Aggravated Sexual Assault

In a case out of the Court of Criminal Appeals that was reversed the appellant defendant was indicted for felony aggravated sexual assault.  The State submitted a jury charge that authorized the jury, should it acquit the appellant of aggravated sexual assault, to convict him of the lesser included offense of aggravated assault, to convict him of the lesser included offense of aggravated assault.  Although the defendant vigorously opposed the inclusion of this charge, the trial court submitted it, and the jury convicted him of aggravated assault, thereby implicitly acquitting him of agg sexual assault.  The defendant appealed his agg assault conviction, arguing that the trial court erred to authorize that conviction for that offense because it was not a lesser included offense of the sexual assault as the latter offense had been alleged in the indictment.  The Court of appeals agreed that as alleged in the indictment, agg assault was not such an offense.  The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and remanded.