Court Opinion

ID: 9843788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:43:21.081571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:55.382385
License: Public Domain

CROTHERS, Justice,
concurring.
[¶ 30] The legislature has comprehensively defined and provided for punishment of sex offenses in N.D.C.C. ch. 12.1-20. This Court’s “function in construing the statutes is to harmonize and reconcile the various sections within the same chapter whenever possible rather than develop inconsistencies or incongruities.” Reliance Ins. Co. v. Public Serv. Comm’n, 250 N.W.2d 918, 922 (N.D.1977). Reading the provisions of Chapter 12.1-20 in harmony leads me to the same conclusion reached by the majority.
[¶ 31] Section 12.1-20-03, N.D.C.C., addresses gross sexual imposition and makes certain sexual acts and sexual contact unlawful, and increases punishment based on the degree of violence threatened or realized, or upon the difference in age of the actor and the defendant. This case only relates to the degree of violence, and I limit my discussion of the statutes accordingly.
[¶ 32] Section 12.1-20-03(l)(c), N.D.C.C., punishes conduct as a class A felony if the perpetrator “knows that the victim is unaware that a sexual act is being committed upon him or her.” A class A *438felony carries a maximum punishment of 20 years imprisonment and up to a $10,000 fine. N.D.C.C. § 12.1-32-01(2). Under subsection (l)(a) the crime is punished as a class AA felony if the sexual act was performed by a person who “compels the victim to submit by force or by threat of imminent death, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping, to be inflicted on any human being.” All sexual crimes listed in section 12.1-20-03 become class AA felonies if the victim suffers serious bodily injuries or dies as a result of the sexual assault. N.D.C.C. § 12.1 — 20—03(3)(a) and (4). A class AA felony is punishable by up to life imprisonment without parole. N.D.C.C. § 12.1-32-01(1). Therefore, the same sexual conduct is punished differently — more severely — if the act is accompanied by the threat or use of violence.
[¶ 33] Section 12.1-20-04, N.D.C.C., addresses sexual imposition and punishes sexual acts or contact as a class B felony if the actor “[c]ompels the other person to submit by any threat that would render a person of reasonable firmness incapable of resisting....” A class B felony is punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and up to a $10,000 fine. N.D.C.C. § 12.1-32-01(3).
[¶ 34] Section 12.1-20-07, N.D.C.C., addresses sexual assault. Under section 12.1-20-07 the prohibited conduct is no longer accompanied by “force” or “threat.” Focus instead shifts to whether the sexual contact is “offensive.” Punishment becomes a class C felony or a class A or B misdemeanor. A class C felony is punishable by 5 years in prison and a $5,000 fine. N.D.C.C. § 12.1-32-01(4). A class A misdemeanor carries a maximum punishment of 1-year imprisonment and a $2,000 fíne, and a class B misdemeanor can be punished by up to 30 days imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. N.D.C.C. § 12.1-32-01(5) and (6).
[¶ 35] All of the crimes described above involve offensive sexual contact. For purposes of our inquiry in this case, what separates one offense from the other is the actual or threatened violence that accompanies the improper sexual contact. Reading these sections together, as we must, makes apparent that section 12.1-20-03(l)(a), which is the subsection at issue in this case, carries an enhanced sentence of life in prison without parole if the State proves the sexual act or contact was accomplished by force that compelled the victim to submit. The “force” that must be proven is not “physical action” standing alone, as suggested by the dissent. Some “force,” meaning some “physical action,” would be present in any sexual act or sexual contact committed in violation of any of the three statutes cited above. We therefore need to look at what sets apart conduct proscribed in one statute from the conduct proscribed in the other statutes. Under North Dakota’s statutory scheme for sexual offenses, the answer is the nature of the sexual contact, along with the actual or threatened violence that accompanied the contact.
[¶ 36] Using the degree of punishment as a measuring device, N.D.C.C. ch. 12.1-20 establishes that compelling a victim to submit by force is a more serious crime than are sexual assaults where — by diminishing punishments — the actor engages in a sexual act after drugging the victim (class A felony), the actor engages in a sexual act and the victim was unaware a sexual act was being committed on them (class A felony), the perpetrator used threat to overcome the will of a reasonable person (class B felony), or the actor’s conduct was offensive (class C felony or misdemeanor).
[¶ 37] Because of the framework given to us in N.D.C.C. ch. 12.1-20, for sexual conduct to be punished as a AA felony *439“force” must be more than what would be punishable as a misdemeanor or a class C, B, or A felony. To constitute a class AA felony, the “force” must be that which “compels the victim to submit” to the sexual act. Here, it was charged in the information and proven at trial that Vantreece “ripped open a hole in the crotch of [the complainant’s] pants ..., tried to put his penis in her vagina, pulled off her pants, touched her vaginal area and then engaged in a sex act” with her. As despicable as Vantreece’s conduct was, the facts in this record do not provide sufficient evidence upon which the jury could have found Van-treece’s conduct forced the victim to submit to the sexual assault. The “force” proven at trial therefore was not sufficient to support finding Vantreece guilty of the class AA felony with which he was charged. To conclude otherwise would nullify the legislative effort in N.D.C.C. ch. 12.1-20 to increase punishment according to the violence that accompanied the sexual assault. I therefore concur in the result reached by the majority.
[¶ 38] DANIEL J. CROTHERS, J.