State v. Dulfu

386 P.3d 85, 282 Or. App. 209, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 1453
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedNovember 16, 2016
Docket201204555; A153918
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 386 P.3d 85 (State v. Dulfu) 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. Dulfu, 386 P.3d 85, 282 Or. App. 209, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 1453 (Or. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

HADLOCK, C. J.

Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for 15 counts of Encouraging Child Sexual Abuse in the First Degree (ECSA I), ORS 163.684,1 and 15 counts of Encouraging Child Sexual Abuse in the Second Degree (ECSA II), ORS 163.686.2 Those charges relate to sexually explicit images of children that defendant had placed in a shared folder on a publicly accessible peer-to-peer computer network. Police officers discovered the images through their use of certain software, and defendant argues in his first assignment of error that “the trial court erred by failing to suppress the evidence obtained during the 24/7 surveillance of the defendant’s computer.” In a second assignment of error, defendant asserts that “the trial court erred by excluding expert testimony that there are reasons other than * * * the purposes of sexual gratification” to possess child pornography. In association with his third through sixth assignments of error, defendant argues that the trial court erred in sentencing him because it miscalculated his criminal-history score. And, seventh, defendant contends that “the trial court erred by imposing [a compensatory fine] in the absence of any proximate cause between defendant’s crimes and the pecuniary costs incurred by the victim.”

We reject defendant’s first assignment of error as foreclosed by our recent decision in State v. Combest, 271 [211]*211Or App 38, 56, 350 P3d 222, rev den, 358 Or 70 (2015).3 We reject without discussion defendant’s seventh assignment of error, challenging the compensatory fine. Finally, for the reasons that follow, we conclude that the trial court did not err either in excluding defendant’s proffered expert-witness testimony or in calculating defendant’s criminal history score. Accordingly, we affirm.

We begin by giving a brief overview of the pertinent facts; we provide more factual detail in association with our discussion of each of defendant’s assignments of error.

The Department of Justice investigated defendant for the possession and dissemination of child pornography. Fifteen pornographic images, located on a hard drive that had been duplicated from defendant’s computer, formed the basis for defendant’s prosecution. The fifteen images correspond both to Counts 1 through 15 (ECSA I) and to Counts 16 through 30 (ECSA II), as alleged in the indictment.

The case was tried to a jury and defendant testified in his own defense. Defendant admitted that the images were on his computer, but he denied that he possessed those images for the purpose of arousing or satisfying sexual desires, as required for a conviction of ECSA II. He explained that, instead, he collected the images to resolve issues around his own childhood sexual abuse. In support of that defense, defendant sought to present expert testimony from Dr. Frank Colistro, a licensed clinical psychologist. In part, defendant wanted Colistro to give his expert opinion that [212]*212people sometimes download sexually explicit images of children for reasons other than sexual gratification. Ultimately, the trial court excluded Colistro’s testimony on the ground that it was scientific evidence for which defendant had not laid a sufficient foundation.

The jury convicted defendant on all counts. During sentencing, the trial court elevated defendant’s criminal-history score based on his convictions in Counts 1 through 4. That resulted in defendant’s grid block shifting from 8-1 (Count 1) to 8-D (Count 2) to 8-B (Count 3) to 8-A (Counts 4 through 15) and, on Counts 16 through 30, to 5-A. Consequently, the presumptive sentences for Counts 2 through 30 were longer than they would have been had the criminal-history score stayed at “I” for all counts, as defendant had advocated. The trial court ultimately imposed a total sentence of 180 months in prison plus post-prison supervision. The court also imposed fines and fees, including a compensatory fine of $5,000.

Defendant timely appealed his convictions. We first address defendant’s challenge to the trial court’s exclusion of testimony from defendant’s expert witness, Colistro. We review the trial court’s rulings about the admissibility of scientific evidence for legal error, Jennings v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 331 Or 285, 300-01, 14 P3d 596 (2000), and we review the facts underlying the admissibility of scientific evidence de novo. State v. Branch, 243 Or App 309, 314, 259 P3d 103, rev den, 351 Or 216 (2011). In this case, the facts are largely undisputed.

A chronological summary of the relevant proceedings is helpful to understand defendant’s arguments about Colistro’s proffered testimony. As pertinent here, defendant sought to have Colistro testify that, in general—and not specific to defendant—some individuals who possess child pornography collect it for reasons other than sexual gratification.4 Before the start of trial, the court held a hearing pursuant to OEC 104, in part to determine the admissibility [213]*213of that testimony.5 During the hearing, the court stated, “I think everyone agrees that the proffered evidence in this case is scientific evidence” that must meet “a minimum level of scientific validity that must be relevant to the question that the jury is going to have to resolve and helpful for them in resolving those questions.” In fact, defendant did not dispute that Colistro’s testimony was scientific evidence during the OEC 104 hearing but, instead, focused solely on laying the proper foundation for scientific evidence.

At the conclusion of the OEC 104 hearing, the trial court expressed agreement with defendant that the testimony was relevant because “there’s [a] presumption that looking at child pornography is for a sexual purpose.” The court reasoned,

“I think the simple way of saying it is, if the State’s going to rely on ‘he had it, so he must have been using it for sexual purpose,’ and he says, ‘I wasn’t,’ the fact that an expert comes in and says, in my experience and my training there are other non-sexual purposes that people may do this, I think is probative to the jury, and I don’t think it confuses them, and I think it may be helpful.”

The court did not rule on whether it would admit Colistro’s testimony, however; rather, it deferred ruling until trial, to see whether defendant would testify and whether defendant would provide a proper foundation for Colistro’s testimony under State v. Brown, 297 Or 404, 687 P2d 751 (1984), and State v. O’Key, 321 Or 285, 899 P2d 663 (1995).

Defendant did testify at trial. He did not dispute that he downloaded the images at issue. He contended, however, that he did so not for the purposes of sexual gratification, but in response to the sexual abuse that he had suffered as a child. According to defendant, his reaction to that abuse prompted him to compulsively collect and organize the pornographic images on his computer.

[214]*214After defendant testified, and out of the jury’s presence, defendant renewed his request for Colistro to testify that some individuals download sexually explicit images of children for reasons other than sexual gratification. At that point, defendant asserted for the first time that, under

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Dulfu
426 P.3d 641 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2018)
State v. Ortega-Gonsalez
404 P.3d 1081 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2017)
State v. Beltran-Chavez
400 P.3d 927 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2017)
Welsh v. Taylor
392 P.3d 366 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2017)
State v. Clark
392 P.3d 337 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2017)
Brenner v. Nooth
391 P.3d 947 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2017)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
386 P.3d 85, 282 Or. App. 209, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 1453, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-dulfu-orctapp-2016.