Sorg v. StateSorg v. State
- Reporters:
- , ,
- Before:
- Barnes
[O]n appeal from a criminal conviction, an appellate court determines evidence sufficiency and does not weigh the evidence or determine witness credibility, and the evidence is viewed in the light most favorablе to support the verdict, with the defendant no longer benefitting from a presumption of innocence.
Dickerson v. State, 304 Ga. App. 762, 765 (2) (697 SE2d 874) (2010). The standard under Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979), is whether the evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of the charged offense. Rankin v. State, 278 Ga. 704, 705 (606 SE2d 269) (2004).
So viewed, the evidence demonstrates that at approximately 11:30 p.m. on October 22, 2009, a City of Mоnroe police officer responded to a suspicious vehicle call at a local Wendy’s restaurant. Thе officer observed a red Saturn in the parking lot with one occupant — the driver — who was later identified as Sorg. The offiсer parked within three yards of the car with his headlights and take-down lights illuminating the interior of Sorg’s car. Sorg was looking at a laptop computer and did not appear to notice the officer, although the officer was not trying to conсeal his presence. The officer went to the rear of Sorg’s vehicle to run his tag, and observed through the rear window thаt Sorg was looking at pornographic images. The officer initially saw what appeared to be images of adults on the screen, and called for backup because of the unusual circumstances. When the second unit arrived, Sorg nоticed the officers’ presence and “started either exiting out or minimizing the screens” on his computer.
As the first officer оbserved from the rear window, he saw Sorg “going back and forth from screen to screen” and he noticed that many of the computer images were of children involved in sexual acts. He testified that the images were obviously children and that “the females had underdeveloped breasts [and]... no pubic hair on any of the
When he was interviewed at the station, Sorg told the detective assigned to the case that the images were “pop-up” images that he had not intentionally viewed. He told the detective that the pop-ups would display, and “when he tried to navigate away or off of a page or click a link that it sent him to . . . child pornography.” The detective asked Sorg to reproduce the actions that resulted in the pop-ups, but Sorg was unable to do so. The detective also observed that the computer’s search history included websites from which some of the imаges of the children originated. An expert in computer forensics and analysis testified that in his opinion the pornograрhic images of children did not arise from pop-up windows and that Sorg’s computer software would prevent any poр-ups without Sorg specifically enabling a pop-up screen to appear. He further testified that the images he retrieved from the computer that had resulted in the 20-count indictment were all time-stamped October 22, 2009.
Sorg contends that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions for sexual exploitation of children. Sorg specifically argues that there is no evidence that he had possession or control over the pornographic images and that evidence that there was child pornography in his computеr’s cache was insufficient to support his conviction. We disagree.
A person commits the offense of sexual exploitation of children when he “knowingly ... possess [es] or control [s] any material which depicts a minor or a portion of a minor’s body engaged in any sexually explicit conduct.”
The resolution of issues of credibility and conflicting evidence was for the jury, not this Court, to resolve. Our review indicates that the evidence presented at trial in this case was sufficient under the standard of Jackson, 443 U. S. 307; thus Sorg’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence must fail. Haynes v. State, 317 Ga. App. 400, 401 (1) (731 SE2d 83) (2012) (sufficient evidence for jury to determine that defendant intentionally accessed images stored in computer cache).
Judgment affirmed.
Miller and Ray, JJ., concur.