Court Opinion

ID: 9690170
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:55:45.995002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:53.932386
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, J.
(dissenting). The criminal complaint, in my opinion, alleges that Anthony D. Bonds committed an offense cognizable by sec. 940.225(2)(a), Stats. The preliminary hearing contains facts sufficient to establish probable cause to believe that Bonds committed the offense, thereby justifying a trial.
*615The majority correctly recites the facts material to these issues. The nub of the majority's mischance is its ripping of the word "by" from its statutory context. See sec. 940.225(2)(a). "By" is more than an amorphous word. It is a preposition1 and commands two disjunctive phrases: (1) by use of force or violence; or (2) by threat of force or violence.
When Bonds, under the circumstances presented, grabbed the victim's breast, he clearly ran afoul of the statute's unambiguous proscription against nonconsen-sual sexual contact "by use ... of force or violence."
I would affirm.

A preposition is an expression governing a substantive in the objective case and joining this substantive to some other element in the sentence. Pence & Emery, A Grammar of Present Day English 111 (2d ed. 1963).