PORTLAND — A Lewiston man convicted at trial of domestic violence assault appealed his conviction to the state’s high court on Tuesday, arguing his relationship with the victim did not meet the definition of domestic partner and shouldn’t have been elevated to a higher criminal charge.

Jamesa Drake, an Auburn defense attorney who represents Richard Murphy, presented his appeal Tuesday before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Representing the state was Michael Dumas, a third-year student at the University of Maine School of Law and an intern at the Androscoggin County District Attorney’s Office.

Murphy was sentenced in Androscoggin County Superior Court to four years in prison with all but three years suspended, followed by two years of probation.

The crime was a Class C felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. Had Murphy been convicted of assault instead, a misdemeanor, the maximum penalty would have been less than a year in jail.

On March 20, 2014, police arrived at a Lewiston apartment where Murphy had violently put the victim on the floor and put his foot on her face, causing her mouth to bleed, according to the state’s written brief to the high court.

More than a year before the assault, a Lewiston police officer had followed a noise complaint to the basement of a Lewiston apartment building where she witnessed Murphy and a woman, later identified as the assault victim, having consensual sex.

Drake argued Tuesday that there are “potential vagueness” problems with the domestic violence statute “because the legislative intent on that issue is not perfectly clear.” Although the Legislature included language in the domestic violence statute’s legal definition to include: “individuals who are or were sexual partners,” Drake said the statute failed to define what constitutes a sexual partner.

She said lawmakers intended to extend special protections to domestic violence victims because they were more vulnerable because of their proximity to and dependency on their abusers, which makes it more difficult for them to escape the abuse and report it.

That wasn’t the case with her client, who had a single sexual encounter with the victim more than a year before after randomly meeting him at a party, Drake told the Sun Journal.

During her oral argument before the court Tuesday, Drake said a one-time sexual encounter followed by assault shouldn’t be classified as domestic violence assault.

Justice Donald Alexander pressed Drake to declare how many times a couple must engage in sex before their relationship could or should be considered domestic.

“You’ll agree that it would be domestic violence assault if immediately following the sexual encounter he slugged her in the face, right?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“No?”

“I would not,” she said.

“I have sex with a person and then assault them and that’s not domestic violence assault? So, your position is you have to have sex more than once in order for it to be a domestic relationship and domestic violence?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“How many times?” he asked.

“Well …”

“Twice?” he asked.

“It’s difficult to …”

“How many times?” he asked

“I don’t know the answer to that,” she said.

“Once is not enough, though?”

“That is our position in this case,” she said.

Drake said the definition should be more nuanced.

“Whether two people qualify as sexual partners depends on the nature, extent and duration of their relationship and the temporal proximity of the sexual encounter,” Drake said.

Chief Justice Leigh I. Saufley told Drake those qualifications are not in the law drafted by the Legislature.

She suggested that, if Drake believes the definition isn’t black and white, then maybe it should be left up to the jury to decide whether the couple had been engaged in a domestic relationship.

If left up to the trial judge, Justice Andrew Mead asked Drake, “Isn’t that unworkable?” to require the judge to weigh all of the aspects of a relationship before making a determination of a domestic relationship.

Dumas said the high court has already addressed the issue, twice. The presumption of a sexual relationship was not enough. In Murphy’s case, there is “direct and actual evidence” because a police officer witnessed the act, Dumas said.

“This is not an ambiguous statute,” he said. “This is not an ambiguous case.”

Justices quizzed him as to what constitutes a sexual relationship and whether it would include any sexual act that is punishable under Maine law, such as contact or touching.

Dumas said his office defined a sexual partner as two individuals who had or were continuing to engage in sexual intercourse.

“You’re not asking us to parse out which sex act is necessary for that, are you?” Justice Ellen Gorman asked.

Justice Donald Alexander posed the question of whether two people who had hooked up for a sexual encounter in college and met up at their 25th reunion would be considered sexual partners.

Dumas said they would, under the law.

“So, from the Legislature’s perspective, once a sexual partner, always a sexual partner?” Saufley asked.

“Yes, your honor,” Dumas said.

The court took the matter under consideration and isn’t expected to rule on the appeal this month.