Opinion ID: 2555394
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: evidentiary insufficiency claim

Text: The defendant's final claim is that the evidence adduced at the revocation hearing was insufficient under the third prong of Golding to support the trial court's finding that he had violated the special condition. The defendant claims that the testimony revealed that the nude photographs of his former girlfriend were placed on his home computer sometime prior to his probation and that he was not aware during his probation that the photographs were still there. He also contends, insofar as the evidence indicated that the photographs were accessed during his probation, that there was testimony at the revocation hearing that the file containing the photographs may have been accessed by antivirus software searching for malicious codes and not by him. The state responds that the evidence supports the trial court's finding that the defendant violated his probation because sexually explicit photographs were found on his home computer and that the defendant possessed those photographs without the permission of his probation officer, who deemed them to be inappropriate after they were discovered. We conclude that there was sufficient evidence to support the trial court's finding and that the defendant's claim must fail under the third prong of Golding. The following additional facts are relevant to our resolution of this claim. Martin, the defendant's probation officer, testified for the state at the revocation hearing that, on June 4, 2007, she went to the defendant's home to investigate a complaint by his former girlfriend that he had threatened in an e-mail to send to her coworker nude photographs he previously had taken of her. The defendant admitted to Martin that, at one point, his computer contained those photographs but that they had been deleted and that no pornography or other questionable material remained on his computer. Martin testified that the computer found at the defendant's residence nonetheless had been seized and taken to the state police forensic laboratory for the purpose of conducting an examination of the hard drive for evidence of pornographic material. The laboratory subsequently sent a report to Martin accompanied by a series of photographs of the defendant's former girlfriend, clothed and naked, that had been obtained from the computer's hard drive. Martin testified that she had not been aware before she went to the defendant's home that there might be sexually explicit photographs on his computer, that the defendant had neither sought nor been given permission to possess the photographs, either on his computer or anywhere else, and that possession of the photographs constituted a violation of the conditions of his probation because the photographs were sexually explicit. Martin also testified that she might be suspicious of the former girlfriend's motives in filing the complaint against the defendant because she was a woman possibly scorned. . . . Martin later conceded, however, that she never had met the defendant's former girlfriend and was not in a position to judge whether she was a credible person. Steven DiPietro, a computer forensic examiner with the state police forensic laboratory, also testified for the state that he had examined the hard drive of the defendant's computer, had found that it contained photographs of a sexually explicit nature and that the photographs had not been deleted. He further testified that he was able to determine when the files containing the photographs had last been accessed. He explained that persons or software may access files and that, in some cases, antivirus software may change the last accessed dates. DiPietro also stated that he could not tell for certain whether a person or computer software had last accessed the files containing the photographs, but it was possible that antivirus software had been running at the time and had accessed those files for the purpose of detecting malicious codes. He added that one particular photograph of a naked woman had last been accessed at a different time than the other photographs, and that no attempt had been made to delete that photograph. He stated that the photographs had last been accessed on April 21, 2007, except for the one photograph that had last been accessed on May 13, 2007. James Ritchie testified for the defense that he had extensive knowledge of computers and had examined the defendant's computer hard drive. Ritchie described in more detail the procedure that was followed in examining the hard drive and corroborated most of DiPietro's testimony, including his testimony regarding the last dates the files containing the photographs had been accessed and his testimony that no apparent attempt had been made to delete the sexually explicit material from the hard drive. In Douglas v. Buder, 412 U.S. 430, 432, 93 S.Ct. 2199, 37 L.Ed.2d 52 (1973), the United States Supreme Court held that a probation revocation is invalid under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment when the record is totally devoid of evidentiary support for a court's finding of a probation violation. Accordingly, we must examine the record in the present case to determine whether the trial court's finding that the defendant had violated the special condition was devoid of evidentiary support. We conclude that there was sufficient evidence in the record to support the trial court's finding. Witnesses testified at the revocation hearing that sexually explicit photographs had been found on the hard drive of the defendant's home computer, there had been no attempt to delete the photographs, and they had last been accessed on April 21, 2007, and May 13, 2007, during the defendant's probation. In addition, the defendant had neither sought nor been given permission by his probation officer to possess the photographs, either on his computer or anywhere else, and the officer deemed possession of the photographs a clear violation of the special condition. We therefore conclude that the defendant's claim fails under the third prong of Golding. The judgment is affirmed.