Thomas Conan Ortega v. State of Arkansas

Summary

The court affirmed Ortega’s rape conviction and life sentence, holding that substantial evidence supported conviction under both forcible-compulsion and physically-helpless theories. The court declined to reach the merits of Ortega’s challenge to the general verdict form because he failed to support that argument with authority or a convincing legal argument. Justice Goodson, concurring, supported declining to address the verdict-form issue, while Justices Danielson and Hart, dissenting, would have reversed and remanded for a new trial because interrogatories were improperly denied.