State v. Heath

MARTIN, Justice.

The question dispositive of this appeal is whether the trial court erred in permitting the prosecutor to pose a question to an expert in clinical psychology regarding whether the victim had a mental condition which would cause her to fabricate a story about the sexual assault. Concluding that it so erred, we order a new trial.

At trial the state’s evidence tended to show that on 5 February 1983 thirteen-year-old Victoria Ann Purser (Vickie), who had been living with her maternal grandparents in Grifton, was visiting her parents and siblings in Kinston. Vickie had gone to a…