Facts
- Gerald Thompson was a high-school principal.
- On more than one occasion, Thompson told a female student she would not graduate unless she performed oral sex on him.
- The student complied because she feared Thompson would carry out his threat and prevent her from graduating.
- After the student graduated, she reported the incidents.
- The State of Montana charged Thompson with sexual assault.
- Thompson moved to dismiss, arguing Montana’s sexual-assault statute criminalized compelled sex only when the defendant used physical force or threatened death, bodily injury, or kidnapping.
- Thompson argued that, even if the allegations were true, a threat to block graduation did not fit any of the statute’s listed means of coercion.
- The trial court agreed and dismissed the sexual-assault charge(s).
- The State appealed to the Montana Supreme Court.
Issues
- Whether a threat to withhold graduation constitutes the type of force or threat required by Montana’s sexual-assault statute (i.e., physical force or a threat of death, bodily injury, or kidnapping), so that the charge should not have been dismissed.
Decision
- The Montana Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal.
- The court concluded that the statute, as written, limited sexual assault based on compelled submission to cases involving physical force or threats of death, bodily injury, or kidnapping.
- Because the alleged coercion was a threat of academic/administrative harm rather than one of the listed forms of force or threat, the allegations did not satisfy the statutory elements of sexual assault.
Legal Principles
- Courts apply the plain text of a criminal statute and do not add unlisted forms of prohibited conduct.
- When a criminal statute defines an element in specific terms (such as listing particular types of threats), the prosecution must prove the element as defined, not as it might be defined in a broader moral or social sense.
- Ambiguities in penal statutes are read narrowly rather than expanded by judicial construction.
- If conduct appears wrongful but falls outside the statutory elements, the remedy lies with legislative change, not judicial enlargement of criminal liability.
Conclusion
The Montana Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the sexual-assault charge because, even accepting the student’s allegations as true, Thompson’s threat to prevent her graduation was not physical force and was not a threat of death, bodily injury, or kidnapping as required by the sexual-assault statute’s definition of compelled submission.