According to the Bismarck Tribune, the North Dakota Supreme Court has upheld the sexual assault conviction of a former Mandan, ND, Lyft driver. The court denyed an appeal the man made on the grounds that expert testimony should not have been admitted.
Last spring Corey Wickham was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a jury convicted him of two counts of felony sexual assault. He was accused of assaulting a woman after driving her to her residence.
Wickham argued that the district court “obviously erred” by admitting testimony from five witnesses without requiring the prosecution to qualify them as experts. He claimed he wouldn’t have been convicted without their testimony.
The Supreme Court’s opinion stated that since Wickham did not object to the testimony at trial, the standard of review is for obvious error. Justices ruled that the district court did not err in admitting the testimony of two witnesses. The panel went on to say that if it was wrong in admitting testimony from three others, “the error was not obvious.”