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Wis. Stat. § 948.02

Sexual assault of a child

Applied in 235 court decisions — leading case State v. Allen (2004)

Most recently applied in United States v. Jay Liestman (April 2024)

1987 a. 332; 1989 a. 31; 1995 a. 14, 69; 2001 a. 109; 2005 a. 430, 437; 2007 a. 80; 2013 a. 167; 2017 a. 174

How often courts cite this section

198519902000201020202024170
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) FIRST DEGREE SEXUAL ASSAULT.

(am) Whoever has sexual contact or sexual intercourse with a person who has not attained the age of 13 years and causes great bodily harm to the person is guilty of a Class A felony.

(b) Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who has not attained the age of 12 years is guilty of a Class B felony.

(c) Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who has not attained the age of 16 years by use or threat of force or violence is guilty of a Class B felony.

(d) Whoever has sexual contact with a person who has not attained the age of 16 years by use or threat of force or violence is guilty of a Class B felony if the actor is at least 18 years of age when the sexual contact occurs.

(e) Whoever has sexual contact or sexual intercourse with a person who has not attained the age of 13 years is guilty of a Class B felony.

(2) SECOND DEGREE SEXUAL ASSAULT. Whoever has sexual contact or sexual intercourse with a person who has not attained the age of 16 years is guilty of a Class C felony. This subsection does not apply if s. 948.093 applies.

(3) FAILURE TO ACT. A person responsible for the welfare of a child who has not attained the age of 16 years is guilty of a Class F felony if that person has knowledge that another person intends to have, is having or has had sexual intercourse or sexual contact with the child, is physically and emotionally capable of taking action which will prevent the intercourse or contact from taking place or being repeated, fails to take that action and the failure to act exposes the child to an unreasonable risk that intercourse or contact may occur between the child and the other person or facilitates the intercourse or contact that does occur between the child and the other person.

(4) MARRIAGE NOT A BAR TO PROSECUTION. A defendant shall not be presumed to be incapable of violating this section because of marriage to the complainant.

(5) DEATH OF VICTIM. This section applies whether a victim is dead or alive at the time of the sexual contact or sexual intercourse.

Official source: Wisconsin State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Wisconsin statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.