Court Opinion

ID: 9787020
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:08:41.858067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:51.439360
License: Public Domain

*152PER CURIAM
Defendant, who was convicted of delivery of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, former ORS 475.999(1) (2003), renumbered as ORS 475.904(1) (2005), appeals, assigning error to the denial of his motion for judgment of acquittal (MJOA). The issue presented here is identical to that in State v. Conklin, 214 Or App 80, 162 P3d 364 (2007), and, because defendant was tried jointly with the defendants in Conklin, the evidentiary record is also identical. For the reasons stated in Conklin, the trial court erred in denying defendant’s MJOA.
In response to the dissent, we rely on the analysis framed in Conklin, as supplemented by the following analogous hypothetical:
A criminal statute prohibits teenagers from driving Chevrolets. All Chevrolets are red. “A,” a teenager, is seen driving a red car. There is no record evidence as to what portion of all red cars are Chevrolets.
In that hypothetical, there is no basis from which the trier of fact could infer, as a matter of “logical probability,” that the car “A” was driving was, in fact, a Chevrolet. See State v. Bivins, 191 Or App 460, 83 P3d 379 (2004). As we explained in Bivins'.
“ ‘The line between a reasonable inference that may permissibly be drawn by a jury from basic facts in evidence and an impermissible speculation is not drawn by judicial idiosyncrasies. The line is drawn by the laws of logic. If there is an experience of logical probability that an ultimate fact will follow a stated narrative or historical fact, then the jury is given the opportunity to draw a conclusion because there is a reasonable probability that the conclusion flows from the proven facts! ”
Id. at 467 (quoting with approval Tose v. First Pennsylvania Bank, N.A., 648 F2d 879, 895 (3rd Cir), cert den, 454 US 893 (1981)) (emphasis added).
So too here. The “historical facts” that the Sonshine School, located at the Salem First Baptist Church, is a school attended primarily by minors and that all elementary schools *153are attended primarily by minors do not, as a matter of “logical probability,” support inferentially the “ultimate fact” that the Sonshine School is an “elementary school” (or a secondary or vocational school attended primarily by minors) as required under former ORS 475.999(1). To be sure, as the dissent emphasizes, that is a possible inference — -just as it is possible that the red car “A” drove was a Chevrolet. But, for conviction of a crime, mere unquantifiable possibility is insufficient as a matter of law. More — “logical probability” of the requisite inference — is required. See Bivins, 191 Or App at 466-68.1
Conviction for violation of former ORS 475.999(1) (2003) vacated and remanded for entry of conviction for violation of ORS 475.840.

 We note, as we did in Conklin, that this is not a case in which the state’s proof of an essential element was, by necessity, inferential and circumstantial. See Conklin, 214 Or App at 85 n 4. The state could easily have adduced direct proof — if such proof were available — regarding the requisite character of the Sonshine School. Id.