## Facts

- A 21-year-old complainant (“Pat”) met Edward Salvatore Rusk at a bar in Baltimore after a night of drinking with a friend.
- Pat agreed to drive Rusk home but told him she was “just giving [him] a ride home.”
- After arriving at Rusk’s residence in an unfamiliar area, Pat refused to go inside; Rusk removed her car keys from the ignition and continued to ask her to come up.
- Pat testified she went to the apartment because she was scared and did not know what else to do.
- In Rusk’s one-room apartment, Pat testified that Rusk pulled her onto the bed, began undressing her, and put his hands around her throat and choked her lightly.
- Pat testified she cried, asked whether he would let her go “without killing” her if she did what he wanted, and submitted to oral sex and vaginal intercourse out of fear of serious harm.
- Afterward, Rusk returned the keys; Pat left and reported the incident to police.
- Rusk testified the sexual activity was consensual and denied using force, threats, or choking.
- A Baltimore jury convicted Rusk of second-degree rape and assault; he received concurrent sentences.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was legally sufficient to support a conviction for second-degree rape requiring vaginal intercourse “by force or threat of force,” against the victim’s will and without consent.
2. Whether the record showed either resistance overcome by force or fear induced by threats that prevented resistance (constructive force), as required by Maryland precedent.

## Decision

- The Court of Special Appeals reversed the second-degree rape conviction for insufficient evidence.
- The court affirmed the assault conviction.
- The court held the evidence did not warrant a conclusion that Pat resisted and was overcome by force or was prevented from resisting by threats to her safety.
- A dissent argued the majority improperly displaced the jury’s role in assessing credibility and the reasonableness of Pat’s fear.

## Legal Principles

- For rape “by force or threat of force,” the evidence must support either:
  - actual resistance overcome by force, or
  - constructive force: threats that create fear sufficient to prevent resistance.
- On sufficiency review, the question is whether evidence permits a rational factfinder to conclude guilt beyond a reasonable doubt when viewed most favorably to the State.
- Limited or absent physical resistance and the absence of clear threats may be treated as insufficient, as a matter of law, to establish the force/threat element under the court’s reading of Maryland precedent.

## Conclusion

The intermediate appellate court concluded that, although the evidence supported an assault, it was legally inadequate to prove second-degree rape because it did not sufficiently show force overcoming resistance or threats creating fear that prevented resistance.


Rusk v. State, 43 Md. App. 476, 406 A.2d 624 (1979)