Court Opinion

ID: 9783948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:30:54.958205+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:45.478077
License: Public Domain

TERRIE LIVINGSTON,
Chief Justice, dissenting and concurring.
Today, the majority holds that when defendants possess illegal pornographic images on their computers but delete them and send them to their hard drives’ free space before the police discover them, the State cannot prove intentional or knowing possession of the images. Majority op. at 826-27. Because the circumstantial evidence is sufficient to support the jury’s determination to convict appellant for ten counts of possession of child pornography, I dissent to the portions of the majority’s opinion and judgment that acquit him of those charges. I concur with the majority’s decision to affirm appellant’s other convictions.
The standard for evidentiary sufficiency explained by Jackson v. Virginia8 and Clayton v. State9 is included but incorrectly applied in the majority’s opinion, so it *828bears repeating here. See Majority op. at 825. The relevant question in an eviden-tiary sufficiency review is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, “any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.”10 Clayton, 235 S.W.3d at 778. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict “means that the reviewing court is required to defer to the jury’s credibility and weight determinations because the jury is the sole judge of the witnesses’ credibility and the weight to be given their testimony.” Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893, 899 (Tex.Crim.App.2010). One product of the jury’s lone role of assessing witnesses’ credibility is that the jury “is free to believe or disbelieve the testimony of any witness, to reconcile conflicts in the testimony, and to accept or reject any or all of the evidence of either side.” Bottenfield v. State, 77 S.W.3d 349, 355 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2002, pet. ref'd), cert. denied, 539 U.S. 916, 123 S.Ct. 2275, 156 L.Ed.2d 133 (2003). The jury’s freedom to reject testimony applies even when the testimony is uncontroverted. Wilkerson v. State, 881 S.W.2d 321, 324 (Tex.Crim.App.1994).
The majority holds that the evidence is insufficient to show that appellant intentionally or knowingly possessed the illegal images found on his Gateway tower because
• the computer contained “viruses capable of covertly placing images”;
• appellant could not access the images he was convicted for;
• the evidence did not show when the images were placed on, accessed, or deleted from the computer; and
• appellant’s brother, Kerry, testified that appellant bought the computer at a flea market.
Majority op. at 827.
The majority mischaracterizes the evidence about the viruses on appellant’s computer. Amy Trippel, the State’s digital forensic examiner, testified that the computer had several viruses and then said that some viruses, hypothetically, are capable of remotely accessing a computer and storing images on it. Trippel did not say that the viruses found on appellant’s computer served such a purpose. She did explain, however, that the probability of a malicious outsider using a virus to store child pornography in the free space of another computer is low:
[THE STATE:] Okay. Hypothetically, let’s say a bad guy wants to store child porn on your computer to view later on, okay? And if he put it in your free space, he would have no way of retrieving those images of child porn to view because they’re not linked to a specific number, code or other identifying number or code; is that correct?
A. Well, there would be no file allocation to—
Q. That’s correct?
A. —to show where the pointer was to where that file was.
Q. Okay. So if I’m a bad guy and I put porn on your computer, the last place I would put it would be on your free space, because I couldn’t retrieve it to view it?
A. I don’t see how you could.
Therefore, the jury could have rationally rejected the notion that the illegal images *829were placed on appellant’s computer through a virus.
The jury could have also rationally disbelieved Kerry’s second-hand testimony about appellant’s buying the Gateway computer at a flea market.11 Kerry described appellant as his “hero” and protector. Furthermore, during the State’s questioning, Kerry hesitated to condemn appellant’s sexual assault of a girl who was about twenty-five years younger than appellant was. Thus, the jury could have inferred that Kerry’s testimony was biased. Next, the jury could have recognized that Kerry’s claim to have specific knowledge about the Gateway computer seemed to be at odds with his unawareness about other parts of appellant’s life, such as the name of appellant’s former wife, the fact that appellant had sexually assaulted underage females, and information about other computers that appellant owned.
Even if believed, however, Kerry’s testimony did not foreclose appellant’s possession of the images but only presented the jury with a choice of who possessed them. Likewise, the fact that Trippel could not say when the images were placed on, accessed, or deleted from the computer did not preclude appellant’s possession of them; Trippel’s testimony only meant that there was no direct evidence that he did so. But circumstantial evidence alone may be sufficient to establish guilt. Orr v. State, 306 S.W.3d 380, 395 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2010, no pet.) (citing Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9, 13 (Tex.Crim.App.2007)). Thus, possession, intent, and knowledge may be proved by circumstantial evidence. See Evans v. State, 202 S.W.3d 158, 161 (Tex.Crim.App.2006); Guevara v. State, 152 S.W.3d 45, 50 (Tex.Crim.App.2004); Richardson v. State, 328 S.W.3d 61, 66-68 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2010, pet. ref'd). In fact, proof of a culpable mental state almost invariably depends upon circumstantial evidence. Krause v. State, 243 S.W.3d 95, 111-12 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2007, pet. ref'd) (holding that various items of circumstantial evidence showed that the defendant intentionally or knowingly possessed child pornography); cf. James v. State, 264 S.W.3d 215, 221 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2008, pet. ref'd) (holding that “circumstances [were] sufficient for the jury to infer that appellant knowingly possessed the firearm that was found near his feet”).
The jury could infer appellant’s intentional or knowing possession of the child pornography from the following circumstantial evidence:
• the Gateway tower was found in appellant’s home, and the record does not contain evidence that anyone other than appellant lived at the home or had recently used that computer;
• the Gateway tower contained adult pornography and “child erotica,” which Trippel described as legal pictures of children who are either partially clothed or nude;
• the child erotica was located in the My Documents folder of the computer within another folder named “childmo-delsites.com”;
• the Gateway tower contained, as temporary internet files that were viewed or created in 2007 or 2008 (after appellant’s alleged purchase of the computer at a flea market), a file called youngpornandteensex @youngzil-la.com and another file relating to a “hickey preteen model”;
*830• appellant admitted while giving his statement to police that he visited pornographic websites and had seen pictures of “all different” ages of girls (but denied that there were pictures of underage females);
• Trippel also found “child erotica or suspected child porn” on a laptop computer, which apparently belonged to another person but was seized from appellant’s house;
• appellant possessed other child pornography on a digital camera in his home;
• the State substantiated appellant’s specific sexual interest in children through testimony of sexual assault victims; and
• the State showed appellant’s general interest in pornography by proving that the police found pornographic DVDs at his house.
The majority’s opinion ignores these facts and seems to hold that because there was no direct evidence that appellant possessed the illegal images and there were alternate hypotheses to his possession of them, the State failed to meet its burden.12 Majority op. at 826-27. But a lack of direct evidence and the existence of alternative hypotheses will be common features of many cases in which illegal images have been deleted and reside in a computer’s free space. These features should not prevent a conviction where a rational jury may nonetheless rely on circumstantial evidence to find the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See Clayton, 235 S.W.3d at 778; Orr, 306 S.W.3d at 395.
I would affirm the convictions m counts eight through seventeen of appellant’s indictment; I dissent from the majority’s decision to reverse them.

. 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

. 235 S.W.3d 772, 778 (Tex.Crim.App.2007).

. Thus, the State is not required to prove guilt beyond all doubt. See Turro v. State, 950 S.W.2d 390, 397 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 1997, pet. ref'd) (op. on remand) (explaining that in a "circumstantial evidence case ..., it is unnecessary for the circumstances to exclude, to a moral certainty, every other feasible hypothesis”).

. Kerry did not claim to have witnessed the purchase; he said, "I’d stopped by [appellant’s] house on my — it was a week or so around my birthday, he took me to get a hamburger. He had gotten ... it from a flea market.”

. The circumstantial evidence supporting intentional or knowing possession in this case at least equals the evidence that we held to be sufficient to support a conviction for possession of child pornography in Perry v. State, No. 02-06-00378-CR, 2008 WL 3877303, at *1-4 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth Aug. 21, 2008, pet. ref'd) (mem. op., not designated for publication). Perry established that intentional or knowing possession of images is provable even when the images are stored in free or unallocated space. Id. at *3-4.