Commonwealth v. Perkins

The defendant was convicted by a jury in the Superior Court of three acts of forcible rape of a child, three *578acts of indecent assault and battery on a child, and one act of threat to kill. On appeal, he claims reversible error in the judge’s denial of his requested instructions concerning the credibility of a child’s testimony, in the prosecution’s impeachment of a defense expert, and in the Commonwealth’s use of expert testimony, which he argues assessed the credibility of the children’s claims of sexual abuse. We reverse.

We summarize the evidence. In the summer of 1991, the three…