West v. State

Oían West has been convicted of first degree sexual abuse and sentenced to imprisonment for six years and a $5,000 fine for putting his arms around the fifteen-year-old prosecutrix and touching her breast. I do not find this conduct to be that defined in the statute describing the crime. In my opinion there was not the sort of “forcible compulsion” the Arkansas General Assembly condemned in Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1808(l)(a) (Repl. 1977) by providing: “A person commits sexual abuse in the first degree if ... he engages in sexual contact with another person by forcible compulsion. . . .”

The…