Defendant appeals his convictions on four counts of first-degree encouraging child sexual abuse and three counts of second-degree encouraging child sexual abuse. Although defendant makes several assignments of error, we write only to address his argument that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the execution of a search warrant, and we affirm.
Officer Hensley swore in an affidavit that, among other things, defendant was a registered sex offender who previously had been convicted of possession of child pornography and had recently told a sheriffs deputy that he subscribed to a pornographic magazine from Denmark, a country that permitted child pornography, but that the photographs depicted only people of legal age. Based on that affidavit, a magistrate issued a search warrant for defendant’s hotel room. During the ensuing search, officers seized a laptop computer that was later found to contain depictions of child pornography. Before trial, defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the search on the ground that the officer’s affidavit was insufficient to establish probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime would be found in defendant’s hotel room. The trial court denied the motion to suppress, and a jury convicted defendant of the charged offenses.
On appeal, defendant renews his argument that the affidavit was insufficient to establish probable cause. In particular, defendant argues that his statement to a sheriffs deputy that he received a pornographic magazine from Denmark supported only one inference of guilt among many other possible innocent inferences.
A judge may issue a search warrant if, after reviewing an application and supporting affidavit, the judge finds that “there is probable cause to believe that the search will discover things specified in the application and subject to seizure.” ORS 133.555(2);
see also
Or Const, Art I, § 9.
1
“Probable cause” is a more rigorous standard than mere suspicion;
*19
even a well-warranted suspicion does not suffice, because “a suspicion, no matter how well founded, does not rise to the level of probable cause.”
State v. Verdine,
To determine probable cause, the judge may rely on facts asserted in the affidavit as well as reasonable inferences to be drawn from them.
State v. Anspach,
The Supreme Court said in
State v. Carter
/
Grant,
“A fact that merely supports an inference that some other fact is possible — as one among the range of many other and different possibilities — does not support an inference that any specific one of the possible facts is itself probable. Probable cause is necessary to support a warrant, not merely one possibility, among many[.]”
Defendant argues that that principle is controlling here. He reasons that equally available inferences include that the pornography that he ordered depicted only adults or, because the term “pornography” is itself vague, that the people involved could have been “partially unclothed.”
If the affidavit contained nothing else, defendant’s point might be more persuasive. However, there was more. First, defendant was a registered sex offender, having previously been convicted of possession of child pornography.
See State v. Westfall,
The task of a reviewing court is to determine whether an issuing magistrate reasonably could have concluded from the facts and circumstances set out in the supporting affidavit that the objects of the search probably are in the places, or in the possession of the individuals, to be searched.
See State v. Pelster/Boyer,
Affirmed.