Full Opinion

Cite as 2026 Ark. 142 SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS No. CR-25-538 Opinion Delivered: October 8, 2026 JESSE SPAAR APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE FAULKNER COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 23CR-23-238] V. HONORABLE H.G. FOSTER, JUDGE STATE OF ARKANSAS AFFIRMED. APPELLEE NICHOLAS J. BRONNI, Associate Justice Jesse Spaar groomed, assaulted, and raped his girlfriend’s then-six-year-old daughter, minor victim, over a four-month period. He was convicted of one count of rape, one count of attempted rape, three counts of sexual assault, one count of sexual grooming, and one count of sexual indecency with a child. The circuit court sentenced Spaar to life plus an additional 1,968 months (or 164 years) in prison. Spaar appeals, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions. We affirm. Facts and Procedural Background The facts of this case are disturbing, but some detail, including the graphic nature of Spaar’s crimes, is necessary to understand the evidence and consider Spaar’s claims. In June 2020, when MV was six years old, MV’s mother began a romantic relationship with Spaar. Shortly thereafter, MV and her mother moved in with Spaar, and MV’s mother became pregnant with MV’s younger brother. The relationship between MV’s mother and Spaar lasted only a few months, ending in September 2020. Yet during that period, Spaar used his time alone with MV to continually expose her to pornography, repeatedly molest her, attempt to force her to masturbate him, and rape her with a vibrator. The abuse only came to light years later, when in March 2023, the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children Division began investigating an unspecified health issue affecting MV’s brother. During that inquiry, MV told a state police investigator that she had been sexually abused by Spaar. Based on those statements, police executed a search warrant for Spaar’s home and turned up numerous sexual devices and copious amounts of pornography. The State ultimately charged Spaar with one count of rape, one count of attempted rape, three counts of second-degree sexual assault, one count of sexually grooming a child, and one count of sexual indecency with a child. At trial, MV testified to several instances of abuse between June and September 2020. She described in graphic detail how Spaar had vaginally penetrated her with a vibrator and attempted to penetrate her on other occasions. She described how on one occasion she had only prevented Spaar from digitally penetrating her by kicking him away. And she testified that Spaar had repeatedly stripped her naked, molested her, placed her hands on his exposed genitals, attempted to force her to masturbate him, and made her watch pornography while he masturbated. MV also testified that Spaar had threatened to “kill [MV’s] whole family” if she ever told anyone. 2 The jury convicted Spaar on all seven counts. The circuit court then sentenced Spaar to life imprisonment plus 1,968 months to run consecutively to the life sentence. This appeal followed. Discussion Spaar challenges all seven of his convictions on sufficiency grounds. Spaar’s sufficiency challenge fails on both procedural and substantive grounds, and we affirm. 1. We begin with the preservation. To challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a jury conviction, a defendant must move for a directed verdict on sufficiency grounds at both the close of the prosecution’s case and the trial’s conclusion. Ark. R. Crim. P. 33.1(a), (c). The motions must specify how the evidence is deficient, and a motion merely stating that the evidence is deficient does not preserve an argument that the evidence was insufficient to prove any particular element of an offense. Ark. R. Crim. P. 33.1(c). The rationale behind the specificity requirement is simple: it allows the State “to reopen its case to present the missing proof,” and it avoids reviewing issues never presented below. Hartman v. State, 2015 Ark. 30, at 4, 454 S.W.3d 721, 724. Here, Spaar moved for a directed verdict at the close of the State’s case and the close of all the evidence. But in both instances, Spaar merely asserted that the State “failed to make a prima facie case” and recited the elements of each of the offenses. He did not explain which elements the State failed to prove or how the State’s evidence fell short. Now, on appeal, Spaar contests specific elements of each offense. Spaar’s directed-verdict motions 3 were therefore insufficient to preserve the arguments he now presents, and that alone is grounds for denying his claims. 2. Spaar’s claims would likewise fail on the merits. When a defendant raises a sufficiency challenge, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict— that is, we do not reweigh that evidence or substitute our own judgment for the jury’s. See Matthews v. State, 2025 Ark. 213, at 4–5, 725 S.W.3d 16, 19. In conducting that review, we ask only whether substantial evidence supports the jury’s verdict. Id. (citing Jones v. State, 269 Ark. 119, 120, 598 S.W.2d 748, 749 (1980)). Substantial evidence is evidence “of sufficient force and character to compel a conclusion one way or the other beyond suspicion or conjecture.” Reaves v. State, 2025 Ark. 202, at 5, 725 S.W.3d 22, 25. Applying that standard, all seven challenges would fail. a. Start with Spaar’s rape conviction. As relevant here, to convict Spaar of rape, the State had to prove that MV was less than fourteen years old and that Spaar engaged in an “act of sexual gratification involving . . . [t]he penetration, however slight, of the labia majora . . . by any body member or foreign instrument.” Ark. Code Ann. § 5-14-101(1)(B) (Supp. 2019) (defining “deviate sexual activity” for purposes of the rape statute); see Ark. Code Ann. § 5-14-103(a)(3) (Supp. 2019) (defining rape as “sexual intercourse or deviate sexual activity” with a person “less than fourteen (14) years of age”). Spaar does not dispute that MV was younger than fourteen, only that the State failed to prove penetration. But MV testified that Spaar placed a vibrator “inside” her on at least one occasion, and that testimony alone is sufficient to prove penetration. See McCauley v. State, 2023 Ark. 68, at 4, 663 S.W.3d 383, 4 386 (“uncorroborated testimony describing penetration may constitute substantial evidence to sustain a conviction of rape”). Recognizing that, Spaar argues the jury could not rely on MV’s testimony to find penetration because it was inconsistent and rested on a misunderstanding of penetration. He notes that, at trial, MV first denied that Spaar had placed a vibrator inside her body and testified that Spaar had done so only after the prosecutor used a visual demonstration— placing a pen in his ear—to clarify what “inside” meant. Spaar thus argues that MV’s testimony rested on a demonstration that “bore no anatomical similarity to the [statute’s penetration] requirement” and, as such, MV’s testimony cannot provide a basis for finding that Spaar penetrated MV with a vibrator. That argument is not a basis for reversal. On the contrary, to the extent that Spaar argues that MV’s testimony was inconsistent, those purported inconsistencies were for the jury to resolve. See McDaniels v. State, 2025 Ark. 139, at 8, 720 S.W.3d 82, 88 (“We do not second-guess the jury’s credibility determinations or its resolution of conflicting evidence.”). And the jury was certainly entitled to conclude that MV—just ten years old at the time of trial—initially misunderstood what the term “inside” meant in this context before refining her testimony. Moreover, despite Spaar’s objections to the pen-in-ear demonstration, the jury was free to use its common sense to conclude that when Spaar held a vibrator to MV’s “private part,” it penetrated her. See Hale v. State, 2025 Ark. 45, at 6, 709 S.W.3d 796, 801 (noting that “the jury need not disregard common sense when evaluating the facts and may infer guilt from implausible explanations of incriminating behavior”); Hartley v. State, 2022 5 Ark. 197, at 6, 654 S.W.3d 802, 806 (finding substantial evidence of penetration where minor victim testified defendant “would use a vibrator toy and would make her hold it on her vagina” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Indeed, under Arkansas law, penetration “however slight” is rape, and on this record, the jury was entitled to find that penetration occurred. See Hartley, 2022 Ark. 197, at 6, 654 S.W.3d at 806 (upholding conviction where evidence suggested defendant “penetrated [minor victim’s] labia majora with the object, even if only slightly”). b. Spaar next challenges his attempted-rape conviction. To sustain Spaar’s conviction for a single count of attempted rape, the State had to prove that, on at least one occasion, Spaar “purposely engage[d] in conduct that . . . constitute[d] a substantial step in a course of conduct intended to culminate” in rape. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-3-201(a)(2) (Repl. 2013). The State easily met that burden. MV testified that, on at least one occasion, Spaar tried to digitally penetrate her and that she only prevented him from doing so by “kick[ing] him off.” See Ark. Code Ann. § 5-14-101(1)(B) (Supp. 2019) (defining digital penetration as rape). From that, the jury was entitled to conclude that Spaar intended and attempted to rape MV. That is sufficient to sustain his conviction. c. Spaar also challenges his three second-degree sexual-assault convictions. As relevant here, a defendant who is eighteen or older commits second-degree sexual assault whenever he “engages in sexual contact with a person who is less than fourteen.” Ark. Code Ann. § 5-14-125(a)(3) (Supp. 2019). Sexual contact means any “act of sexual gratification involving the touching, directly or through clothing, of the sex organs, buttocks, or anus of 6 a person or the breast of a female.” Ark. Code Ann. § 5-14-101(12). Spaar argues that the State failed to present any evidence that his contact with MV was for sexual gratification. Even the most rudimentary review of the evidence shows otherwise. MV testified that on multiple occasions—apart from the times Spaar raped and attempted to rape her—Spaar stripped MV naked and touched her chest, touched MV’s other private areas, and placed MV’s hands on his exposed genitals and tried to force her to masturbate him. Against that backdrop, the jury was entitled to conclude that Spaar repeatedly touched and abused MV for his own sexual gratification, and we conclude that substantial evidence supported the jury’s verdict. d. Next and equally meritless is Spaar’s challenge to his conviction for sexually grooming a child. The statute in effect at the time of Spaar’s conduct defined grooming as giving a child thirteen years old or younger sexually explicit material to entice or induce the child to engage in sexual intercourse, sexually explicit conduct, or deviate sexual activity. See Ark. Code Ann. 5-27-307(b) (Repl. 2013) (effective from August 16, 2013, to August 4, 2025). MV’s testimony provides substantial evidence from which the jury could conclude that Spaar groomed MV. MV testified that Spaar told her to sit down while he played videos depicting naked people doing “weird stuff” that “kids should not do,” such as “making babies.” And MV testified that Spaar would masturbate, use sex toys, and sexually abuse her while the videos played. Spaar argues that MV’s testimony was too vague to conclude he played pornographic videos. In effect, the sum and substance of Spaar’s argument is that MV was too young to 7 know what she had seen. That argument strains credulity, and we reject Spaar’s suggestion that a victim is ever too young to know she was victimized by a predator. Moreover, to the extent there is any dispute about the kind of material that Spaar made MV watch, the record establishes that a search of Spaar’s home turned up copious amounts of video pornography. The jury could thus reasonably infer that Spaar forced MV to watch sexually explicit material, and his sufficiency challenge fails. e. Lastly, Spaar challenges his conviction of sexual indecency with a child. As relevant here, the State had to prove that Spaar solicited MV or “expose[d] his . . . sex organs to” MV for the purpose of sexual gratification. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-14-110(a)(2) (Supp. 2019). On this point, Spaar simply asserts that the State failed to prove that he solicited MV. That is a dubious claim, but one that ultimately does not matter given that he apparently does not dispute that he exposed himself to MV for sexual gratification. Nor could Spaar dispute that conclusion was supported by substantial evidence given MV’s testimony that Spaar regularly stripped naked and engaged in masturbatory activities in MV’s presence. Accordingly, Spaar’s claims fail on both procedural and substantive grounds. Affirmed. Special Justice CORY COX joins. BAKER, C.J., and HUDSON and WOMACK, JJ., concur. WEBB, J., not participating. SHAWN A. WOMACK, Justice, concurring. I agree with the majority that Spaar failed to preserve his sufficiency challenges, and I therefore concur in the judgment affirming his 8 convictions. But I would end the analysis there. Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 33.1 bars us from reaching the merits of an unpreserved sufficiency challenge. 1 Once that conclusion resolves the appeal, there is no reason to decide whether Spaar’s claims would also fail on the merits. Doing so provides an answer to a question we need not decide (i.e., an advisory opinion). Judicial restraint counsels that we stop when our work is done. Thus, I would affirm on preservation alone. BAKER, C.J., and HUDSON, J., join. LaPort-Jenner Law, PLLC, by: Kelli LaPorte-Jenner, Frank LaPorte-Jenner, and Eli Cummins, for appellant. Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: Brooke Jackson Gasaway, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee. 1 See, e.g., McDaniels v. State, 2025 Ark. 139, at 6–7, 720 S.W.3d 82, 87; see also Haynie v. State, 2025 Ark. 46, at 3, 709 S.W.3d 46, 48. 9