State v. D.R.

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

STEIN, J.

In this appeal we confront a serious and recurring legal issue in child sexual abuse prosecutions: the admissibility of the child’s out-of-court account of the sexual assault. Defendant, convicted on three counts charging sexually abusive conduct with his two-and-one-half year old granddaughter, challenges as plain error the testimony of a non-treating psychologist that recounted the child’s graphically descriptive explanation of the sexual contact. Other than the defendant’s confession, which he repudiated during his trial testimony, the…