Whether the Court of Appeals relied upon permissive inferences that violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment in finding Petitioner's conviction legally sufficient

QUESTION PRESENTED This Court has long held that “[i]nferences and presumptions are a staple of our adversary system of factfinding” and that it “is often necessary for the trier of fact to determine the existence of an element of the crime -that is, an ‘ultimate’ or ‘elemental’ fact -from the existence of one or more ‘evidentiary’ or ‘basic’ facts.” County Court v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 156 (1979). However, a permissive inference runs afoul of the Due Process clause if “there is no rational way the trier of fact could make the connection permitted by the inference.” Id. at 157. The Court of Appeals found Petitioner’s conviction for knowingly viewing child pornography legally sufficient, despite a complete absence of direct evidence. Instead, the Court of Appeals inferred both knowledge and wrongful viewing from the fact that Petitioner used search terms that could be associated with child pornography and admitted to viewing lawful images of minors in their underwear. The Question Presented is: Whether the Court of Appeals relied upon permissive inferences that violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment in finding Petitioner's conviction _ legally sufficient. i