Commonwealth v. Federico

We must decide whether the testimony of two experts on child sexual abuse impermissibly intruded on the jury’s role of assessing the credibility of the child complainants. In Commonwealth v. Dockham, 405 Mass. 618 (1989), we held that expert testimony on the general behavioral characteristics of sexually abused children was properly admitted where the defendant had argued that such testimony should have been admitted only in response to hypothetical questions based on the facts in evidence. Here, the defendant takes the antipodal position, arguing that the testimony given in response to…