State v. Baker

CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedJune 17, 2026
DocketA182049
StatusPublished

This text of State v. Baker (State v. Baker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Baker, (Or. Ct. App. 2026).

Opinion

710 June 17, 2026 No. 558

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF OREGON

STATE OF OREGON, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. ZACHARY JAMES BAKER, Defendant-Appellant. Yamhill County Circuit Court 22CR28753; A182049

Ladd J. Wiles, Judge. Argued and submitted April 21, 2025. Sara F. Werboff, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. Also on the briefs was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Oregon Public Defense Commission. Peenesh Shah, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General. Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, Hellman, Judge, and O’Connor, Judge. O’CONNOR, J. Reversed and remanded. Cite as 350 Or App 710 (2026) 711

O’CONNOR, J. Defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction for 10 counts of second-degree encouraging child sexual abuse, ORS 163.686, and 10 counts of encouraging sexual assault of an animal, ORS 167.341. The trial court entered the judg- ment following defendant’s entry of conditional guilty pleas pursuant to ORS 135.335(3), which permits a defendant to reserve “in writing, the right, on appeal from the judgment, to a review of an adverse determination of any specified pre- trial motion.” Defendant reserved in writing the right to a review of the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress. In a single assignment of error, defendant main- tains that the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress evidence obtained through a warranted search of defendant’s residence and the seizure of his electronic devic- es.1 Defendant first contends that the warrant was invalid because the information contained in the supporting affida- vit—a seven-month-old tip that a Dropbox account associ- ated with defendant contained a single video of child sexual abuse material (CSAM)—was too stale to supply probable cause. Even if the affidavit was not stale, defendant argues that the warrant was overbroad because the affidavit did not establish probable cause to seize each of defendant’s devices. We conclude that the warrant was invalid because the information provided by the tip was stale and the affi- davit did not otherwise establish probable cause to believe that evidence of the crimes would be found at defendant’s residence. Accordingly, we reverse and remand. We state the uncontroverted facts as recited in the affidavit supporting the application for the search warrant. State v. Meyers, 338 Or App 59, 62, 565 P3d 463 (2025). On December 7, 2021, Detective Winters submitted an affidavit in support of a search warrant application. According to the affidavit, on October 5, 2021, Winters received a tip from 1 The warrant defendant challenges on appeal did not authorize the search of the devices’ contents. Law enforcement seized the contents of the devices under the authority of the warrant defendant challenges on appeal and later searched them pursuant to defendant’s written consent. Defendant revoked his consent, and law enforcement obtained a second warrant to search the devices. On appeal, defendant does not challenge either the voluntariness of his consent or the valid- ity of the second warrant. 712 State v. Baker

the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), an organization that processes reports of child sexual exploitation, including CSAM, and shares that information with appropriate law enforcement agencies. The NCMEC report stated that on May 16, 2021, a video depicting CSAM was uploaded to a Dropbox account asso- ciated with defendant. Winters wrote that “the Reporting Electronic Service Provider,” here, Dropbox, viewed the video and reported it to NCMEC. NCMEC described the video as “contain[ing] imagery of a prepubescent minor engaging in a sex act.” The report identified the email address, the user- name, and three internet protocol (IP) addresses associated with defendant. Comcast records connected one of those IP addresses to a residence in McMinnville, which matched the residence listed on defendant’s Oregon driver’s license. The December 7 affidavit recited that, after receiv- ing the tip, Winters applied for a search warrant for the Dropbox account, and the magistrate issued a warrant. When Winters executed that warrant, Dropbox notified Winters that it had no records related to the account because such records are preserved for only 90 days and that preservation period had expired prior to the start of his investigation. The December 7 affidavit also set forth Winters’s training and experience relevant to CSAM investigations. Winters averred that “the electronic distribution” of CSAM “occurs through the duplication, rather than the transfer, of electronic data from a source computer to a destination com- puter.” When that process is completed, “the data exists on both the source and destination computers.” Winters further averred that “CSAM is typically collected, stored, and dis- tributed by individuals that trade in this type of illegal activ- ity” and “contraband of this type can and is usually stored for indefinite amounts of time by the possessors of this ille- gal contraband.” Winter’s affidavit also describes cloud-based storage. According to Winters, Dropbox “provides cloud-based storage of data,” which “allows access from anywhere and everywhere with digital devices” and permits a user to inter- act “with the data contained within the cloud service, with- out having to synchronize the same data between devices.” Even if accessed from an off-site location, a collector will Cite as 350 Or App 710 (2026) 713

“sometimes maintain the ability to view and store [CSAM] in their residence or a secure and easily accessible place.” Some consumers of CSAM will “also conceal their illegal images on internet based cloud storage accounts to avoid physical possession of the images.” Winters averred that “[e]vidence of these online cloud storage accounts can still be located on the suspects[’] electronic device and is valuable evidence.” A magistrate issued the warrant, which authorized the search of defendant’s residence for “[a]ny electronic device capable of accessing, uploading to, and downloading from Dropbox Inc. and/or a Dropbox account for 5/1/21-6/1/21.” If any such device was found, the warrant authorized the sei- zure of the device and authorized the search and seizure to extend to “additional hardware and storage devices located in the nearby vicinity.” On December 9, 2021, law enforcement executed the search warrant and seized two iPhones, two tablets, and two laptops from defendant’s residence. Defendant was present during the search, and he told officers that he watches “ani- mal stuff” and videos labeled “petite,” although he said that he tried to avoid content that depicted children. Defendant then consented to a search of the devices’ contents. The next day, on December 10, 2021, defendant revoked his consent. By that time, law enforcement had completed a forensic examination of defendant’s cellphone and identified 22 files that either contained CSAM or depicted the sexual assault of an animal. Police used defendant’s statements and the results of the search of his cellphone to obtain a second war- rant after defendant withdrew his consent.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
State v. Baker, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-baker-orctapp-2026.