R.S. v. Knighton

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

STEIN, J.

In this appeal we consider significant evidentiary issues pertaining to the admissibility of out-of-court statements made by child victims of sexual abuse. The issues presented are whether the trial court properly declined to admit the children’s out-of-court accounts to several mental-health professionals of incidents of sexual abuse under either the so-called “medical-treatment exception,” Evidence Rule 63(12)(c), or the “tender-years exception,” Evidence Rule 63(33), to the hearsay rule.

I

This suit arose following an investigation by the…