The defendant was found guilty of taking indecent liberties with a child after his thirteen-year-old niece disclosed to several people that the defendant was behaving in a sexually inappropriate manner toward her.

On appeal, the defendant contended that the trial court committed plain error by permitting the State’s expert to vouch for the minor’s credibility. The defendant argued that the expert impermissibly testified that the minor’s medical history “was consistent with child sexual abuse” and that her “physical exam would be consistent with a child who had disclosed child sexual abuse.” Slip op. at ¶ 8. The Court of Appeals rejected the defendant’s argument, noting that for expert testimony to amount to vouching for a witness’s credibility, that expert testimony must present “a definitive diagnosis of sexual abuse” in the absence of “supporting physical evidence of the abuse.” Slip op. at ¶ 13. The Court’s review of the expert’s full testimony in proper context showed that the expert appropriately provided the jury with an opinion, based on her expertise, that a lack of physical findings of sexual abuse does not generally correlate with an absence of sexual abuse.

The defendant next argued that by closing the courtroom immediately prior to the jury charge, the trial court committed structural error and violated his constitutional right to a public trial. The Court of Appeals noted that the defendant failed to object to this procedure at trial and declined to invoke Appellate Rule 2 to review the constitutional argument. The Court nonetheless concluded that the trial court’s imposition of reasonable limitations of movement in and out of the courtroom to minimize jury distractions were within its statutory and inherent authority to control the courtroom.

The defendant also contended that he was prejudiced at trial by ineffective assistance of counsel, arguing that his counsel “failed in multiple instances to object to plainly impermissible testimony by numerous State’s witnesses vouching for [the minor], or otherwise consented to such inadmissible evidence, when there could be no reasonable strategic basis for doing so.” Slip op. at ¶ 29.  The Court rejected this argument, determining that the defendant had not shown that any of the alleged errors gave rise to a “reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Slip op. at ¶ 30.