Comment

Aggravated sexual assault can be committed in four basic ways. They include—

1. sexual assault of an adult victim (seventeen or older) without consent and with an aggravating factor (such as serious bodily injury, a deadly weapon, a date-rape drug, or disabled victim);
2. sexual assault of a child fourteen to under seventeen years old with an aggravating factor;
3. sexual assault of a child younger than fourteen (which, if committed with an aggravating factor, increases the minimum sentence to twenty-five years); and
4. sexual assault of a child younger than six (which increases the minimum sentence to twenty-five years even without an aggravating factor).

Instructions are provided for each of these four different ways of committing aggravated sexual assault. For the last three ways of committing the offense, the state is not required to prove that the conduct constituting the offense is without the victim’s consent. See Tex. Penal Code § 22.021(a)(1)(B).