State v. Crabtree, 370 N.C. 156 (Sept. 29, 2017)

The court per curiam affirmed the decision below, State v. Crabtree, ___ N.C. App. ___, 790 S.E.2d 709 (Sept. 6, 2016). In this child sexual assault case, the Court of Appeals held that neither a child interviewer from the Child Abuse Medical Evaluation Clinic nor a DSS social worker improperly vouched for the victim’s credibility; however, the court of appeals held, over a dissent, that although a pediatrician from the clinic improperly vouched for the victim’s credibility, no prejudice occurred. In the challenged portion of the social worker’s testimony, the social worker, while explaining the process of investigating a report of child sexual abuse, noted that the pediatrician and her team “give their conclusions or decision about those children that have been evaluated if they were abused or neglected in any way.” This statement merely described what the pediatrician’s team was expected to do before sending a case to DSS; the social worker did not comment on the victim’s case, let alone her credibility. In the challenged portion of the interviewer’s testimony, he characterized the victim’s description of performing fellatio on the defendant as “more of an experiential statement, in other words something may have actually happened to her as opposed to something [seen] on a screen or something having been heard about.” This testimony left the credibility determination to the jury and did not improperly vouch for credibility. However, statements made by the pediatrician constituted improper vouching. Although the pediatrician properly described the five-tier rating system that the clinic used to evaluate potential child abuse victims, she ventured into improper testimony when she testified that “[w]e have sort of five categories all the way from, you know, we’re really sure [sexual abuse] didn’t happen to yes, we’re really sure that [sexual abuse] happened” and referred to the latter category as “clear disclosure” or “clear indication” of abuse in conjunction with her identification of that category as the one assigned to the victim’s interview. Also, her testimony that her team’s final conclusion that the victim “had given a very clear disclosure of what had happened to her and who had done this to her” was an inadmissible comment on the victim’s credibility. However, the defendant was not prejudiced by these remarks.