es la independencia judicial. De allí que este tipo de regulaciones solo sean válidas si se incorporan al derecho constitucional y convencional. Por eso, en Costa Rica no serían inconstitucionales disposiciones que hacen vinculantes, para todos los casos, los argumentos de tribunales constitucionales o internacionales, pues así lo permiten normas de rango superior como, respectivamente, el artículo 13 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional —ley de valor reforzado, derivada del numeral 10 constitucional— y el numeral 27 de la Convención de Viena sobre el Derecho de los Tratados en relación con el valor de intérprete supremo que cada convenio estipulada para ciertos órganos. Sin embargo, sí serían contrarias a la norma suprema las disposiciones establecidas en leyes comunes o reglamentos, que pretendan imponer el criterio de uno a los demás órganos dotados de jurisdiccionalidad (principio constitucional) más allá del caso concreto (pues, para este, prevalece el tema de jerarquía e idoneidad constitucional que aquella supone, a más de la seguridad jurídica ya referida). Por esta razón, este tribunal desciende a los diversos argumentos expuestos en votos (tanto de otros tribunales de apelación como de la Sala Tercera) y no los asume, como pretende el fiscal, como argumentos incuestionables (lo que es una falacia de autoridad), aunque el Código Procesal Penal (ley ordinaria) haya aludido a la pretensión de unificación de criterios (artículo 468 inciso a), dado que este cuerpo normativo no puede contrariar uno de mayor valor. La segunda situación relevante, producto de lo que se viene diciendo, es que ese igual valor del criterio jurisdiccional ha sido la razón histórica subyacente para que los tribunales se conformen de modo impar: si fueran pares y el criterio de sus integrantes estuviera dividido por la mitad, al tener el mismo valor todos los votos y no poder hacerse uso del tema cuantitativo, la decisión sería imposible. Por esto mismo, históricamente también, el órgano superior en grado usualmente se ha integrado por un número mayor de integrantes respecto del de grado inferior: para evitar los empates en criterios jurisdiccionales totales. Por ejemplo, piénsese en el caso de que un órgano de instancia resuelve, por mayoría, en un sentido y una persona juzgadora estima otra cosa. Eso llega en impugnación a un tribunal colegiado integrado por el mismo número de personas que el a quo y allí la decisión vuelve a ser dividida, pero ahora en sentido inverso (la mayoría del ad quem es del criterio del juez o jueza disidente de instancia y quien salvó el voto en la impugnación coincide con la mayoría del a quo). En tal caso, técnicamente habría tres votos a favor de una tesis y tres en contra. Si la jurisdicción que cada juez o jueza ejerce tiene el mismo valor, se daría un empate técnico que solo puede solventarse acudiendo a soluciones extra-argumentativas, es decir, jerárquicas o de autoridad, cual es decir que el criterio de unos vale más que otros, tema en el cual el diseño democrático-argumentativo se deteriora. Lamentablemente este es el sistema procesal penal con que cuenta el país desde hace bastante rato, producto de las reformas que se han realizado con el discurso manifiesto de abordar la condena al país en el caso de Mauricio Herrera Ulloa (sentencia de la Corte IDH de 02 julio de 2014): un tribunal colegiado de tres personas en instancia puede decidir de modo dividido y la apelación corresponde a un superior en grado integrado por el mismo número de personas juzgadoras. Eso mismo se da en las resoluciones unipersonales de juez o jueza penal respecto de la persona juzgadora de contravenciones y tratándose de juez o jueza penal frente a juez o jueza de juicio. Pese a ese vicio estructural, dado que es el sistema diseñado legalmente y a este órgano le rige el principio de legalidad procesal, debe estarse a él, pero se expone lo anterior solo como evidencia de las implicaciones que eso puede tener en la calidad argumentativa y el principio de jurisdiccionalidad.

Tampoco significa que eso sea lo que se ha dado en el presente caso. Si bien a la fecha cuatro personas juzgadoras (tres de la primera decisión anulada y el disidente en el voto en examen) han considerado que los encartados deben ser absueltos y cinco (tres de la anterior apelación, porque hallaron errores en la construcción de la decisión, y dos de instancia en la sentencia ahora recurrida, porque están convencidos de la culpabilidad), han estimado que no procede la absolutoria, resta que esta cámara haga la definición a partir de un nuevo análisis. Aunque teóricamente podría suceder que se dé ese “empate argumentativo” (en caso de que el voto de este tribunal fuese dividido y la mayoría se sumara al criterio de los otros cuatro juzgadores o juzgadoras y el voto salvado se uniera al de los otros cinco, caso en el cual quedaría 6-6) y entonces la decisión que predomine sea la última, al margen de su racionalidad, lo cierto es que esta integración tratará de evidenciar los yerros argumentativos, tanto en el voto de mayoría como de minoría y en los alegatos de las partes, de modo que generen un juicio de convicción unánime. Valga concluir diciendo que, si bien se expondrán falacias y sesgos en los razonamientos de otros sujetos procesales, eso no significa, en modo alguno, que en esta misma argumentación no los haya, sin que nos percatemos de ello, pese al cuidado que se ha extremado para no incurrir en ellos, tarea que le compete a las partes evidenciar.

(C) El caso concreto examinado a la luz del instrumental dicho. Si se parte, entonces, de aplicar estrictamente las reglas argumentativas-jurídicas, que es lo que exige la normativa a los y las profesionales en derecho, se pueden ir desmontando una serie de afirmaciones (contenidas en el criterio de mayoría, minoría y en los argumentos de las partes) que incorporan imprecisiones jurídicas o conceptuales o parten de falacias y sesgos, y se pueden evidenciar actuaciones u omisiones que no se explican suficientemente en materia jurídica. Veamos:

C.1 En primer lugar, jurídicamente debe respetarse el principio de imparcialidad (artículo 39 C.Pol.) del tribunal decisor pues este es integrante del debido proceso (voto número 1739-92 de la Sala Constitucional). Esto es parte del Estado de Derecho y el Estado Constitucional. Por eso se ha sostenido (desde el voto de la Corte IDH en el caso de Mauricio Herrera atrás referenciado) que el tribunal que emite criterio sobre la probabilidad delictiva a los fines de emitir la prisión cautelar, no puede integrar el órgano decisor porque, en tal caso, ya adelantado criterio, aún a nivel de probabilidad, sobre la intervención del encartado (al respecto, pueden consultarse entre muchas otras, la resolución de la Sala Constitucional número 7531-1997 reiterada en resolución 2006-17737). Recuérdese que la citada medida cautelar requiere no solo probabilidad de comisión del hecho sino un peligro procesal. En este caso consta que la jueza Shirley Mayorga Espinoza (quien integró la mayoría del órgano decisor) dictó la prisión preventiva de [Nombre 009] (según resolución 184-2025-B de las 14:37 horas del 27 de enero de 2025 que consta en la minuta visible en folio 574 del tomo II y en el archivo audiovisual que fue remitido por el órgano de instancia a solicitud expresa de este tribunal, pues no constaba en los registros oficiales). Esa decisión se emitió en el marco de un testimonio de piezas que se había efectuado contra dicho encartado por su inasistencia a un debate previo pero luego, la misma integración actual del órgano decisor, anuló lo que ellos mismos habían efectuado antes respecto del otro endilgado (el debate contra él estaba en curso aunque no se había recibido prueba y estaba suspendido, dentro del plazo de ley, a la espera de la comparecencia del oficial), volvió a acumular las causas y reinició el debate contra ambos. Originalmente el archivo audiovisual de esa diligencia, como se dijo, no fue localizado en el expediente digital de esta causa, ni en los anexos del físico y fue necesario solicitarlo al órgano decisor, lo que evidencia el desorden procesal de este asunto, del que dan cuenta testimonios de piezas, desacumulaciones por rebeldía, nuevas acumulaciones por comparecencia del rebelde, nulidades del debate en curso y repetición y cambios de foliaturas. Del análisis del contenido de dicha audiencia se desprende que la juzgadora basó la probabilidad requerida por la medida cautelar (numerales 239 y 243 del Código Procesal Penal) en que se trataba de un reenvío y, entonces, había una acusación, con lo cual evadió hacer el análisis jurisdiccional de la probable intervención del encartado o de la suficiencia probatoria y lo trasladó a la parte acusadora. Debe tenerse en cuenta que en el proceso de flagrancia no hay, formalmente, un auto de apertura a juicio emitido por una autoridad jurisdiccional distinta que permita evadir ese descenso a los hechos del caso concreto que se requiere constitucionalmente (artículos 422 a 429 del Código Procesal Penal y 37 Constitución Política) de modo que cualquier dictado de medidas cautelares en flagrancia debe examinar los requisitos de estas, cosa que no se hizo. Si bien, de ese modo, la juzgadora evitó adelantar criterio sobre el fondo del asunto para poder integrar el órgano decisor (ella misma indicó, en esa audiencia, que había otro proceso similar iniciado que se había anulado para acumularlo con este), con ello evadió parte del control propio de las cautelas. En todo caso, por transparencia debió advertir expresamente a las partes, al inicio del debate, esa intervención, para evitar suspicacias y posibilitar que estas ejercieran posibles recusaciones a fin de tutelar, de mejor manera, el principio de imparcialidad. Aunque no lo hizo así y, en principio, se constata, de oficio, que no hubo adelanto de criterio que afecte su intervención en el juicio o genere un vicio absoluto (artículo 178 del Código Procesal Penal) conviene evidenciar lo improcedente de esas prácticas a fin de que, en casos futuros, no se incurra en ellas.

C.2 En segundo término, no es jurídicamente correcto sostener —como lo hace el voto de mayoría y el fiscal ante esta sede— que los dos únicos transportes de droga permitidos por el ordenamiento jurídico sean los que se efectúan con fines de autoconsumo o en cumplimiento del deber legal de la policía cuando esta última hace decomisos. Para hacer la subsunción de una conducta en el tipo penal respectivo deben determinarse los alcances de este. Como bien se sabe, hay una diferencia entre artículo, tipo y tipicidad pues un solo artículo puede contener muchos tipos penales (conductas sancionadas que se estructuran con un sujeto, un verbo y condiciones de modo) y el juicio de tipicidad involucra, además del escrutinio de los elementos objetivos, el de los subjetivos (dolo, culpa o preterintención) los cuales, en la mayor parte de los casos, no están expresamente contemplados en los tipos penales sino que se extraen (partiendo de una interpretación sistemática pero restrictiva) del resto de las normas penales, en este caso, de la parte general del Código Penal que parte de que la regla es el dolo y para que haya culpa debe existir indicación expresa (sistema de numerus clausus: artículos 30 y 31 del Código Penal). En el caso concreto, las partes han invocado el numeral 58 de la ley No. 8204 denominada Ley sobre estupefacientes, sustancias psicotrópicas, drogas de uso no autorizado, actividades conexas, legitimación de capitales y financiamiento al terrorismo (en adelante abreviada como “ley sobre psicotrópicos”) el cual dispone: “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal, distribuya, comercie, suministre, fabrique, elabore, refine, transforme, extraiga, prepare, cultive, produzca, transporte, almacene o venda las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley, o cultive las plantas de las que se obtienen tales sustancias o productos.” Entonces, un mismo artículo contiene 15 tipos penales (que en realidad son 14 porque, como se verá, “cultivar” se prevé dos veces), pues han de hacerse las relaciones de los elementos iniciales y finales con cada verbo. Así, los tipos penales resultantes serían:

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal, distribuya (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley...”(se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) comercie (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley...” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) suministre (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley...” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) fabrique (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) elabore (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) refine (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) transforme (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) extraiga (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) prepare (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…”(se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) cultive (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) produzca (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) transporte (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) almacene (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) venda (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” (se agrega el destacado).

• “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal, (…) cultive las plantas de las que se obtienen tales sustancias o productos.” (se agrega el destacado).

Véase que, ya desde técnica legislativa, es palpable un primer error, no solo por la cantidad de conductas sino porque el “cultivo” se menciona dos veces: tanto en la lista de verbos inicial como en la frase final del artículo.

Interesa, a nuestros efectos, el cuarto tipo penal (iniciando el conteo de atrás hacia adelante en la lista efectuada) que, a riesgo de que sea cansino citarlo de nuevo, se hace necesario para tenerlo a golpe de ojo al momento de desgranarlo en sus elementos: “Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal (…) transporte (…) las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley…” Si se hace la “taxonomía” de este último tipo penal siguiendo los parámetros dados por la dogmática penal sustantiva (lo que es importante para extraer consecuencias varias en Teoría del Delito como en temas de coautoría, participación, etc.), se puede clasificar como un tipo penal que, por la gravedad como un delito (no es crimen ni contravención); por las modalidades de acción es un delito de acción (no admite comisión por omisión al no ser de resultado según las estipulaciones que, para Costa Rica, recoge el numeral 18 del Código Penal); por el sujeto activo, es común, pues cualquier persona puede ajustar su conducta allí, inclusive si tiene problemas de adicción, ya que este tema no es relevante para efectos de tipicidad, aunque sí pueda serlo para otros propios de otros segmentos de la Teoría del Delito o bien para tópicos relacionados con lo procesal (valoración de la prueba); por la relación entre acción y objeto (o modalidad de la parte objetiva) es de mera actividad o pura acción (allí se ubican todos los delitos de peligro abstracto; en contraposición a los delitos de resultado. Por la misma construcción típica, ese peligro se asume y no hay que demostrarlo, aunque ello no elimina, del todo, algunas discusiones sobre lesividad propias de la antijuridicidad material); por la forma de consumación es delito instantáneo (en un solo momento se consuma la acción, en contraposición a los delitos de estado o permanentes); según la relación de la parte objetiva y subjetiva del tipo se trata de un tipo congruente (en contraposición a los tipos penales incongruentes, ya sea por exceso de tipo objetivo —como los culposos o preterintencionales— o por exceso de tipo subjetivo —como la tentativa, los delitos de resultado cortado, los mutilados de dos actos o los de tendencia interna intensificada, razón esta última por la cual, en efecto, lleva razón el tribunal en que no se requiere ningún elemento adicional al dolo, ninguna ulterior finalidad, aunque de eso no sigue las consecuencias que la mayoría del tribunal pretende derivar, según se verá luego); por el bien jurídico tutelado, pretende proteger la salud pública; según el número de acciones es un tipo penal de una acción elemental o simple (en contraposición a los tipos penales construidos por quien legisla como de varias acciones, que incluye a tipos compuestos —con su subclasificación de delitos mutilados de dos actos, mixtos, complejos y de tendencia interna trascedente, característica este última que no tiene el que nos ocupa—, a los delitos continuados y a los tipos alternativos mezclados) ya que, en efecto, transportar es movilizar entre dos puntos, aunque, como se verá, de ello no se siguen las consecuencias pretendidas pues se trata de aspectos de diverso orden; según la forma procesal son delitos de acción pública (artículo 17 del Código Procesal Penal); siguiendo otras clasificaciones se descarta que el que nos ocupa sea un delito de expresión, ni de infracción de deber, tampoco es de medios determinados y es un delito autónomo (no de relación, conexión o enlace como sí es la legitimación de capitales) y, finalmente y tal vez más relevante para estos efectos, es que siguiendo la estructura del tipo se trata de un tipo penal abierto pues, para apropiarse de la conducta prohibida no basta leer ese numeral, sino que hay que completar la conducta acudiendo a otras disposiciones. En efecto, el tipo penal contempla elementos normativos, específicamente de naturaleza jurídica:

(i) por un lado menciona “sin autorización legal”. Esta frase en la construcción de los tipos penales es problemática y desaconsejada en una correcta técnica legislativa, pues introduce, como elemento del tipo, un tema que debe ser propio de la antijuridicidad. En principio, toda conducta típica solo llega a ser delito si, además de aquella tipicidad, no hay permisos o causas de justificación que la justifiquen en el resto del Ordenamiento Jurídico. Entonces, en todos los casos siempre será necesario, por Teoría del Delito, hacer, luego del análisis de tipicidad objetiva (y de los otros que correspondan), el examen de antijuridicidad formal. Empero, cuando el tipo penal introduce este tipo de frases eleva a rango de elemento típico temas y problemas que, en la Teoría del Delito, eran analizables pero en otros estratos, generando un problema de especialidad: si algo está en la tipicidad debe analizarse primero allí y, por ende, las reglas generales del Código Penal (que lo tratarían en otros segmentos de la Teoría del Delito) quedan desplazadas por la regla de tipicidad que exige su análisis primigenio. Aquí no aplica el aforismo, propio de la aritmética y específicamente de la multiplicación, cual es la función conmutativa según la cual el orden de los factores no afecta el producto. En estos casos, el orden en que se haga el abordaje de un tema sí incide en el resultado final pues, incorporado en la tipicidad objetiva, un error sobre este elemento pasa a ser error de tipo y deja de ser error de prohibición indirecto, como se trata en dogmática, con consecuencias dispares, sobre las que no es preciso extenderse más que citando lo que ya se ha indicado por parte de esta misma cámara en el voto número 2024-452 retomando criterios previos de otras integraciones:

«…en cierto tipo de delitos, en donde el tipo penal fue construido de modo tal que en dicha descripción el legislador introdujo aspectos tales como "ilícitamente, ilegítimamente" o similares, puede existir discusión sobre la naturaleza del error que recaiga en ese elemento específico. Así lo ha determinado este Tribunal, con una integración parcialmente similar a la actual pero que aquí se comparte, al indicar: "Sobre la naturaleza del error invocado. En principio, no hay mayor confusión cuando se define el error de tipo como el que recae sobre los elementos objetivos del tipo penal ni cuando se alude al error de prohibición como el que se produce tanto cuando el agente desconoce la norma, la considera no vigente o la interpreta equivocadamente (directo) como cuando se equivoca sobre la existencia o límites de justificantes (error de permisión o de prohibición indirecto). Aunque hay una importante discusión en torno a la naturaleza y forma en que, en Costa Rica, debe tratarse el error sobre las circunstancias de hecho de una causa de justificación o error de tipo permiso (...), lo cierto es que ese tema no es relevante para definir este asunto, de modo que se soslayará. Lo que sí resulta necesario, es determinar la naturaleza del error involucrado cuando el tipo penal se construye de tal manera que, en sus elementos objetivos, introduce términos tales como "ilícitamente" "ilegítimamente" "ilegalmente" "antijurídicamente", etc. pues estos términos se convierten, entonces, en elementos normativos de carácter jurídico que, al integrar el tipo penal, eventualmente harían que el error que se alegue sobre ellos sea, ya no uno de prohibición sino de tipo. Sobre el particular la doctrina refiere: ¬"...fue el propio M.E. MAYER quien se dio cuenta de la novedad que con carácter general planteaban los elementos normativos del tipo por él 'descubiertos'; dicho resumidamente: pese a ser componentes de la antijuridicidad, como no dejan de ser elementos del tipo, caerían, para este autor, bajo la regla del error sobre circunstancias del hecho (...) es decir, requerirían -al contrario que la antijuridicidad- ser abarcados por el dolo del sujeto, pues formarían parte del supuesto de hecho sobre el que recae el juicio valorativo de antijuridicidad, de modo que el error sobre un elemento normativo del tipo sería lo que hoy llamamos un error de tipo, o si se prefiere, con terminología más neutral, un error excluyente del dolo." DIAZ Y GARCÍA CONLLEDO, M. El error sobre elementos normativos del tipo penal. La Ley, 1ª edición, Madrid, 2008, p. 42. Así entendido, el dolo del sujeto activo debe abarcar también ese elemento normativo-jurídico. El tema ha sido abordado por la jurisprudencia de este Tribunal, con integraciones diferentes a la actual, en los siguientes términos: ¬"El apartado a- del artículo 61 de la Ley Forestal (Número 7575) contiene un elemento normativo como es el permiso de la Administración Forestal, es decir, que en este caso, para que el sujeto activo cometa el delito, se requiere que cuente con un permiso (...) conforme se define la figura delictiva, el permiso constituye un elemento normativo del tipo penal, de manera que un error sobre su existencia, sí constituye un error de tipo (art. 34 del código penal); se trata de un error de tipo de derecho, situación que introduce, eventualmente, una confusión, pues entre éste, excluyente del tipo penal y el error de prohibición, excluyente de la culpabilidad, existe una proximidad conceptual (…) Los elementos normativos del tipo, cuando se refieren a requisitos o conceptos jurídicos, tienen una estrecha cercanía con las categorías que integran el juicio de reproche por la culpabilidad, empero, tal proximidad no justifica la confusión entre uno y otro concepto" Tribunal de Casación Penal, voto número 20031113 de las 09:50 hrs. del 31 de octubre de 2003 (Cruz, Dall'Anese y Salazar)...." Tribunal de Casación Penal, voto número 20070358 del 29 de marzo de 2007 (Chirino, Morales y Gullock).» Tribunal de Casación Penal de San José (R. Chinchilla, E. Salinas y H. Sbravatti) voto número 2011-398. En igual sentido del mismo órgano el voto número 641-2010 (R. Chinchilla, U. Zúñiga e I. Estrada).

Para los efectos que aquí interesan, no está en juego el tópico del error (de tipo) sino la discusión, introducida por el juez relator de mayoría, el de minoría y el fiscal en su contestación de si típicamente se requiere otra finalidad en el tipo penal. El tipo no la contempla directamente. Ciertamente ese no se trata, como bien dijera el juez relator de mayoría y ya se adelantó, de un tipo penal de fin interno trascendente ni contiene elementos subjetivos distintos del dolo en donde, por ejemplo, el ánimo de lucro o algo similar sea necesario en el sujeto activo para configurar la conducta. Aquí no hay ese ulterior elemento subjetivo ni se describe, objetivamente, nada más. Sin embargo, el que esto sea así no significa, como alegremente pueda pensarse, que basta transportar droga para que haya tipicidad, sino que ese transporte debe ser “sin autorización legal”. Es decir, de una de las pautas de clasificación del tipo penal, de las muchas que existen, no puede concluirse que no sea necesario verificar las otras reglas de clasificación (cada una con propósitos diferentes) ni tampoco puede concluirse que sea posible obviar el escrutinio de otros institutos propios tanto de la Teoría del Delito como del derecho procesal. Proceder de ese modo sería incurrir en la falacia informal de conclusión inatingente, pues no hay ninguna relación entre las premisas y la conclusión.

La expresión “sin autorización legal” califica a todos los verbos típicos arriba desglosados y para llenarla de contenido, en lo que al transporte se trata, debe revisarse todo el ordenamiento jurídico porque, como sucede con las causas de justificación, estás no son numerus clausus sino apertus (por favorecer la libertad, como valor constitucional). Para el juez relator del criterio de mayoría, los dos únicos transportes de droga permitidos por el ordenamiento jurídico (aunque inicialmente solo mencionó uno, luego amplió) son cuando el traslado se hace con fines de autoconsumo o cuando lo efectúan las autoridades judiciales en cumplimiento del deber legal de la policía. Este razonamiento es parcialmente correcto, desde el punto de vista de los elementos del tipo porque, aunque en efecto, esos son casos en donde el transporte de droga, por hacerse con autorización legal, deja de ser típico: en un caso por desprenderse así del principio constitucional de autonomía de la voluntad —(artículo 28 constitucional) desarrollado por el numeral 79 de la “ley sobre psicotrópicos” No. 8204 en tanto “solo” prevé una medida de seguridad (que podría ser inconstitucional, pues no hay injusto previo) a quien consuma droga en sitios públicos— y, en el otro, por regularse en la cláusula general del artículo 25 del Código Penal, lo erróneo es considerar que son “los únicos supuestos”. No es correcto afirmar que esos sean “los únicos” casos que excluyen la ilicitud de la conducta, pues no es así. Por un lado, debe tenerse en cuenta la evolución normativa en donde más recientemente es posible encontrar casos de despenalización de uso (y por ende de transporte) de drogas para diversos fines. Sobre el particular, esta cámara ya ha adelantado, en otras ocasiones y para discusiones similares, lo siguiente:

«…aunque hipotéticamente los fines de venta estuvieran referidos solo a la posesión y esta no se relacionara con los otros verbos, el ordenamiento jurídico debe interpretarse en conjunto, por un lado y, por el otro, en la teoría del delito es necesario el escrutinio de la lesividad, de donde se concluye que suministrar, fabricar, elaborar, transportar o cumplir cualquiera de los otros verbos mencionados para el consumo propio no es delito porque aquel numeral 58 hay que relacionarlo con el numeral 79 de la citada ley que despenalizó el consumo propio y si no es delito la conducta final (más grave) no puede serlo las fases previas del iter criminis. Por otro lado, tampoco es delito cualquiera de esos verbos cuando se relacionan específicamente con la sustancia de cannabis sativa y se invocan fines medicinales (que no están en la ley No. 8204 sino en una posterior). Véase que, con la aprobación de la Ley del cannabis para uso medicinal y terapéutico y del cáñamo para uso alimentario e industrial No. 10113, publicada el 9 de marzo del 2022 varió parcialmente el panorama respecto a la criminalización de dicha sustancia pues la citada ley indica: “ARTÍCULO 1- Objeto. La presente ley tiene por finalidad: 1) Regular y permitir el acceso y la utilización del cannabis y sus derivados exclusivamente para uso medicinal y terapéutico, a fin de garantizar el derecho fundamental a la salud de toda la población costarricense. 2) Autorizar la producción, industrialización y comercialización del cáñamo de uso industrial y alimentario y cannabis psicoactivo con fines exclusivamente medicinales y terapéuticos, y sus productos derivados. 3) Promover el desarrollo económico y social y el adecuado reparto de la riqueza en las zonas rurales de nuestro país, mediante el incentivo de la producción, la industrialización y la comercialización del cáñamo y el cannabis psicoactivo con fines exclusivamente medicinales y terapéuticos, y sus productivos derivados; así como el fomento de encadenamientos productivos que beneficien prioritariamente a los pequeños productores agropecuarios” (el subrayado es suplido).» Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia Penal de San José, voto número 541-2023 (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas y K. Jiménez; algunos destacados son del original y otros agregados).

Con lo dicho antes no pretende agotarse la lista de posibles despenalizaciones pues no solo el acontecer legislativo es dinámico (hay otras iniciativas en trámite parlamentario que podrían aprobarse) sino que también es muy profuso, de donde un examen detallado de los miles de leyes vigentes podría arrojar otras conclusiones. Entonces, a los dos casos que mencionó el juez relator de mayoría (que el fiscal acepta) hay que agregar el que, tratándose de cannabis, su uso sea medicinal o terapéutico (tópico que, valga adelantarlo, la mayoría ni siquiera mencionó, lo que hace que la motivación sea incompleta).

Por otro lado, también hay que agregar todas las justificantes que el ordenamiento jurídico prevé (y que, en condiciones usuales se tratarían como parte de la antijuridicidad pero aquí, por la peculiar construcción de la regulación, pasa a ser objeto de escrutinio obligatorio en la tipicidad objetiva). ¿Cómo cuáles? Como cualquier situación que pueda encajarse en otros cumplimientos de deberes legales diferentes a la actuación de la policía, que se mencionó por la mayoría (artículo 25 del Código Penal) inclusive la de otros funcionarios judiciales (fiscales, peritos, etc.) pero también de otros tipos (funcionarios administrativos de las autoridades de salud para análisis de muestras, personal de salud respecto a sustancias contempladas en las listas, etc.).

También se contempla cualquier situación que encaje en el ejercicio legítimo de derecho (artículo 25 del Código Penal), en supuestos propios de estados de necesidad justificante —por ejemplo, quien usa otros tipos de sustancias reguladas, con lo que violenta un bien jurídico abstracto, para salvar uno concreto de mayor grado como la vida o integridad física de un paciente aquejado de dolor, etc. (artículo 27 del Código Penal)—, entre otros supuestos. Entonces, esta cámara considera que la referencia del tribunal a quo (avalada por el fiscal) es parcialmente errónea en cuanto enumera dos únicos casos de exclusión, sin tener en consideración que, al introducirse ese elemento (“sin autorización legal”) en la descripción típica, el escrutinio debe ser extenso y exhaustivo y ha de buscarse en todo el orden normativo con rango de ley.

(ii) El segundo elemento normativo allí contenido es “drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley.” Esta expresión genera un tipo penal en blanco que, en principio, se clasifica como impropio pues, para llenar de contenido lo anterior, hay que estarse a otra disposición de rango legal, específicamente al primer numeral de esa ley, que refiere:

«Artículo 1°.- La presente Ley regula la prevención, el suministro, la prescripción, la administración, la manipulación, el uso, la tenencia, el tráfico y la comercialización de estupefacientes, psicotrópicos, sustancias inhalables y demás drogas y fármacos susceptibles de producir dependencias físicas o psíquicas, incluidos en la Convención Única sobre Estupefacientes de las Naciones Unidas, de 30 de mayo de 1961, aprobada por Costa Rica mediante la Ley N.º 4544, de 18 de marzo de 1970, enmendada a la vez por el Protocolo de Modificación de la Convención Única sobre Estupefacientes, Ley N.º 5168, de 25 de enero de 1973, así como en el Convenio de Viena sobre Sustancias Psicotrópicas, de 21 de febrero de 1971, aprobado por Costa Rica mediante la Ley N.º 4990, de 10 de junio de 1972; asimismo, en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Psicotrópicas, de 19 de diciembre de 1988 (Convención de 1988), aprobada por Costa Rica mediante la Ley N.º 7198, de 25 de setiembre de 1990.

Además, se regulan las listas de estupefacientes, psicotrópicos y similares lícitos, que elaborarán y publicarán, en La Gaceta, el Ministerio de Salud y el Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería (MAG). Asimismo, se ordenan las regulaciones que estos Ministerios dispondrán sobre la materia.

También se regulan el control, la inspección y la fiscalización de las actividades relacionadas con sustancias inhalables, drogas o fármacos y de los productos, los materiales y las sustancias químicas que intervienen en la elaboración o producción de tales sustancias; todo sin perjuicio de lo ordenado sobre esta materia en la Ley general de salud, N.º 5395, de 30 de octubre de 1973, y sus reformas; la Ley general del servicio nacional de salud animal, N.º 8495, de 6 de abril de 2006 y sus reformas; la Ley de ratificación del Contrato de Préstamo suscrito entre el Gobierno de Costa Rica y el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, para un Programa de Desarrollo Ganadero y Sanidad Animal (Progasa), N.º 7060, de 31 de marzo de 1987.

Además, se regulan y sancionan las actividades financieras, con el fin de evitar la legitimación de capitales y las acciones que puedan servir para financiar actividades terroristas, tal como se establece en esta Ley.

Es función del Estado, y se declara de interés público, la adopción de las medidas necesarias para prevenir, controlar, investigar, evitar o reprimir toda actividad ilícita relativa a la materia de esta Ley.» (Se agregan los destacados).

Pero véase que aquel primer tipo penal en blanco calificado como “impropio”, hace una ulterior remisión: en unos casos a tratados ratificados por Costa Rica mediante leyes o a otras leyes, como sucede en los párrafos primero y tercero supra destacados, caso en el que sigue siendo una norma penal impropia y, en otros, se remite a normas de inferior rango que la ley, como listas, directrices o decretos emanados del Ministerio de Salud (segundo párrafo), caso en el que hay una evidente conculcación al principio de legalidad. La regulación de la cocaína (y sus derivados) y del cannabis (y algunos de sus derivados) se encuentra, entre otros, en los artículos 26 y 28 de la Convención Única de 1961, de modo que al respecto no hay discusión. El punto surge respecto de la ketamina según se advirtiera, entre otros, mediante voto número 541-2023 (R.

Chinchilla, P. Vargas y K. Jiménez):

«(…) en la acusación se alude a la ketamina y el fiscal parte, en sus alegatos, de que tal sustancia es ilícita. Sin embargo, debe tenerse en cuenta lo que este tribunal ya ha advertido previamente. Específicamente en el voto número 2022-464 esta misma integración indicó: «III.- […] conviene advertir al tribunal de juicio y a la representación fiscal que cuando atribuya, como aquí lo hace, conductas relacionadas con la ketamina, tiene el deber de analizar si, para la fecha de los hechos acusados dicha sustancia resultaba ilícita. Aunque en este caso tal cosa no tiene mayores repercusiones típicas (porque, junto a esa sustancia, se atribuye el transporte de otras que sí son ilícitas) lo cierto es que podría tenerlo de ser la única mencionada en las piezas fiscales, sin que el tribunal se detenga a hacer el mínimo análisis sobre el tema de la tipicidad objetiva. Debe tenerse en cuenta que este tribunal, con una integración parcialmente similar a la actual (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas y E. Salinas) en el voto número 2021-548, estipuló: «…es obligado a todos los tribunales hacer análisis (y no solo menciones) a la tipicidad, sino porque, en este caso, la gran mayoría de referencias en la sentencia de instancia aluden al término genérico “drogas” y, cuando se concretizan, lo que más destaca (aunque no es el único término) es “ketamina” y la pregunta que salta inmediatamente es… ¿se encuentra la ketamina en aquellas listas? Según la página web oficial del Instituto sobre alcoholismo y farmacodependencia (IAFA) la ketamina (clorhidrato) es un anestésico y analgésico que se usa para regular el dolor y la ansiedad y que fue creado en los años 60 especialmente con fines veterinarios pero que, por sus efectos alucinógenos o propiedades opioides, es usado, en la actualidad, bajo los nombres de “Gati” “Kit Kat” o “Special K” sobre todo entre poblaciones adolescentes. Se dice que puede generar mayor adicción que la marihuana y la cocaína y daña la memoria y las capacidades cognitivas. El punto sobre el tema es que para 2015, en el 58avo. período de sesiones de la Comisión de Estupefacientes de la ONU apenas iniciaba la discusión, ante la propuesta de China, para incluir la ketamina en la lista I del Convenio de 1971 (Ver el documento completo E/CN.7/2015/7… en la página web:

https://www.tni.org/files/cnd_document_on_mefedrone_and_ketamine_v1408359_esp1.pdf). Inclusive, una revisión rápida de la web permite inferir que la discusión se mantenía aún en años posteriores. Por ejemplo, el Parlamento Europeo efectuó una revisión de su normativa y la incorporó como sustancia ilícita hasta octubre de 2017 (Ver página de MICOF. Muy ilustre colegio oficial de farmacéuticos de Valencia.

“Spice, ketamina y ‘droga caníbal’: crece la lista de sustancias prohibidas en Europa”. Localizable en… https://www.micof.es/ver/12831/spice--ketamina-y-%C2drogacanibal%C2-crece-la-lista-de-sustancias-prohibidas-en-europa.html).Ello implica que el tribunal debió cuestionarse, y no lo hizo, si en las listas aceptadas por las leyes a las que se alude en el párrafo primero del artículo 1 de la ley No. 8204 estaba, para (…) el lapso estipulado en la acusación, la ketamina. Ahora bien, el panorama no concluye ahí pues, como se transcribió, en párrafos ulteriores del artículo 1 se complementa el contenido haciendo referencia a “…las listas de estupefacientes, psicotrópicos y similares lícitos, que elaborarán y publicarán, en La Gaceta, el Ministerio de Salud y el Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería (MAG). Asimismo, se ordenan las regulaciones que estos Ministerios dispondrán sobre la materia” con lo cual aquí el tema adquiere otro nivel pues deja de ser un tipo penal abierto (con un elemento normativo de tipo jurídico que permite su llenado) para pasar a convertirse en una ley penal en blanco (para esta cámara, claramente conculcatoria del principio de legalidad) desde que las listas de medicamentos serían creadas por decreto o norma similar pero no por ley. Nada de eso se cuestionó el tribunal.» (Se conserva la tipografía original salvo el subrayado, que es añadido). En sentido similar el voto número 646-2022 (Chinchilla, Vargas y Jiménez).

La ketamina sí está incluida en las listas del Ministerio de Salud de Costa Rica según resolución ministerial MS-DM-RM-1912-2022 de las 12:00 horas del primero de abril de 2022 (página 25) y circular 002-2015 del 14 de diciembre de 2015 en la que se recoge lo decidido por la Junta de Vigilancia de Drogas y Estupefacientes, sesión 2996 del 04 de diciembre de 2015, artículo 3. No obstante, estas fuentes son inferiores a la ley, y la Organización Mundial de la Salud, hasta donde este tribunal conoce, no la ha incorporado en sus listas como sustancia prohibida, de donde el tipo penal se completaría infringiendo el principio de legalidad. Esto ameritaría una consulta judicial de constitucionalidad pero resulta que tampoco las formas se cumplieron pues el tribunal de instancia omitió toda alusión a este aspecto, lo que era altamente relevante en la medida en que el consumo de ketamina fue un indicio valorado por la mayoría como determinante para la decisión adoptada. Por ello hay una falta de fundamentación evidente en este aspecto, que menoscaba el numeral 142 del Código Procesal Penal.

C.3 No es jurídicamente correcto afianzar una argumentación sobre la base de criterios de autoridad sin descender al escrutinio de la argumentación para verificar su adecuación a las reglas imperantes. Menos cuando en los antecedentes invocados no se examinan todas las aristas de un tema o cuando se trata de casos que no son comparables entre sí, por la falta de similitud de las premisas de hecho y de derecho. Pese a que en los votos invocados, tanto por la mayoría del tribunal de mérito como por el fiscal, la Sala Tercera omite efectuar el escrutinio atrás referido, su uso, sin valorar la rigurosidad o posibilidad de extrapolación argumentativa, constituye una clara falacia y sesgo de autoridad. Véase que, en primer lugar, por la fecha del voto (anterior a muchas de las reformas normativas arriba referidas) lo que allí se indicó sobre la ilicitud de todos los transportes de sustancias prohibidas no es exacto mantenerlo ahora. En segundo término, el citado pronunciamiento no aborda los temas ya referidos sobre la construcción del tipo penal y la remisión que este hace a elementos normativos de tipo jurídico. Para que un criterio de autoridad sea jurídicamente invocable debe contener un análisis de caso exactamente igual al que se resuelve; una argumentación sólida que abarca las aristas en juego y que todo ello lo haga desde una metodología interpretativa válida para la disciplina de que se trate (en el Derecho Penal y Derecho Procesal Penal es la interpretación restrictiva, pero también tomar en cuenta el derecho en su conjunto y el instrumental dado por la Teoría del Delito). Las partes deben tener clara conciencia que un conflicto entre la ley —aplicada conforme a los métodos vigentes para una disciplina— y la jurisprudencia, esta ha de ceder en su valor respecto de aquella. No porque este tribunal lo afirme, sino porque así deriva de la jerarquía de normas que contiene el Ordenamiento Jurídico tanto en la propia Constitución Política (artículos 7, 39 y 154), como en la Ley General de la Administración Pública (artículos 1, 2.1, 3.1 y 6) y el Código Civil (cánones 1 a 10), entre otras muchas fuentes. No aceptarlo de ese modo, invocando criterios de autoridad, no solo se introduce una falacia en el razonamiento sino que se busca menoscabar la independencia judicial haciendo aplicables criterios ajenos a las aristas del caso particular, por la sola fuente de la que emanan y al margen de su corrección explicativa. Trabajar democráticamente con lo jurídico implica convencer o persuadir, no vencer ni imponer. Ya antes este tribunal (R. Chinchilla, P. Vargas y K. Jiménez), en el voto número 541-2023, ha referido una tesis que ahora se comparte por esta integración:

«…es conveniente hacer dos precisiones adicionales. i) No es la primera vez que esta cámara observa el razonamiento fiscal que dice basarse en votos de la Sala Tercera según los cuales no se requiere una finalidad de venta del sujeto activo para configurar un delito relacionado con la droga cuando los verbos rectores de la conducta son los de distribuir, transportar u otros similares descritos en el tipo penal respectivo. Tal criterio no es compartido por esta integración sea que se trate de una incorrecta interpretación del Ministerio Público o que emane de la Sala Tercera, cuya jurisprudencia no es vinculante y de la que este órgano puede apartarse en virtud del principio de superior rango (constitucional y convencional) de independencia judicial. Debe recordarse que la jurisprudencia ordinaria tiene solo un criterio orientador — salvo la jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (por efecto de los artículos 62 y 68.1 de la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos y 27 de la Convención de Viena sobre el Derecho de los Tratados, ambos suscritos por el país) y de la Sala Constitucional (por efecto de los numerales 13 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional y 10 de la Constitución Política)— y jueces y juezas, tanto como fiscales guiados por el principio de objetividad, deben apoyarse en la ley y la forma restrictiva de interpretarla. En este caso, el numeral 58 de la Ley sobre Estupefacientes, Sustancias Psicotrópicas, Drogas de Uso No Autorizado, Legitimación de Capitales y Actividades Conexas No. 8204 dispone: “Artículo 58.-Se impondrá pena de prisión de ocho a quince años a quien, sin autorización legal, distribuya, comercie, suministre, fabrique, elabore, refine, transforme, extraiga, prepare, cultive, produzca, transporte, almacene o venda las drogas, las sustancias o los productos referidos en esta Ley, o cultive las plantas de las que se obtienen tales sustancias o productos. La misma pena se impondrá a quien, sin la debida autorización, posea esas drogas, sustancias o productos para cualquiera de los fines expresados, y a quien posea o comercie semillas con capacidad germinadora u otros productos naturales para producir las referidas drogas.” (Se suple el destacado). Y de allí podría concluirse que la referencia a fines de consumo solo está circunscrita a la posesión, pero resulta que para transportar, almacenar, suministrar o cualquiera de los otros verbos hay que poseer. En otras palabras, la posesión, que es el tener algo, es la base de cualquiera de las otras conductas pues solo se puede hacer algo con una cosa si primero se detenta.» C.4 No es jurídicamente correcto desligar el análisis probatorio y de tipicidad objetiva de la forma en que se planteó una acusación, la cual es un límite de la decisión jurisdiccional. Conforme al artículo 365 del Código Procesal Penal las acusaciones constituyen el límite fáctico de las sentencias. Estas no lo pueden desbordar pues nuevos hechos, por sorpresivos, pueden generar indefensión a la parte acusada quien, desde el inicio del proceso, tiene el derecho a que se expongan circunstanciadamente los hechos y pruebas. Nada se hace con que de la prueba que se reciba en un juicio se desprendan hechos que se subsuman en un tipo penal si tales sucesos no fueron atribuidos o imputados adecuadamente. En el presente asunto el Ministerio Público les atribuyó a los encartados que, en la hora, fecha y lugar descritos “en vía pública (…) [Nombre 009] y [Nombre 016] poseen y transportaban con fines de tráfico 60 dosis de cocaína, base crack, una punta de droga y veintidós puntas de la droga marihuana respectivamente, envueltos en bolsas plásticas transparentes, mientras caminaban de un lado de un lado, de Este a Oeste. En este mismo momento y lugar, oficiales de la Fuerza Pública se encontraban haciendo un recorrido de rutina, observan a ambos acusados caminando juntos en vía pública, siendo (sic) que al acercarse y notar la presencia policial toman actitud sospechosa, siendo (sic) que [Nombre 016] huye corriendo del sitio, siendo seguido de cerca por oficiales de Fuerza Pública, instante en que escasos 10 metros lanza un envoltorio plástico al techo de una de las viviendas, siendo detenido en ese mismo sitio y ubicando el paquete plástico que recién lanzó el techo, el cual contenía 22 puchos de la droga marihuana. Al mismo tiempo, oficiales de la Fuerza Pública realizan la detención de [Nombre 009], quien se quedó estático al notar la presencia policial, ubicándole 60 dosis de la droga cocaína, base crack y un pucho de Ketamina, por lo que ambos acusados fueron detenidos formalmente y se realiza el decomiso de la droga antes de descrita.” (El destacado es agregado). Es importante hacer notar que en la pieza fiscal se dice un fin específico para el que se poseía la droga (el tráfico, no el suministro asumido por la mayoría del tribunal) y no se alude a ningún plan previo o distribución funcional que haga aplicables las reglas de la coautoría. Recuérdese que la acción en Derecho Penal es personalísima y solo se puede romper ese principio en los casos de autoría que permiten atribuirle a una persona lo que otra hizo si hay plan previo y distribución funcional que, en este asunto, no se imputó. Esto tiene particular relevancia porque, entonces, no es posible atribuirle a una encartado las drogas y efectos que tenía el otro y, menos, juntar ambas cantidades de sustancias para atribuirlas a los dos. Es en este contexto en que el juez disidente —aunque de forma parca, poco desarrollada e interrumpido en la idea por un encartado que deseaba abandonar la sala cuando él exponía— refirió que el tipo penal era una especie de “cajón de sastre” en donde todo cabía y, por ello, la imputación no estaba adecuadamente formulada. Si, como se ha explicado, no es cierto que todos los transportes de drogas sean ilícitos ni que solo haya dos o tres excepciones a eso, sino que hay muchos más autorizados, es deber del ente fiscal estipular el fin para el que se hace el transporte y fue en ese contexto que el juez aludió (al menos así lo entiende este tribunal) a que, mencionar “fines de tráfico” del transporte e introducir allí cualquiera de los verbos típicos no era adecuado, máxime cuando luego ese fin se cambia por el de “suministro”. Es decir, la crítica estaba formulada a un tema de correlación que, en efecto, no fue abordado. A pesar de los argumentos ad hóminem y altisonantes con que el fiscal le contesta, lo cierto es que si la pieza fiscal, sin necesidad, aludió a una finalidad específica de la tenencia de drogas individual de cada endilgado, lo mínimo que debió hacer la mayoría del tribunal, y no hizo, era cuestionarse si cambiar esa finalidad afectaba la correlación y si se podía unir la tenencia de sustancias de cada encartado cuando no se había atribuido una coautoría. Al omitirse tales razonamientos, se infringió el numeral 142 del Código Procesal Penal.

C.5 No es jurídicamente correcto apartarse del contenido de la prueba para fundar conclusiones que, por ende, no son derivadas de aquellos elementos. La mayoría del tribunal descartó la tesis de los encartados (de que la droga la poseían y transportaban para fines de autoconsumo) efectuando un análisis indiciario del dicho de los sindicados. En ese ejercicio, el juez y jueza de mérito encontraron contradicciones e inconsistencias en sus versiones lo largo del tiempo. Un indicio al que se le dio mucho peso es que a [Nombre 009] se le decomisa una punta de ketamina, pero (según las personas juzgadoras de mayoría) ninguno de los dos dijo, en ningún momento procesal, consumir, esa sustancia. A partir de eso la mayoría concluyó que la presencia de esa sustancia dentro de lo decomisado era indicativa de que no se destinaría al autoconsumo. Asimismo, eso se ponderó al lado de que el policía que declaró en juicio, don [Nombre 012], según los mismos integrantes del tribunal, no los vio que estuvieran bajo los efectos de ninguna droga, que tuvieran signos o comportamientos relacionados con el consumo de drogas (ver secuencia horaria 37:44 a 38:25 del archivo que contiene la sentencia). Empero, en esta argumentación se incurre en el sesgo de confirmación pues el juez y jueza solo recordaron información que confirmaba su creencia o expectativa, pero dejaron de lado otra que la descartaba. En el archivo audiovisual 240001051092PE-02022024092111-2_Multi 1 (que contiene la toma de datos de las personas acusadas ante el Ministerio Público) en el minutero 15:33 cuando se le está preguntando a [Nombre 016] si tiene adicciones él dice que consume drogas de todo tipo y en el archivo audiovisual 240001051092PE-03022024041657-2_Multi --01 (que se refiere a la audiencia inicial de flagrancia, en que se asume la competencia) la jueza Melissa Bogantes lee a los encartados esos datos para verificar si son o no correctos o deben ser ajustados y en ese momento [Nombre 009] (minutos 1:31 y 4:32 al 5:15) dice que legalmente él consume de todo, pero que “ahorita”, “en el último año” “gracias a Dios”, lo que más ha consumido es mota (marihuana) y piedra. Por otro lado, el 06 de febrero de 2024 se le hizo el examen médico legal a [Nombre 016] y allí dijo ser adicto, desde los 18 años, a diversas drogas y mencionó la ketamina (así resumido por el juez en juicio al minuto 28:10 a 28:11 y consta en folio 65 en que aludió al consumo de esta droga desde los 18 años hasta la actualidad, inhalada cada tres días). Entonces, la afirmación de que ninguno de los dos aludió, en ningún momento procesal, a la ketamina no se deriva de la prueba. Por otro lado, el oficial de policía [Nombre 012], al declarar en juicio, afirmó (como lo retomó la mayoría para darle credibilidad a su relato) que conocía a los encartados por haberlos visto, juntos o separados, tanto en puntos de venta o búnkers, como en las esquinas o deambulando (ver archivo audiovisual 240001051092-PE-28012025065237-2_Multi ). A eso hay que añadir que, al recibírsele el parte policial oral, en el archivo 240001051092PE-02022024084517-2_Multi 1, el citado agente del orden dijo, a partir del minutero 10:56, que conocía a los encartados porque antes había hecho intervenciones por consumo de droga, ya que en el lugar se consume mucha droga y a veces hay incidentes en el 9-1-1- de “ciertos sujetos” vendiendo, sin especificar a quiénes se refería, frases que la mayoría del tribunal no toman en consideración, en una evidente preterición de prueba sobre temas esenciales, pues son los que sirven de apoyo a la decisión de mayoría. Entonces si ambos encartados dieron positivo por consumo de algunas sustancias psicotrópicas según las pruebas toxicológicas, si en sus exámenes médicos dieron narraciones alusivas al consumo de diversas drogas y uno dijo haber consumido ketamina, si uno se comportó alocado y bajo los efectos de las drogas al momento de la detención según el policía y si lo que portaban no era una cantidad significativa, todos esos elementos debieron ser ponderados en conjunto por el tribunal (con otros, como el precio de la sustancia, la ocupación y condiciones socio-económicas de cada uno, la actitud de uno de ellos al ver a la policía, etc.), sin que la mayoría lo hiciera, si no que procedieron a aislar algunos de esos indicios y a darles no solo mayor importancia que a otros sino un sentido inverso al que realmente tenían. Con ello se violaron las reglas de la sana crítica. Téngase en cuenta, además, que si esa persona que corrió tenía un comportamiento errático según la policía, eso resulta relevante no para los fines de la capacidad de culpabilidad de la Teoría del Delito (como lo expone el fiscal), si no para determinar si, en las condiciones en que iba, era posible exigirle un comportamiento propio del ser humano promedio o si, en tales condiciones podía considerar que, aún teniendo droga para el consumo, esta le iba a ser decomisada pues es parte de las reglas de la experiencia que la policía decomisa cuanta sustancia ilícita encuentre en las personas, al margen de que sea mucha o poca. Este último fue el argumento que el juez de minoría trató de explicitar. El fiscal le contraargumenta indicando que ese encartado estaba en sus “cinco sentidos” y tenía plena conciencia de su actuar pero, al hacerlo así, mezcla, una vez más, los planos analíticos, pues aquello es importante calibrarlo no para efectos de Derecho Penal de fondo, sino para temas procesales: interpretar si el indicio de correr en sus circunstancias es unívoco o anfibológico. Además, afirma bien el juez de minoría que no todas las personas actuamos, ante un mismo evento, de la misma forma o racionalmente, de modo que no puede pretenderse lo contrario. Nada de eso puede calificarse de rebuscado o artificioso, como lo expresa el fiscal refiriéndose al criterio minoritario, aunque sí hubiera sido deseable una explicación más amplia que, por las circunstancias del caso (la duración de la sentencia oral, la hora en que se emitió y el que un encartado pidió retirarse, como en efecto lo hizo bajo la supervisión policial, aspecto que interrumpió el relato del juzgador) no pudo lograrse. Por todo ello, concluir que un encartado corrió por sentimiento de culpabilidad, y que eso sea aplicable al otro, introduce vicios en el razonamiento que lo tornan ilegítimo para los fines pretendidos.

C.6 No es jurídicamente correcto partir de que las personas acusadas (o su defensa técnica) deben demostrar los hechos sobre los que fundan su estrategia defensiva. Pese a las arremetidas del populismo punitivo, el principio de inocencia sigue siendo una norma constitucional (artículo 39) que está reforzado con la protección convencional, tanto a nivel regional (artículo 8.2 de la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos) como universal (canon 14.2 del Pacto Internacional de Derechos Civiles y Políticos). Derivado de ello la ley (artículo 9 del código procesal) adopta el principio in dubio pro reo. El principio constitucional y convencional antes dicho hace que se excepcionen, para la materia penal, las reglas de la carga de la prueba, de la carga dinámica de la prueba (cada uno acredita lo que afirma) o del onus probandi, propias de otras áreas del derecho. Esta última tesis, propia del derecho privado o de otras materias, se ha pretendido traslapar acríticamente al Derecho Penal olvidando que hay una norma constitucional que lo impide. Eso se traduce en que es al Estado (o a quienes ejercen la acusación privada) a quien le compete demostrar el delito. Delito es una acción típica, antijurídica y culpable. De allí que sea erróneo aludir a que el Ministerio Público debe probar la tipicidad y la defensa debe acreditar el resto de los estamentos, pues es al primero a quien le compete demostrar todo el delito, aunque deba servirse, inclusive, de elementos indiciarios para descartar las dudas que puedan generarse por la defensa en los últimos segmentos de la Teoría del Delito. Basta que la defensa (técnica o material) haga surgir una duda razonable sobre los hechos para que deba estarse a lo más favorable para la persona acusada. A la defensa técnica o material no le exige la Constitución, los tratados o la ley que demuestre nada: solo que rompa la certeza de la tesis contraria en la valoración del material aportado, lo que puede hacer, inclusive, con una argumentación. Basta que se genere la dubitación para que le competa a quien acusa demostrar que esa duda se desecha con otro elemento de prueba, inclusive indiciario, reafirmándose la certeza en la comisión del delito atribuido. Entonces, es preciso diferenciar dos planos analíticos distintos: por un lado si el ente acusador probó, más allá de toda duda razonable, que la droga decomisada era para fines diferentes de los autorizados por ley (que ya vimos que no es solo uno o dos, sino varios) y, por el otro, si un indicio usado para asentar la tesis de cargo es unívoco o anfibológico. Nótese que los indicios son prueba válida para llegar a aquella certeza, siempre y cuando se analicen en conjunto y sean unívocos, no anfibológicos. El fiscal, al contestar y referirse al argumento del juez de minoría, hace este traslape de planos analíticos. El juez de minoría indicó que el hecho de que uno de los encartados corriera no era indicativo de que trasportara droga con fines de tráfico pues pudo hacerlo por múltiples situaciones: porque la reacción de cada persona cambia, porque pretendía que no se le quitara la sustancia, etc. En este ejercicio el juez de minoría pretendía evidenciar que el indicio no era unívoco y que, por ello, es argumentación no era sólida. El fiscal responde indicando que esas posibilidades no derivan de ninguna prueba y, aunque es así, ese argumento no es capaz de desvirtuar el valor probatorio del indicio: endeble desde que su sola presencia no conduce a una sola conclusión sino que admite otras posibilidades analíticas. Cuando los encartados declaran y aluden a su consumo y aportan pruebas (dictámenes médico-legales y de toxicología en tal sentido) están introduciendo fisuras en la tesis contraria y es al Ministerio Público al que le corresponde descartarlas por cualquiera de los medios lícitos, sin que sea válido concluir que, como la versión de ellos no fue lo contundente que se pretendía (pues las declaraciones tuvieron algunas inconsistencias) ellos debiesen efectuar un esfuerzo probatorio mayor. La mayoría debió, más bien, preguntarse si esas declaraciones de ambos encartados, aún con las inconsistencias dichas, generaban grietas en la teoría del caso acusatoria. Si la respuesta era positiva, había duda y las consecuencias de ello las fija el Ordenamiento Jurídico. No es aceptable condenar desde juicios dubitativos. La mayoría en el contador horario 34:55 del archivo que contiene la sentencia refirió que la forma en que la droga iba individualizada (22 puchos de marihuana, 60 dosis de crack y la punta de ketamina) muestra que no estaba destinada al consumo propio, sino que podía llevarse para la distribución o comercialización. Ese “podía” es probabilístico y no un juicio de certeza como el que se exige para una condena.

C.7 No es jurídicamente válido incorporar el conocimiento privado de los operadores jurídicos si esto no deriva de la prueba. El fiscal pretende apoyar las conclusiones de la mayoría a partir de elementos que no solo sustituyen o complementan los argumentos expuestos por el órgano decisor, sino que emanan del conocimiento privado y no fue posible someterlos al contradictorio. En su memorial ante esta sede el fiscal hace una serie de afirmaciones respecto a la ventana temporal en que, conforme a la cromatografía de gases, se puede detectar la presencia de drogas en el organismo de las personas y sostiene: “…a folio 65, [Nombre 016] relata haber consumido ketamina el mismo día de su detención, 2 de febrero de 2024. Pero, en el dictamen DCF 2024-00546 TOX, realizado con las muestras tomadas apenas el 6 de febrero de 2024 a las 13:11 hrs (y no un año después, como falsamente dice la defensora pública) se informa que no se detectó ketamina en la orina de ese encausado -ver folio 80-. Acá es importante decir que para detectar la ketamina en orina en este caso se utilizó la cromatografía de gases, pudiéndose por ese método detectar cantidades de 0,1 mg/ml del compuesto, acorde a la literatura toxicológica. De acuerdo a (sic) la misma literatura médico legal, el tiempo máximo de detección se sitúa en las 72 h, aproximadamente, para una dosis única. Sin embargo, se advierte que en usuarios con un consumo habitual o adictivo, como dijo tener el acusado [Nombre 016], la ketamina puede tardar hasta más de 7 días en eliminarse [The nonmedical use of ketamine. Part two. A review of problem use and dependence. J Psychoactive Drugs 2001 (…) citados en J. Royo “ La “keta” (ketamina), del fármaco a la droga de abuso. Clínica biopsicosocial del consumidor y algunas propuestas terapéuticas, en Revista Elsevier Nº 34, volumen 3 (…)] situación que, igualmente hace poco creíble que la droga de interés hubiera sido consumida por el acusado con la asiduidad o habitualidad que refirió, en la fecha en que lo dijo y que la portación de esa sustancia obedeciera además a un verdadera finalidad de autoconsumo (…)”. Aunque esto pueda ser así en la literatura, resulta que no deriva de prueba alguna (el fiscal no pidió ampliación de los dictámenes en tal sentido) sino que solo surge del conocimiento privado del funcionario, no sujeto al tamiz de la oralidad, la inmediación y la contradicción y, lo más relevante, que no fue un argumento usado por la mayoría. Como si fuera poco, el fiscal introduce un dato que tampoco deriva de las diversas manifestaciones del encartado (que él tenía un consumo habitual de ketamina que permita una detección en orina 72 horas atrás, sea tres días antes) pues lo que [Nombre 016] dijo en sus datos iniciales era que consumía todo tipo de drogas y el 06 de febrero de 2024, en que se le hizo el examen médico legal, [Nombre 016] dijo ser adicto, desde los 18 años, a diversas drogas y mencionó la ketamina (en folio 65 aludió al consumo de esta droga desde los 18 años hasta la actualidad, inhalada cada tres días). Entonces, el fiscal le da con contenido al concepto de “habitualidad” distinto al que dijo el encartado y al que menciona la literatura médica. De eso dependería si la sustancia se muestra en orina a los tres días o a los siete desde la muestra (en este caso hubo cuatro desde la detención hasta la toma de la muestra).

C.8 No es jurídicamente procedente defender una sentencia por argumentos que esta no contiene, salvo cuando se hacen ejercicios de incorporación hipotética. Mucho se ha insistido en que no cabe la nulidad por sí misma considerada si con esta no se vulneran derechos o garantías sustanciales que no pueden ser subsanados o convalidados por otro medio pues el principio pro sentencia (que, conforme al voto número 1739-92 de la Sala Constitucional integra el debido proceso) y el principio constitucional de justicia pronta y cumplida (artículo 41) lo impiden. En esa línea, es obligación de toda persona operadora jurídica que analice un acto y note defectos u omisiones hacer los ejercicios de inclusión hipotética (de pruebas o argumentos preteridos) o exclusión hipotética (de pruebas o argumentos indebidos) para verificar si se cambia en algo la conclusión adoptada. Empero, ese ejercicio es muy distinto a pretender sostener una decisión con argumentos que esta no ha usado en su adopción y exposición y sin advertir nada de ello. El fiscal advierte que la versión de los encartados no es creíble pues “Otro aspecto que igualmente puso, fundadamente, en tela de juicio el alegato que la droga que portaban los acusados fuera para autoconsumo, lo fue el detalle expuesto por [Nombre 009] en el sentido de que él y [Nombre 016] habían abierto una bolsita de cocaína y ambos habían consumido de ella poco antes del arresto. Sin embargo, [Nombre 016] no presentó metabolitos de cocaína en sangre (ver dictamen Nº 2024-0546 TOX, folio 80), y a ninguno de los imputados se les decomisó cocaína en polvo, por lo que de nuevo resulta poco creíble la versión de ([Nombre 009]).” (Cfr. contestación fiscal). Esa versión no deriva del resumen que hace el tribunal de las manifestaciones del encartado ni fue considerada por el juez y jueza de mayoría. Tampoco esta cámara podría introducirla hipotéticamente en la decisión, pues no es el único aspecto omitido en la sentencia, sino que hay otros, también relevantes, para la decisión a adoptar. Nótese que en el dictamen de toxicología 2024-544-TOX practicado a [Nombre 009] (folios 72-73) se consigna que para la fecha de toma de muestra (06 de febrero de 2024) “hubo exposición a cocaína en el organismo de la persona” y en el dictamen médico legal que a él se le practicó en fecha similar se consigna que “…no se encontraron signos clínicos compatibles con el consumo agudo de drogas de abuso, pero sí mancha sepia en incisivos centrales y laterales de arcada dental superior e inferior y mancha sepia e hiperqueratosis a nivel de pulpejo del primer y segundo dedo de la maneo derecha; lo cual es un signo crónico e inespecífico compatible con el consumo crónico de marihuana y tabaco y de crack, respectivamente” (dictamen 2024864 de folio 36, se agrega el destacado). Por último, en la ampliación del dictamen médico legal de [Nombre 016] se consigna que “sí es posible que una persona que es consumidora de droga desde los 11 años (13 años de consumo en el caso del evaluado) no presente signos clínicos de consumo crónico o agudo de drogas, ya que los mismos no son signos patognomónicos, sino hallazgos compatibles (…) por tanto, no son determinantes para concluir si el evaluado es consumidor crónico de algún tipo de droga ilícita” (folios 146). Absolutamente a nada de eso hizo alusión la mayoría. Entonces, pretender introducir hipotéticamente los aspectos que menciona el fiscal obligaría a introducir, también, los otros, preteridos en la sentencia, y todo en conjunto sí podría modificar lo resuelto y generar una decisión en única instancia, de donde el ejercicio no puede hacerse pues solo es válido cuando la conclusión adoptada se mantiene. Esto pone de relieve, una vez más, que hubo un proceso de selección de información a evaluar sesgado y que se pretirió material importante.

C.9 No es jurídicamente aceptable que, en el acto de valoración de la prueba oral, se le dé mayor peso a lo expresado por una persona muchos años después de sucedido un evento pese a que, en el instante mismo en que este acaeció, dicha persona dio una versión distinta sobre lo sucedido y sin que haya razón de peso para el cambio: Conforme a las reglas de la psicología arriba explicadas, la memoria tiende a deteriorarse conforme transcurre el tiempo entre un suceso y el recuerdo, salvo los casos de amnesias o bloqueos traumáticos y otros trastornos de la memoria que, para este asunto, no han sido ni discutidos ni acreditados. Es decir, conforme más cerca del hecho se declara, en principio, más detalles y fidedignidad de la declaración cuyos recuerdos tienden a difuminarse con el paso del tiempo, máxime en personas como los oficiales del orden, expuestos a muchas situaciones similares, que pueden generar trastocamientos de los datos entre un asunto y otro similar. Entonces, si en el informe escrito presentado y firmado por el oficial [Nombre 012] y en la recepción de la denuncia oral se consigna que solo [Nombre 016] corrió (y tras él dos oficiales) pero [Nombre 009] permaneció quieto (y acompañado por el otro policía); si aquellos fueron elementos de prueba admitidos e incorporados al juicio; si esto mismo fue lo que dijo el oficial [Nombre 012] en el primer debate efectuado a mediados de 2024 —el cual, si bien es cierto fue anulado, no hace desaparecer las grabaciones de este que pasan a constituirse en documentos solo para efectos de valorar la credibilidad de un deponente— y si no hay ninguna razón válida para comprender por qué se dio el cambio de posición, si todo ello es así, mal hicieron el juez y la jueza de mayoría de darle mayor valor al dicho del policía en el último juicio que a lo expresado por él en otros momentos pues, al hacerlo así, vulneraron las reglas de la psicología que integran la sana crítica. Por supuesto que eso supone, también, que las partes asuman su rol en el interrogatorio en los términos indicados en los votos de esta cámara número 1247-2015 (R. Chinchilla, L. García y A.L. Jiménez) y 014-2015 (R. Chinchilla, L. García y J. Campos) en que se indicó:

«(A) ¿Es posible incorporar, y valorar, las manifestaciones, dadas en un debate anulado o en una entrevista grabada audiovisualmente, sin las formalidades de un anticipo jurisdiccional? (...) con el Código Procesal Penal, vigente a partir de 1998, las normas se modificaron para prohibir, expresamente, que las actuaciones de la fase de investigación tuvieran valor probatorio (artículo 276 del Código Procesal Penal), salvo que se hubiesen recibido con las reglas de los actos definitivos e irreproductibles, del anticipo jurisdiccional de prueba o se tratara de casos previstos por la ley como excepciones a la oralidad (ver numerales 276, 277, 293, 327 y 334 del Código Procesal Penal), sin que, en todo caso, queden al margen de críticas, algunas de esas posibilidades, sobre todo cuando, en los actos, no participan, por razones de urgencia, las partes, aspecto que escapa, por ahora, al objeto de la cuestión a resolver en este asunto. Paralelamente, se fue dando un viraje en las prácticas jurisprudenciales, al punto de llegar a asentarse la tesis de que, aunque la denuncia, los peritajes e informes son excepciones a la oralidad susceptibles de incorporarse al debate por lectura (artículo 334 del Código Procesal Penal), era imposible hacer referencia al contenido de tales documentos, en tanto estos reprodujeran declaraciones testimoniales, pues era una forma de burlar la garantía suprareferida y, con ello, se conculcaban aquellos principios. Fue en ese contexto en que, por ejemplo, esta Cámara (…), bajo el nombre de Tribunal de Casación Penal de San José , a través del voto número 2007-844 bis, indicó: "En primer lugar debe señalarse que no puede, bajo ninguna circunstancia, entenderse que lo que una persona manifiesta frente a un médico legal o algún otro profesional que interviene en las averiguaciones preliminares, a la hora de confeccionar un dictamen o informe sobre alguna circunstancia, constituya, en sentido formal, una “declaración” o “testimonio”, pues no es rendida ni siquiera, con las formalidades prescritas. Ya se ha insistido que, bajo el nuevo esquema procesal, es innegable que la prueba testimonial es sólo la que se recibe en la audiencia, salvo los casos excepcionales de prueba de esa naturaleza, recibida por anticipo jurisdiccional, donde se reciben testigos con las condiciones propias del juicio, es decir con cumplimiento de los principios de inmediación, oralidad, concentración y muy particularmente, del contradictorio. Este testimonio, que se recibe de manera excepcional de esa forma, podrá ser incorporado al debate. Antes de eso no puede hablarse, formalmente, de una declaración sino más bien de simples referencias. La única posibilidad prevista legalmente para que el testigo se refiera o incluso pueda interrogársele expresamente sobre esas versiones “informales” la hace el párrafo tercero del artículo 352 del Código Procesal, cuando señala que el fiscal podrá interrogar al testigo sobre las manifestaciones hechas en la etapa de investigación. La autorización legal para tal comportamiento fiscal se produce ya que se atiende, primordialmente, a facilitar el proceso de averiguación de la verdad real, así como al principio de libertad probatoria. Estos elementos referenciales pueden ser traídos al interrogatorio con el fin de aclarar ciertos aspectos de la declaración en el debate, pero tal actuación no implica que esté dándoseles el valor de un testimonio" (se suplen las negritas). (...) En esa tesitura...¿podría limitarse el ejercicio del contradictorio, de atacar la credibilidad de un deponente, por el hecho de que la versión que se considera modificada esté contenida en un documento, para cuya recepción no se tuvieron en cuenta los principios del debate? ¿un testigo, que en juicio afirma "x", en un programa de radio o televisión, espontáneamente, dijo "-x", es decir, lo contrario, no puede ser interrogado, previa incorporación de ese documento, sobre esa variación, so pretexto de que, en el programa radial, no declaró con los principios del debate? Parecería que no hay ninguna norma, o principio jurídico, que posibilite hacer esa limitación pues, de procederse de ese modo, diz que para respetar los principios de la inmediación y el contradictorio, se irrespetarían otros, igualmente parte del debido proceso constitucional y, tal vez, de mayor peso, como el del contradictorio, la libertad probatoria y el derecho de defensa. Entonces, conforme a la regla interpretativa contenida en el numeral 2 del Código Procesal Penal, debe estarse a un ejercicio amplio de esas potestades, aceptando, en consecuencia, incorporar cualquier documento que contenga una versión diferente y permitiendo el interrogatorio sobre tales extremos. Es cierto que la grabación (de la entrevista en la Cámara Gesell o del debate anulado), que es un documento en los términos amplios que establece el numeral 368 del Código Procesal Civil (objeto mueble con valor representativo), contiene una declaración que, en el primer caso, no ha sido recogida con los principios del contradictorio y la inmediación, es decir, que no se trata de un anticipo jurisdiccional de prueba. No obstante, no es ese documento, así entendido, el elemento probatorio a considerar, sino que éste será la declaración del testigo en juicio, cuya veracidad pretende ser sostenida, o minada, a través del contradictorio. En otras palabras, en la medida en que un documento (en sentido amplio, incluidas grabaciones) se use en plenario para interrogar a un testigo y, de esa forma, sustentar su credibilidad, o falta de ella, no se observa que exista vulneración jurídica alguna, la que sí se dará si se pretende, sin efectuar ese ejercicio del interrogatorio, darle valor a ese documento por encima de la declaración en debate. El valor documental se encuentra limitado a sostener, o no, la credibilidad del testigo, pues, de lo contrario, nos ubicaríamos de espaldas a la realidad si indicáramos que, cualquier referencia, previa al juicio, del deponente, no podría ser valorada, aunque de las mismas pueda depender la confiabilidad del testigo o la verosimilitud de su dicho. Téngase en cuenta que, de este modo, se potencia la oralidad y el contradictorio, lo que no sucedería si se pretende hacer el contraste en momentos distintos al interrogatorio, como en conclusiones o por la vía recursiva, impidiéndole al testigo dar explicaciones de lo sucedido" (…). Todo ello deberá ponderarse, oportunamente.» (Algunos destacados son del original y otros agregados).

En cualquier caso, en este asunto, además del dicho del oficial [Nombre 012] en el debate anulado (en un sentido diferente al rendido en este juicio respecto a si uno o ambos encartados corrieron al advertir su presencia en el lugar) se contaba con el informe policial y la denuncia oral en que consignó que solo uno de ellos corrió. ¿Por qué es relevante esto? Nuevamente acá las partes y jueces mezclan planos analíticos. Por supuesto que el que solo una persona corra hace surgir un indicio psicológico que habilita la actuación policial. Es decir, aunque no hubiese noticia de delito respecto de ellos ni operativo alguno que justificara la detención y requisa, ese acto de correr ante la presencia policía posibilitaba que las autoridades interviniesen, detuviesen y decomisaran válidamente objetos, y eso hace la prueba obtenida lícita. Este plano de licitud probatoria (que fue al que se le puso énfasis en otros momentos) es diferente de otros planos analíticos: si el indicio psicológico de correr es unívoco respecto al fin para el que se posee la sustancia y si el que solo una persona corriera puede trasladársele al otro encartado como indicio en su contra. Recuérdese que, como ya se adelantó, la acusación no se formuló en términos de coautoría, con plan previo y distribución funcional entre ambos. Pudo existir esa coautoría, pero la acusación no la formuló de ese modo y eso generó un límite a dicha pieza dado el principio de correlación (artículo 365 del Código ritual). Entonces el hecho de que uno corriera no puede serle atribuido al otro como indicio (unívoco o anfibológico) pues la pieza acusatoria no se formuló de ese modo y la coautoría es uno de los institutos que permiten romper el principio de personalidad de la acción. Tampoco es aceptable considerar irrelevante ese contenido del dicho del policía (si uno corrió o fueron ambos) porque si bien puede serlo para efectos de definir la licitud de la intervención policial, no lo es para efectos de fijar el hecho histórico realmente acaecido y extraer de este elementos del dolo y de la coautoría del encartado que no corrió. Sí, el abordaje policial es lícito, aunque solo uno de los sujetos corriera y por ello la prueba obtenida es lícita y no contraría lo indicado en el voto de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos en el caso Fernández Prieto y Tumbeiro vs. Argentina (sentencia de fondo y reparaciones del 01 de setiembre de 2020) que indicó:

«79. La Corte nota que (…) la retención temporal con fines de identificación debe estar debidamente fundada en circunstancias que “hagan presumir que alguien hubiese cometido o pudiere cometer algún hecho delictivo o contravencional”. En ese sentido, en el caso concreto, el Tribunal considera que ninguna de las razones que dio la policía para retener al señor Tumbeiro y solicitarle su identificación constituían en sí mismas, o en conjunto, hechos o informaciones suficientes y concretas que permitan a un observador razonable inferir objetivamente que probablemente había cometido o estaba por cometer un hecho delictivo o contravencional. Por el contrario, las razones que motivaron la detención con fines de identificación del señor Tumbeiro parecieron responder a preconceptos sobre cómo debe verse una persona que transita en un determinado lugar, cómo debe comportarse ante la presencia policial, y qué actividades debe realizar en ese lugar. 80. (…) La Corte recuerda que los estereotipos consisten en preconcepciones de los atributos, conductas, papeles o características poseídas por personas que pertenecen a un grupo identificado. El empleo de razonamientos estereotipados por parte de las fuerzas de seguridad puede dar lugar a actuaciones discriminatorias y, por consiguiente, arbitrarias. 81. Ante la ausencia de elementos objetivos, la clasificación de determinada conducta o apariencia como sospechosa, o de cierta reacción o expresión corporal como nerviosa, obedece a las convicciones personales de los agentes intervinientes y a las prácticas de los propios cuerpos de seguridad, lo cual comporta un grado de arbitrariedad que es incompatible con el artículo 7.3 de la Convención Americana. Cuando adicionalmente estas convicciones o apreciaciones personales se formulan sobre prejuicios respecto a las características o conductas supuestamente propias de determinada categoría o grupo de personas o a su estatus socio-económico, pueden derivar en una violación a los artículos 1.1 y 24 de la Convención. (…) 82. El uso de estos perfiles supone una presunción de culpabilidad contra toda persona que encaje en los mismos, y no la evaluación caso a caso sobre las razones objetivas que indiquen efectivamente que una persona está vinculada a la comisión de un delito. Por ello, la Corte ha señalado que las detenciones realizadas por razones discriminatorias son manifiestamente irrazonables y por tanto arbitrarias. En este caso (…), la falta de explicaciones sobre el carácter sospechoso atribuido al señor Tumbeiro más allá de su nerviosismo, su manera de vestir y el señalamiento explícito de que esta no era propia de la zona “de gente humilde” por la que caminaba, evidencian que no hubo indicios suficientes y razonables sobre su participación en un hecho delictivo, sino que la detención se efectuó prima facie debido a la sola circunstancia de no reaccionar del modo en que los agentes intervinientes percibían como correcto y utilizar un atuendo juzgado por ellos como inadecuado con base en una preconcepción subjetiva sobre la apariencia que debían resguardar los habitantes del área, lo que comporta un trato discriminatorio que torna en arbitraria la detención.» A diferencia de ese supuesto, correr por el solo hecho de toparse de frente una patrulla habilita la intervención policial respecto de ese sujeto pero, salvo que se atribuya una coautoría con quien le acompaña y no corre (que no fue el caso en autos) no la habilitaría para la persona que va a la par y permanece inalterable. Tampoco aquel indicio subjetivo (unívoco o anfibológico) puede trasladarse a tal acompañante. Nada de eso se analizó por la mayoría.

C.10 No es jurídicamente aceptable valorar los indicios en forma aislada y no en conjunto. Ya se adelantó que no solo se distorsionaron las palabras del oficial [Nombre 012] (respecto al estado de uno de los encartados y las intervenciones previas que les había hecho) y de los encartados (respecto al tipo de sustancias que consumían y su periodicidad) sino que, no se tomó en cuenta el contenido de los dictámenes médicolegales y toxicológicos sobre el exacto significado de los hallazgos documentados en el cuerpo de los endilgados. También se valoró mal la prueba respecto al significado de correr frente a la presencia policial y su imputación a quien no lo hizo (según la primera versión dada por el oficial de policía interventor) y a la forma de embalaje de las sustancias ya que se partió de que, el que estuvieran dosificadas individualmente era presuntivo de distribución o venta, pero no de autoconsumo, afirmación que no es exacta ya que una persona consumidora, al adquirir, lo hace por dosis según sus posibilidades económicas o hábitos de consumo, a fin de tener dividida la sustancia a ingerir en cada momento. Si una persona adquiere droga para el consumo, puede hacerlo dosificada para efectos de medir su propio consumo a lo largo del tiempo, desde que la adquisición sigue siendo una actividad riesgosa precisamente por la línea delgada que la separa de actividades ilícitas con las que puede confundirse, de allí que suele adquirirse para unidades de tiempo más amplias (semanas, meses) según las posibilidades económicas que, en el caso, no se analizaron. Es decir, el indicio del embalaje individual tampoco es unívoco de la conclusión afirmada. En el voto de minoría se mencionaron temas no abordados por la mayoría, como el que el policía no recordó si los acusados tenían elementos para el consumo al momento de su detención y la afirmación del fiscal de juicio (de que eso debe estar en alguna parte como el libro de entradas o de Oficialía) no es válida porque no se trata de elementos introducidos al juicio, en tanto que los acusados habrían dicho que sí andaban encendedores. Esto implica una falta de motivación del voto de mayoría en los términos del numeral 142 del Código Procesal Penal.

C.11 No es jurídicamente aceptable distorsionar los argumentos expuestos por el voto de minoría para extraer otras conclusiones. El juez de minoría dio a entender (porque ciertamente sus argumentos no fueron amplios y tuvo interrupciones en la emisión de su argumentación) que frente a un evento reprimido con una pena tan alta era exigible una mayor precisión en la elaboración de la acusación y una investigación más sólida de los fines para los que se poseía la droga, pues, aunque se tratara de flagrancia, alguna investigación, así fuera breve, debía existir. Eso se extrae del contexto de su argumentación. El fiscal indica, en cambio, que si el citado juez tenía dudas de la constitucionalidad de la pena debió hacer la consulta pero al responder de este modo no solo transmuta el sentido de las palabras de aquel a un tema que no fue el invocado sino que hace uso de la falacia tu quoque arriba explicada al señalar la inconsecuencia de la supuesta argumentación. Aunque, estima esta cámara, es legítima la duda sobre una reacción punitiva tan alta por actividades ilícitas de narcomenudeo que se equiparan, en la sanción, al tráfico de grandes cantidades de droga, lo cierto es que la consulta de constitucionalidad ya fue un ejercicio efectuado antes por parte de este tribunal (bajo la denominación de Tribunal de Casación Penal de San José) a través del voto número 2011-742 , integrado por R. Chinchilla, L. García y E. Salinas) y por el que la Sala Constitucional, por mayoría, emitió el voto número 2011-11697 según el cual: «Se evacua la consulta formulada en el sentido de que el artículo 58 de la Ley sobre estupefacientes, sustancias psicotrópicas, drogas de uso no autorizado, actividades conexas, legitimación de capitales y financiamiento al terrorismo, número 7786 del 30 de abril de 1998 y sus reformas, no resulta contrario al principio de proporcionalidad. Los Magistrados Armijo y Cruz salvan el voto y declaran que la norma consultada es inconstitucional.» Ese pronunciamiento es vinculante al tenor de las reglas atrás referidas (artículo 13 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional). Sin embargo, el tema planteado por el juez de minoría no fue ese, sino que pretendió hacer ver que si el juzgamiento penal exige, siempre, interpretación restrictiva de las reglas de fondo y procesales, indicios unívocos así como certeza y no probabilidad, en casos en donde la reacción era tan alta ese ejercicio analítico y argumentativo debía extremarse al máximo para evitar yerros. Este planteamiento, que es lo que infiere esta cámara del voto de minoría, es, a nuestro entender, un posicionamiento adecuado frente a la responsabilidad que implica el juzgamiento de seres humanos. Actuar en consecuencia no es, como dice el fiscal, extrapolar la ley. Por el contrario, esta se extrapola cuando, en lo procesal, se distorsiona el dicho de los declarantes, cuando los indicios no se analizan en conjunto o son anfibológicos o cuando, en lo sustantivo, el tipo penal se llena con circulares del Ministerio de Salud frente a lo cual los agentes estatales no reaccionan con las funciones que la ley les encomienda (objetividad e imparcialidad). Tampoco es del todo exacto afirmar que el juez disidente dijera que se ha creado una “figura de transporte penal sin contenido” como lo expuso el fiscal en su contestación, pues aunque usó esa expresión (que luego rectificó a “o con contenido de indicio”) del contexto de aquella intervención lo que se extrae es que el juzgador intentaba indicar (aunque ciertamente no fue todo lo explícito que se deseara) es que no bastaba el solo transporte para que hubiese delito, sino que debían acreditarse los fines ilícitos establecidos en el ordenamiento jurídico y que no era suficiente aludir, en una acusación, a “fines de tráfico”, para incorporar allí cualquiera de los otros fines que se mencionan en el artículo, tema que, como se explicó en los primeros apartados, es correcto partiendo de los elementos objetivos del tipo en cuestión.

C.12 Otros sesgos en las exposiciones. Además de los ya indicados en el voto de mayoría, también las partes han acudido a argumentaciones inadecuadas. El abogado defensor, por ejemplo, partió de que este tribunal conocía el contexto para hacer una argumentación que era inicialmente incomprensible y solo cobró sentido cuando el tribunal se empapó de los puntos del caso (sesgo de la maldición del conocimiento). Por su parte, también implica un sesgo cognitivo intentar apelar al sentido de las palabras y a las reglas de la semántica o que gobiernan el idioma español para los temas de conveniencia de una tesis, pero no hacerlo para las que no gustan a la misma persona expositora. El fiscal ha pretendido, contra la interpretación sistemática (que, por tal, no es extensiva, pues alude a entender la fecha de la ley y la existencia de otras normativas de ese rango que sustentan el permiso que define el tipo penal) convencer a esta cámara que por transporte se entienda solo el traslado de un punto a otro y para ello apela a las reglas del idioma español (dejando de lado la interpretación completa del tipo penal), pero pretende dejar de lado las normas de tratados internacionales y no atenerse al sentido gramatical de “jueces” cuando alude a la conformación del tribunal de instancia. Esto también es un sesgo argumentativo. Tampoco es jurídicamente aceptable usar argumentos efectistas o sociológicos de otros contextos históricos, cuando las reglas del derecho, en virtud de la soberanía, son exclusivas de un territorio. Por ende, de un lugar a otro y de un momento a otro las regulaciones pueden cambiar, de modo que exponer argumentos emocionales o de otros contextos es apartarse de las reglas jurídicas. Así lo hace la representación fiscal al indicar: “la normalización y generalización de actos de permuta de droga por droga o suministros o distribuciones de droga entre una colectividad pueden poner en peligro la estabilidad misma del sistema económico y social, tal cual sucede, por ejemplo en ciudades como Los Ángeles en California o en los canales de drenaje de Las Vegas, Nevada, donde la difusión de drogas altamente adictivas como la ketamina, la cocaína, y el fentanilo no solo causan un creciente ausentismo laboral, sino gastos incontrolados en el sistema de salud, aumento de la delincuencia violenta, muertes prematuras y aumentos en las primas por pólizas de desocupación y de vida, mientras se crean barriadas crecientes de zombis fentanílicos y discapacitados (sic) mentales que deben ser mantenidos por el resto de la población.” (Cfr. escrito de contestación). Aunque lo anterior sea cierto, resulta que nuestro sistema jurídico no es igual al de esos sitios y tal contexto sociológico resulta válido solo para efectos de política criminal, lege ferenda o criminalización primaria, pero no para el juzgamiento de un caso con reglas específicas.

Todo lo antes expuesto ha tenido como objeto evidenciar la necesidad de depurar la argumentación jurídica en el abordaje de los casos. Ciertamente esta misma resolución no escapará, por mucho que hayamos intentado no caer en tales sesgos, incorporar esos u otros muchos, pero es labor de las partes evidenciarlos por medio de los recursos y con argumentos jurídicos. Hacerlo de ese modo permitirá que el horizonte entre el deber ser y el ser se acorte y, sin duda, fortalecerá el Estado de derecho en el ámbito de la “administración” de justicia. Por todo lo antes dicho, los recursos deben acogerse y anularse la sentencia recurrida, ordenándose el reenvío ante una integración que no haya intervenido antes y con respeto al principio de prohibición de reforma en perjuicio de la defensa, como únicos recurrentes.

III.- En el segundo alegato del recurso de la defensora pública se reprocha la insuficiente fundamentación de la pena impuesta (un año más del mínimo) a [Nombre 016] al usar, como único criterio al respecto, la existencia de antecedentes penales por portación ilícita de arma y por robo agravado, penas ambas cumplidas por el encartado y que no tienen relación con el ilícito por el que ahora es sentenciado. Dice que imponer nueve años por transportar 22 puchos de marihuana es desproporcionado. Al contestar el recurso, el fiscal dijo que no iba a adversar ese argumento pues, en la jurisprudencia, ha habido “dos polos opuestos” (así en contestación) al respecto, a los que alude y por ello la Sala Tercera ha asumido una posición ecléctica (para lo que transcribe en parte el voto número 763-2014 que dice compartir) según la cual los antecedentes no pueden ser el único criterio para el aumento de la pena, por lo que si se avalara la pena de nueve años ello daría legitimación a la defensa a presentar casación por precedentes contradictorios. A ello suma que el fiscal pidió, en sus conclusiones, para los dos acusados, ocho años de cárcel y concluye en que no adversará el motivo siempre y cuando la sanción sea esa. Se acoge la queja. Aunque, en virtud de lo decidido atrás, puede parecer innecesario resolver este tema, no lo es, en la medida en que, de lo que aquí se decida dependerá si, en el juicio de reenvío, en caso de llegarse a una sentencia condenatoria (tema sobre el que no se prejuzga) se pueden imponer o no las mismas penas ya usadas o si además hay un límite ulterior o adicional dado por este pronunciamiento. Este último supuesto aplica acá, por lo que se dirá. Es claro que al encartado ([Nombre 009]) se le impuso la pena menor establecida en el tipo penal y tal aspecto no es recurrido por la defensa pública, de donde, por el principio de prohibición de reforma en perjuicio (artículo 447 del Código Procesal Penal), ese será el tope por considerar en el reenvío ante una eventual condena. Téngase en cuenta que —aunque la pena mínima sea alta y pueda parecer desproporcional frente a la cantidad de droga encontrada, el rol de las personas en la eventual cadena de distribución y, comparativamente, porque es la misma reacción punitiva que respecto de conductas mucho más nocivas como sería el gran tráfico internacional— ante consulta efectuada por el antes denominado Tribunal de Casación Penal de San José (voto número 1034-2007; R. Chinchilla, A. Chirino y S. Zúñiga) respecto a si, ante el conflicto entre los principios constitucionales de culpabilidad y legalidad, los tribunales podían hacer juicios de ponderación para apartarse de los topes mínimos a los fines de disminuirlos si estos excedían la culpabilidad de un sujeto (tesis sostenida por tratadistas como Roxin y Binder), la Sala Constitucional, evadiendo el punto, sostuvo la constitucionalidad de los extremos mínimos de las penas (ver voto número 2008-2124). De igual forma, ante consulta efectuada por el Tribunal de Casación Penal de San José, en voto número 742-2011 (R. Chinchilla, L. García y E. Salinas) respecto de si montos de penas tan altas eran proporcionales para sancionar a personas con un rol bajo en la cadena del tráfico de estupefacientes y a las que se les decomisaba una escasa cantidad, la mayoría del órgano constitucional no encontró ninguna irregularidad sobre el punto, esto en el voto número 2011-11697 arriba mencionado. Por ello, si se aplicó esa sanción, no podría usarse otra, ni siquiera menor.

Empero, en el caso de [Nombre 016] cc. [Nombre 016] la situación cambia, pues se le puso un año más del mínimo. A este respecto hay que indicar que cualquier aumento de la pena mínima establecida por quien legisla debe obedecer a razones objetivas, ajenas a los mismos elementos del tipo penal, que han de ser suficientemente explicadas por el a quo y en cuya argumentación no es posible transgredir los límites derivados de normas y principios constitucionales, incluyendo la cosa juzgada material y el Derecho Penal de Acto propio de un sistema democrático. De ese modo, aumentar la pena mínima por condenas inscritas es inconvencional e inconstitucional, como este tribunal, con diferentes integraciones, inclusive desde que se denominaba Tribunal de Casación Penal de San José, tuvo ocasión de decirlo, entre otros, en el voto número 2015-1120 de esta cámara (con otra integración: García, Wittmann y Obando). El antecedente se invoca no por criterios de autoridad sino por facilidad en explicar las razones antes dadas para llegar a esa conclusión, a saber:

«…el Tribunal sentenciador justificó la pena impuesta basados en diferentes circunstancias, tales como (…) que los imputados tenían juzgamientos, lo que no comparte esta Cámara, por rebasar la culpabilidad propia del hecho sancionado. Al respecto, la resolución 0934-15 de este Tribunal, con integración parcial a la que aquí suscribe, señaló: "...En cuanto al tema de los antecedentes, este tipo de argumento implica utilizar un Derecho Penal de Autor y no de Acto. Debe tenerse en cuenta que, conforme lo ha dicho la Sala Constitucional en diversos votos, la pena no puede rebasar la culpabilidad del sujeto, tesis acorde con lo resuelto por la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, en el caso Hilaire, Constantine y Benjamín y otros vs. Trinidad y Tobago, dictada el 21 de junio del 2002 (No. 102) y la misma jurisprudencia constitucional ha indicado que la pena no puede aumentarse con base en la existencia de los antecedentes (Voto N° 5746-93) pues ello implica una violación al principio de cosa juzgada, al volverse a juzgar a la persona (para aumentarle la sanción) por eventos respecto a los que ya recayó sentencia firme. Además, cuando un Tribunal Penal, aumenta la pena de prisión tomando, como criterio, que la persona tiene antecedentes penales, deja de considerar que el Código Penal ya tiene previsto, para estos casos, una consecuencia, cual es, que la persona no pueda obtener ciertos beneficios, entre estos el de condena de ejecución condicional (artículo 60); la conmutación de la sanción (artículo 69) o la sustitución por el monitoreo electrónico (ley especial), entre otros. En otras palabras, si lo que se pretende es un mayor rigor para los sujetos sometidos, más de una vez, a la Justicia Penal, serán esas medidas, previamente dispuestas por el legislador, las que cumplan esa función".» (el destacado se suple).

Si lo anterior es así en cualquier caso, máxime cuando los delitos cuya condena se inscribió carecen de relación (o al menos esta no se explicita) con el de la condena en donde se aumenta la sanción, como sucede en este caso, en donde el nomen iuris (posesión ilegal de arma, robo agravado y transporte de droga) es diferente y la mayoría del tribunal sentenciador no hizo el mínimo esfuerzo argumentativo para establecer alguna relación. Todo ello deberá considerarse, de ser procedente, en el reenvío ordenado en donde no podrá considerarse el tema de los antecedentes para fijar una consecuencia sancionatoria, en caso de que esta sea procedente tema en el que, valga reiterarlo, este tribunal no prejuzga, sino solo en la necesidad de que, cualquiera que sea la decisión adoptada, se analicen todos los tópicos, de hecho y jurídicos, antes desarrollados.

IV.- Sobre la medida cautelar y advertencia por anteriores nulidades. (A) En este asunto, la resolución de mayoría, en su parte considerativa se limita a enunciar la prórroga (luego corregida a dictado para [Nombre 016] y prórroga para [Nombre 009]) de la medida cautelar. En ninguna parte se mencionan temas de probabilidad de comisión delictiva (lo que puede subsanarse porque se ha partido, en momentos previos de la sentencia que han de integrarse a este apartado, de la certeza, para la mayoría al respecto) y menos aún se indica cuál es el peligro procesal y por qué razón se dicta o extiende la medida. Conviene, una vez más, reiterar que la cautela no es automática por la sola emisión de la sentencia y que la Corte IDH (sentencia del caso López Álvarez vs. Honduras, entre otras muchas) ha indicado que no es suficiente el monto de pena o la sola condena para emitirla: “69. Del artículo 7.3 de la Convención se desprende la obligación estatal de no restringir la libertad del detenido más allá de los límites estrictamente necesarios para asegurar que aquél no impedirá el desarrollo eficiente de las investigaciones ni eludirá la acción de la justicia. Las características personales del supuesto autor y la gravedad del delito que se le imputa no son, por sí mismos, justificación suficiente de la prisión preventiva. La prisión preventiva es una medida cautelar y no punitiva. Se infringe la Convención cuando se priva de libertad, durante un período excesivamente prolongado, y por lo tanto desproporcionado, a personas cuya responsabilidad criminal no ha sido establecida. Esto equivale a anticipar la pena.” Es claro que la decisión de la medida cautelar, por cuestiones prácticas, se inserta en la sentencia, pero no necesariamente es parte de esta (pues la decisión, igualmente, puede adoptarse en auto separado, antes o después de dicha decisión), pero, en cualquier caso, eso no elimina la obligación jurisdiccional de motivarla, conforme lo exigen los numerales 142 y 257-258 del Código Procesal Penal. El no haberse efectuado así, constituye un vicio más en el proceso, incluso impugnable ante esta sede (así el voto de la Sala Constitucional número 202120046).

Dado que en el caso de [Nombre 016], el dictado de la medida se hizo hasta en la sentencia condenatoria ahora anulada pues él enfrentó el proceso en libertad y se impuso su prisión provisional solo por el monto de la sanción, debe ordenarse su inmediata libertad, si otra causa no lo impide y sin que esto afecte la posibilidad que tienen las partes —si a bien lo tienen y si se dan los presupuestos para ello— de gestionar, ante el órgano competente (que no es este) cualquier otra cautela, distinta de la indicada o bien pedir la prisión preventiva por causas sobrevinientes diferentes a la ya referida. En otras palabras, para [Nombre 016] el único fundamento hasta ahora existente para la cautela ha sido la sentencia y al quedar esta sin efecto, pierde soporte la base sobre la que aquella medida se sostuvo y no puede sustentarse válidamente, de modo que debe ejecutarse la libertad a cargo de la autoridad que lo tiene a su orden, única legitimada al efecto.

En cuanto a [Nombre 009] la situación es distinta, pues fue declarado rebelde desde antes (y su prisión cautelar la dispuso la misma jueza de mayoría en una resolución previa a la sentencia, aunque fue extendida en esta) de modo que el peligro de fuga se mantiene y se trata de una causal procesal, por lo que, para él, debe mantenerse la medida cautelar en los términos dictados por el órgano de instancia, es decir, a vencer el 02 de agosto de 2025, ya que en el auto 184-2025-B de las 14:37 del 27 de enero de 2025 (ver folio 574 del tomo II) la juzgadora analizó el peligro de fuga por la rebeldía decretada y la probabilidad de comisión del hecho surge de la misma acusación en discusión (artículo 303 de la legislación procesal). Entonces, la medida debe mantenerse por el lapso decretado por el a quo (único extremo en el que la decisión mantiene vigencia pues, aunque se resolvió en la sentencia, puede ser un auto separado) lapso durante el cual deberá celebrarse el reenvío ordenado y sin perjuicio de que, de oficio o a solicitud de parte, de estimarse procedente se varíe la medida. (B) Por último, en este asunto se está ordenando el reenvío por tercera vez, aspecto que se menciona a fin de que el órgano de instancia dimensione el nivel de responsabilidad que le compete pues es inaceptable que un asunto de flagrancia tenga más de un año en trámite, dos tomos de expediente (por las numerosas copias efectuadas) y tres reenvíos a su haber y aún no se haya finiquitado de forma debida la causa. Asimismo, téngase en cuenta que antes se ha dictado una sentencia absolutoria de modo que, de emitirse una segunda en ese sentido (aspecto que solo se menciona por ser uno de los posibles resultados, sin que se prejuzgue sobre la decisión final que deba adoptarse) cerraría las posibilidades de impugnación penal por el doble conforme (artículo 466 bis del Código Procesal Penal) y, en tal caso, la responsabilidad final por cualquier error jurisdiccional recaería exclusivamente sobre el ente decisor. Por ende, sea cualquiera la decisión adoptada, la nueva integración debe procurar hacerlo sin cometer ningún error porque si condena y yerra será el cuarto reenvío y si absuelve y yerra asume enteramente la responsabilidad por la decisión a falta de ulterior recurso.

POR TANTO:

Se declaran formalmente admisibles y con lugar los recursos de apelación interpuestos por la licenciada Esther Salazar Rojas como defensora pública de los encartados y por el licenciado Rafael Ángel Jenkins Grispo, defensor privado del sindicado ([Nombre 009]). Se anula la sentencia de instancia (salvo en cuanto a la medida cautelar de [Nombre 009] inserta en tal decisión) y se ordena el reenvío ante una autoridad que no haya intervenido antes y con respeto al principio de prohibición de reforma en perjuicio. Se mantiene la prisión preventiva de [Nombre 009] hasta el 02 de agosto de 2025 sin perjuicio de cualquier cambio que llegue a decretarse. Se ordena la inmediata libertad de [Nombre 016] cc. [Nombre 016] cc. [Nombre 016] si otra causa no lo impide, la cual deberá ser ejecutada por el tribunal a la orden del que se encuentra el sindicado para lo que se ordena la comunicación inmediata de esta resolución. NOTIFÍQUESE.

Rosaura Chinchilla Calderón Ivette Carranza Cambronero Kathya Jiménez Fernández Juezas de apelación de sentencia penal Imputado : [Nombre 009] Ofendido : La salud pública Delito : Transporte de droga