State v. Sah, 938 N.W.2d 912

In Dec. 2017, 11-year-old G.U. disclosed to a school counselor and police that her mother and stepfather, Lansana Sah, physically and sexually abused her.
Allegations included being hit with belts/shoes/spoons, being driven to the woods and punched, having crushed peppers placed in her vagina as punishment, and Sah inserting his penis in her vagina.
Sah was charged (Mar. 2018) with gross sexual imposition and child abuse for offenses occurring on or about Jan. 1, 2015–Dec. 5, 2017.
At trial, the court admitted evidence of multiple non-pepper incidents of physical abuse over Sah’s relevance objections; G.U. testified to those incidents and officer Johnson photographed injuries.
Sah was convicted on both counts, moved for a new trial arguing the non-pepper abuse evidence was inadmissible (but did not specify grounds under Rules 403 or 404(b) or cite authority), the motion was denied, and he appealed.
The Supreme Court affirmed, holding Sah failed to preserve the evidentiary objection for appeal and declined to review under the obvious-error rule (which Sah did not invoke).

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of other-acts evidence and preservation for appeal	State: evidence was admissible and the defendant failed to preserve any specific Rule 403/404(b) complaint in his new-trial motion	Sah: district court abused its discretion by admitting prior bad acts (other physical abuse), failing to analyze N.D.R.Ev. 403 and 404(b), and not giving a cautionary instruction	Court: affirmed conviction; Sah did not preserve the Rule 403/404(b) objection in his new-trial motion; appellant did not argue obvious error, so Court declined review

City of Grand Forks v. Opp, 890 N.W.2d 821 (N.D. 2017) (motion for new trial must specify alleged defects and limits appellate review to issues raised)
City of Fargo v. McLaughlin, 512 N.W.2d 700 (N.D. 1994) (issues not brought to trial court attention are not preserved for appellate review)
State v. Kopp, 419 N.W.2d 169 (N.D. 1988) (when a new-trial motion is filed, issues must be raised there or are waived on appeal)
State v. Hart, 569 N.W.2d 451 (N.D. 1997) (issues not raised at trial generally are not reviewable unless they constitute obvious error)