State v. Althof, 359 P.3d 399

Defendant was convicted of five counts of first-degree sexual abuse and one count of second-degree unlawful penetration based on abuse of his daughter S in 2004–2005.
S did not report until 2012 after her sister A told S she had overheard defendant making sexual comments about A to their mother; S reported to prevent A from suffering similarly.
At trial the court admitted A’s overheard-conversation evidence both to explain S’s delay in reporting and as evidence of defendant’s intent.
The court also allowed the investigating detective to testify as an OEC 702 expert about reasons victims delay reporting, over defendant’s objection that the detective lacked qualifications.
Defendant argued on appeal that (1) admission of the uncharged-misconduct evidence was improper under Leistiko/Pitt procedures, (2) the detective was not qualified as an expert, and (3) the court erred by not instructing on and by accepting nonunanimous jury verdicts.
The court of appeals affirmed, rejecting the unpreserved Leistiko/Pitt claim, upholding the detective’s limited-expert testimony, and finding unanimity claims foreclosed by Apodaca.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of A’s overheard-conversation evidence	Evidence was relevant to explain S’s delay and to show intent	Admission required Leistiko/Pitt procedure because used for intent under doctrine-of-chances	Not preserved below; plain-error review denied; Leistiko/Pitt not obviously required when evidence is also independently relevant
Qualification of detective under OEC 702 to testify about delayed reporting	Detective’s training/experience made him qualified to explain non‑scientific, concrete reasons victims delay	Detective lacked requisite expertise under OEC 702	Court erred? No — legal review: detective’s training and experience sufficed for narrow topic; testimony admissible
Whether testimony about delayed reporting required Brown/O’Key scientific-review standards	Testimony was non‑scientific and practical (concrete reasons), not expert psychological/scientific opinion	Prosecution should meet Brown/O’Key for delayed-report testimony (if scientific)	Brown/O’Key standards not triggered because testimony was not presented as scientific evidence
Jury unanimity instruction and acceptance of nonunanimous verdicts	No argument for unanimity instruction or verdict requirement presented; Apodaca controls	Defendant argued jurors must be unanimous on verdicts	Foreclosed by Apodaca; unanimity challenge rejected

State v. Leistiko, 352 Or 172 (procedures for admitting uncharged misconduct under doctrine-of-chances)
State v. Pitt, 352 Or 566 (clarifying Leistiko procedures)
State v. Marrington, 335 Or 555 (psychologist’s delayed‑reporting testimony treated as scientific evidence)
Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (jury unanimity rule; nonunanimous verdicts upheld)
State v. Brown, 297 Or 404 (standards for admissibility of scientific expert evidence)
State v. O’Key, 321 Or 285 (scientific-evidence admissibility framework)
State v. Rogers, 330 Or 282 (OEC 702 requires assessment of particular qualifications)
State v. Hazlett, 269 Or App 483 (appellate review of expert-qualification determinations)