In Inga v. State,[1] the appellate court held that there was sufficient evidence to find that the defendant’s act of grabbing victim’s breasts immediately before beating her was coercion by force and not among the least serious conduct included in the definition of second-degree sexual assault. Defendant Inga, who had been violent toward the victim in the past, propositioned the victim for sex in an isolated location. After she declined, Inga grabbed the victim’s breasts and then beat her. Second-degree sexual assault requires unwanted sexual contact “without consent,” defined as coerced by the use or threat of force beyond the bodily impact or restraint inherent in the sexual contact. Inga argued that the act of grabbing the victim’s breasts was separate from the ensuing physical attack, so that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding that the sexual touching was coerced by the use of force. The appellate court upheld the jury’s finding, holding that a lack of consent may reasonably be inferred by sexual contact in an isolated location by a man who the victim had good reason to be afraid of, immediately after a refusal to have sex, and followed by physical attacks. Inga also argued that the touching underlying the second-degree sexual assault conviction—separate from the subsequent attack underlying the third-degree assault conviction—should be mitigated in sentencing because the touching was among the least serious conduct within the charge’s definition. The appellate court, however, upheld the sentencing judge’s rejection of the proposed mitigator, finding that the subsequent physical attack was an integral facet of Inga’s sexual assault on the victim, not a separate and discrete incident. The appellate court upheld the sexual assault conviction and sentencing from the defendant’s act of grabbing the victim’s breasts immediately before beating her.
[1] 440 P.3d 345 (Alaska Ct. App. 2019).
