Court Opinion

ID: 9738086
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:42:20.338713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:03.662943
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice,
(concurring specially).
The court is properly holding that in cases where a sexual assault victim is an adolescent, expert testimony as to the reporting conduct of such victims and as to continued contact by the adolescent with the assailant is admissible in the proper exercise of discretion by the trial court. I write only to emphasize that our language in State v. Myers, 359 N.W.2d 604 (Minn.1984), while applying specifically to a seven-year-old child in that case, generally addressed the issue of whether the emotional and psychological characteristics observed in sexually abused children is a proper subject of expert testimony. There we determined that “[bjackground data providing a relevant insight into the puzzling aspects of the child’s conduct and demeanor which the jury could not otherwise bring to its evaluation of her credibility is helpful and appropriate in cases of sexual abuse of children * * Myers, 359 N.W.2d at 610. If it is helpful for the jury to have such background data in the case of a seven-year-old child, it is even more important, in the face of medical testimony that the 14-year~old in this case was “functionally and physiologically” an adult woman, for the jury to have the specialized knowledge given by Dr. Bell that an adolescent victim of sexual abuse will react quite differently than will an adult and will have characteristics which overlap those of younger age groups. Particularly this jury needed the specialized information that it is not uncommon for a young adolescent victim of sexual abuse or sexual assault to delay reporting or to place herself or himself back in the presence of the perpetrator after the initial assault and the reasons for such behavior.