Chief Justice DURRANT, opinion of the Court:
¶ 1 We are asked to review a magistrate's decision, at the preliminary hearing stage, to dismiss charges of rape and child sexual abuse. Under Utah's liberal bindover standard, a magistrate must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. This means that when reasonable inferences from the evidence cut both for and against
¶ 2 We conclude that the magistrate exceeded her discretion. Although inconsistencies in the young woman's testimony and her prior denials may indicate she is being untruthful, there are plausible alternative explanations that support her allegations. And there is also testimony from two of her family members that corroborates her account of when and where some of the sexual abuse occurred. Because there is at least a reasonable inference from the evidence that the victim was telling the truth, the magistrate lacked discretion to disregard her testimony. And because her testimony described daily sexual abuse over a four-year period, the magistrate exceeded her discretion in refusing to bind the Defendant over for trial.
¶ 3 In reversing the magistrate's decision, we also take the opportunity to clarify statements in two recent cases — State v. Ramirez and State v. Maughan — that could be read as slight departures from the liberal bindover standard we have applied for more than a decade. In 2001, we held in State v. Clark that a magistrate must bind a defendant over for trial if the state presents enough evidence to support a reasonable belief that the defendant committed the crime charged — a threshold equivalent to the probable cause standard the state must meet to secure an arrest warrant. But prior to 2001, some of our decisions imposed a higher standard in preliminary hearings, requiring the state to put on evidence "from which the trier of fact could conclude the defendant was guilty of the offense as charged."
¶ 4 To determine whether a defendant should be bound over for a trial, a magistrate must "view all evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution" and "draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the prosecution."
¶ 5 Jacob James Schmidt began dating C.E.'s mother in 2002 when C.E. was eleven years old. Mother's relationship with Mr. Schmidt became serious, and he moved in with Mother and her four children later that year. They became engaged in November 2005, but their relationship began to deteriorate the following spring, culminating in a physical altercation in late April 2006. Mr. Schmidt "pinned" Mother in the hallway during an argument, she pushed him to get away, and then called the police. Mother was charged with assault, a charge the prosecutor eventually dismissed, and Mr. Schmidt moved out soon after the incident.
¶ 6 One week later, Mother found a shirtless picture of Mr. Schmidt on C.E.'s cell phone. Mother filed a petition for a civil stalking injunction, which the court granted, prohibiting Mr. Schmidt from contacting her or any of her children. Mother also began to suspect that C.E. and Mr. Schmidt had an inappropriate relationship. In the fall of 2006, Mother discovered that he had picked up C.E. from a high school football game and did not bring her home until the next morning.
¶ 7 Three years later, C.E. was married and pregnant with twins. After the twins were born, her marriage began to deteriorate, and she eventually moved back in with her mother. Then in early 2010, C.E.'s husband sent a text message to Mother asking whether C.E. was "acting weird because of what [Mr. Schmidt] did to her." Several months later, after conversations with Mother and Mother's new boyfriend, C.E. "came clean" and decided to tell police that Mr. Schmidt had sexually abused her repeatedly between 2002 and 2006.
¶ 8 Detective Joshua Christiansen of the American Fork Police Department interviewed C.E. in September 2010. C.E. told him that she and Mr. Schmidt had sex every day between June 2002 and the day he moved out in April 2006. The abuse began after Mr. Schmidt wrote her a letter "asking for her reaction if he were to touch her or she were to touch him." Mr. Schmidt eventually began touching C.E. under her clothing. The abuse progressed rapidly — within a week, Mr. Schmidt would have C.E. come downstairs to his room after Mother left for work each morning, where he would remove her clothing and engage in sexual intercourse. Eventually, he began "showing [C.E.] hard core pornography while having intercourse with her." And he also had sex with C.E. upstairs while the rest of the family was downstairs in the living room. Mr. Schmidt would lean C.E. over the half-wall that separated the basement stairs from the kitchen so C.E. could watch out for any family members coming up the stairs.
¶ 9 C.E. also told Detective Christiansen that Mr. Schmidt had sex with her outside on the hood of her mother's car. C.E. was eleven or twelve at the time, and Mother was asleep after taking a strong sleeping pill. According to Detective Christiansen's report, C.E. also told him that Mr. Schmidt bribed her to have anal sex with him. He paid her anywhere between $40 and $100, and on one occasion, he bought her a prepaid cell phone. Mr. Schmidt's last sexual encounter with C.E. occurred when he picked her up from a high school football game and spent the night with her at a hotel in Salt Lake County.
¶ 10 Based on C.E.'s allegations, the State charged Mr. Schmidt with aggravated sexual abuse of a child, two counts of attempted sodomy upon a child, five counts of rape of a child, two counts of sodomy upon a child, and one count of rape. At the preliminary hearing, C.E. testified for the prosecution, and the defense called Mother, C.E.'s brother and sister, and Detective Christiansen. After the hearing, Mr. Schmidt moved to dismiss all eleven charges, and the magistrate granted his motion.
¶ 11 In a written decision dismissing the charges, the magistrate began by observing that the "case depends solely on the testimony of [C.E.]." She then noted that C.E. "gave conflicting testimony about the letter that allegedly started the abuse," initially testifying "about very specific language regarding the touching" of specific body parts and later claiming that the letter contained general language that was code for sexual touching. C.E. also testified that her mother found the letter and confronted her. But Mother said she could not remember finding any sexually explicit communications between her daughter and Mr. Schmidt. The magistrate also observed that C.E. claimed that "sexual intercourse was happening every day from age eleven to fifteen ... in places where one would think that the family would have seen it — in the bedroom, in the hallway, by the kitchen, yet no one saw it." Finally, the magistrate noted that C.E. "either lied to the police and the interviewer at the CJC in 2006, or she has lied in 2010 when she went to the police as well as at the preliminary hearing."
¶ 12 The magistrate characterized the letter as "the lynchpin in many ways because" it was "the beginning ... of the defendant's attempts to seduce [C.E.] and the start of the sexual abuse." And because C.E.'s testimony was "inconsistent about what was contained in the letter" and Mother's testimony was "inconsistent with [C.E.'s] description about her mother discovering the letter," the
¶ 13 The State argues that the magistrate improperly denied its request to bind Mr. Schmidt over for trial. We have previously held that bindover determinations are mixed questions of law and fact "to which we grant some deference."
¶ 14 We conclude that the magistrate exceeded her discretion in refusing to bind Mr. Schmidt over for trial. By disregarding C.E.'s testimony, the magistrate improperly weighed the evidence and failed to construe all reasonable inferences in the prosecution's favor. Although C.E.'s testimony contained inconsistencies and some incredible allegations, there was enough evidence presented to support a reasonable belief that Mr. Schmidt sexually abused her.
¶ 15 In so doing, we also take the opportunity to clarify statements we have made in two recent cases that could be read as imposing a higher evidentiary burden at a preliminary hearing than our traditional probable cause standard. Despite language in these opinions that could be read as requiring sufficient evidence to support a reasonable jury's decision to convict a defendant beyond a reasonable doubt, those cases — and our decision today — reaffirm that the state need only produce sufficient evidence to support a reasonable belief that the defendant committed the crime charged.
¶ 16 We begin by clarifying our precedent and articulating the legal standard magistrates should apply at preliminary hearings. We then discuss the magistrate's decision to dismiss the charges against Mr. Schmidt.
¶ 17 For more than a decade, we have recognized that the state's burden at a preliminary hearing is probable cause — the same evidentiary threshold it must meet to secure an arrest warrant. In practice, that means a magistrate must bind a defendant over for trial if the prosecution presents evidence sufficient "to support a reasonable belief that an offense has been committed and that the defendant committed it."
¶ 19 The evidentiary threshold at preliminary hearings has not always been so low. The primary purpose of preliminary hearings is to allow magistrates to "ferret out groundless and improvident prosecutions" without usurping the jury's role as the "principal" fact-finder.
¶ 20 We disavowed these cases in State v. Clark.
¶ 21 Our decisions in two recent cases — State v. Ramirez and State v. Maughan — correctly apply this standard. But we take this opportunity to clarify statements in both cases that could be read as modifying the probable cause standard. In Ramirez, for example, we reaffirmed that the "`reasonable' belief formulation" in a bindover determination "parallels the standard for an arrest
¶ 22 Mr. Schmidt has not argued that these decisions implicitly overruled our prior precedent, and in both Ramirez and Maughan, we explicitly reaffirmed the probable cause standard adopted in Clark.
¶ 23 Having articulated the legal standard courts should apply at preliminary hearings, we now examine whether the magistrate exceeded her discretion in this case. We conclude that she did. The magistrate refused to bind Mr. Schmidt over for trial because she found C.E.'s testimony so inconsistent and unreliable that "it would be unreasonable to base belief on the element of sexual intercourse or any other sexual conduct" on her assertions. In so doing, the magistrate improperly weighed the evidence rather than drawing all reasonable inferences in the prosecution's favor. Although there are certainly some inconsistencies and incredible allegations in C.E.'s testimony, we cannot conclude that her assertions were so lacking in reliability that the State failed to establish probable cause, particularly in light of other testimony that corroborates some of her allegations.
¶ 24 We begin by noting that C.E.'s allegations of sexual abuse — if credible — provide probable cause to bind Mr. Schmidt over for trial.
¶ 25 First, C.E.'s testimony would support a reasonable belief that Mr. Schmidt committed at least one count of aggravated sexual abuse of a child. That offense occurs when a person touches "the anus, buttocks, or genitalia of any child, the breast of a female child, or otherwise takes indecent liberties with a child."
¶ 26 Second, C.E.'s allegations support a reasonable belief that Mr. Schmidt committed attempted sodomy upon a child and two counts of sodomy upon a child. "A person commits sodomy upon a child if the actor engages in any sexual act upon or with a child who is under the age of 14, involving the genital or anus of the actor or the child and the mouth or anus of either person...."
¶ 27 Third, C.E.'s testimony supports a reasonable basis to believe Mr. Schmidt committed five counts of rape of a child. "A person commits rape of a child when the person has sexual intercourse with a child who is under the age of 14."
¶ 28 Finally, C.E.'s testimony also supports a reasonable belief that Mr. Schmidt committed one count of rape. "A person commits rape when the actor has sexual intercourse with another person without the victim's consent."
¶ 29 In summary, these allegations — if credible — are sufficient to support a reasonable belief that Mr. Schmidt committed aggravated sexual abuse of child, attempted sodomy upon a child, two counts of sodomy upon a child, five counts of rape of a child, and rape. The question, then, is whether C.E.'s allegations were "wholly lacking and incapable of creating a reasonable inference regarding a portion of the prosecution's claim."
¶ 30 Consequently, we now turn to the inconsistent testimony and incredible allegations that prompted the magistrate to dismiss all charges. For a number of reasons, we conclude that the magistrate exceeded her discretion by disregarding C.E.'s testimony.
¶ 31 As we have discussed, magistrates "may make credibility determinations in preliminary hearings, but the extent of those determinations is limited."
¶ 32 Here, although there were inconsistencies in the testimony presented at the preliminary hearing and some seemingly incredible allegations, we conclude that they were insufficient to render C.E.'s testimony wholly unreliable. In its written decision refusing to bind Mr. Schmidt over for trial, the magistrate identified three reasons for disregarding C.E.'s testimony: (1) inconsistent testimony regarding the letter that precipitated the sexual abuse, (2) C.E.'s prior denials to her mother and investigators that there was any sexual abuse, and (3) the fact that no one had seen C.E. engage in sexual activity with Mr. Schmidt even though she claimed to have had sex repeatedly in the common areas of the home. We address each of these in turn.
¶ 34 These inconsistencies may provide a basis to undermine C.E.'s credibility at trial, but they are insufficient to allow a magistrate to wholly disregard her testimony. In responding to the prosecutor's initial questioning about the letter, C.E. may have simply recounted what she understood from reading the letter, not reported its contents verbatim. If so, her statements during cross-examination that the letter contained more general terms that were code for sexual touching are not inconsistent with her direct testimony, but a clarification in response to a more specific question. And if that's the case, her testimony is also consistent with how Mother and Detective Christiansen described the letter. Mother testified that she remembered her daughter "writing back and forth" with Mr. Schmidt, but she did not recall anything sexual, and there is no reason that she would have if the letter were written in vague, general terms. Detective Christiansen testified that after his initial interview with C.E., he could not "recall the exact content" of the letter. He said he did not "remember the specifics," and that "[w]hen [he] talked to her, it was generalized."
¶ 35 The general language in the letter may also explain why C.E. remembered discussing it while Mother did not. According to her testimony, Mother was aware that Mr. Schmidt wrote notes back and forth with C.E., and she may have asked C.E. about them without realizing their significance. But C.E., who may have wanted to conceal the nature of the letters from her Mother, could have interpreted Mother's innocent inquiry as confrontational questioning. As a result, years later C.E. might have vivid memories of concealing sexual communications from her Mother, while Mother would have trouble recalling a short conversation about notes she believed were innocuous.
¶ 36 Mother's and Detective Christiansen's testimony suggests that it is not implausible to read C.E.'s seemingly inconsistent testimony about the letter as truthful responses to different questions, one general and the other more specific. And there is also a plausible explanation for why C.E. remembered her Mother confronting her about the letter, but Mother had no such recollection. Of course, it is also plausible that C.E.'s story seems hard to pin down because she's making it up as she goes along. But in the face of two plausible inferences from the evidence — one that supports bindover and one that does not — a magistrate lacks discretion to engage in "an assessment of whether such inference is more plausible than an alternative that cuts in favor of the defense."
¶ 37 Second, C.E.'s prior denial of sexual abuse does not wholly discredit her testimony. The magistrate noted that because C.E. had previously denied suffering any sexual abuse in a 2006 interview with a social worker at the Children's Justice Center, she was "left to consider incredible and conflicting evidence." But common experience with rape and child sexual abuse cases indicates that it is not unusual for a victim to initially deny the abuse before later developing enough courage to come forward.
¶ 38 Third, although some of C.E.'s allegations of sexual abuse seem incredible, other testimony corroborated aspects of C.E.'s story, creating a reasonable inference that she was telling the truth. The magistrate noted that C.E. claimed "sexual intercourse was happening every day from age eleven to fifteen when the defendant moved out" in "places where one would think that the family would have seen it — in the bedroom, in the hallway, by the kitchen, yet no one saw it." The magistrate's concern is not unfounded. C.E. testified that she had sex in the kitchen with Mr. Schmidt "[m]ore than 50 times" while her whole family was downstairs. She also claimed in a written statement to police that she had sex with Mr. Schmidt "almost 365 days a year for four years," sometimes "two or three times a day."
¶ 39 These allegations may be difficult to accept wholesale. But in her written decision dismissing all charges, the magistrate did not discuss other testimony that corroborated C.E.'s description of her relationship with Mr. Schmidt. In particular, C.E.'s brother testified that she had a "fairly close" connection with Mr. Schmidt and perceived that C.E. was jealous of Mother's relationship with him. When C.E.'s brother was about ten or eleven, he "walked downstairs in [his] mom's bedroom" and saw C.E. "in the bed, [Mr. Schmidt] was in the bed with her" with the covers "up to their necks," and there was "porn playing" on the television. He said "[i]t was late," "definitely bedtime," and the pornography was quite graphic, depicting "[m]ultiple partners" engaged in "anal or vaginal intercourse." And C.E.'s brother and sister both testified that Mr. Schmidt slept nude "[p]robably every night." Mother also noticed alarming conduct between Mr. Schmidt and her daughter. Mother testified that one evening, she walked upstairs and saw them "both standing in the kitchen and [Mr. Schmidt] had his boxers on and ... she ha[d] her hand ... on his penis through his boxers." She further testified that Mr. Schmidt and C.E. "[q]uite often ... would be off alone."
¶ 40 The testimony from these witnesses, standing alone, may be insufficient to establish probable cause that Mr. Schmidt committed any of the charged offenses. But when coupled with C.E.'s description of the abuse — which included intercourse in the kitchen and in Mother's room while Mr. Schmidt played pornography on the television — this additional testimony provides at least a plausible basis to conclude that many of C.E.'s allegations are true. And at a preliminary hearing, a magistrate's role "does not encompass an assessment of whether such inference is more plausible than an alternative that cuts in favor of the defense."
¶ 42 For these reasons, we conclude that the magistrate exceeded her discretion in refusing to bind Mr. Schmidt over for trial. By wholly disregarding C.E.'s testimony, the magistrate impermissibly weighed the evidence instead of viewing witnesses' testimony in the light most favorable to the prosecution.
¶ 43 We reverse the magistrate's decision refusing to bind Mr. Schmidt over for trial. At the preliminary hearing stage, even if C.E.'s allegations appear facially implausible, the magistrate lacked discretion to disregard them in light of other evidence that corroborated aspects of her basic story, and C.E.'s testimony provides a reasonable basis to believe that Mr. Schmidt committed the offenses at issue. The inconsistent testimony, C.E.'s prior denials of sexual abuse, and her perhaps incredible allegations are insufficient to eliminate plausible explanations that weigh in favor of submitting the case to a jury. And at a preliminary hearing, magistrates have an obligation to construe all evidence in the prosecution's favor. We therefore conclude that the magistrate exceeded her discretion and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. In so doing, we reaffirm that at a preliminary hearing, the state need only produce evidence sufficient to support a reasonable belief that the defendant committed the crime charged, not evidence that would support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.