Commonwealth v. Quinn (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-077-13)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 11‑P‑1910 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. KEVIN QUINN. No. 11‑P‑1910. Essex. December 7, 2012. ‑ June 19, 2013. Present: Cypher, Brown, & Cohen, JJ. Rape. Practice, Criminal, Cross‑examination by prosecutor. Evidence, Cross‑examination, Communication with social worker, Expert opinion, First complaint, Relevancy and materiality. Rape‑Shield Statute. Witness, Expert. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on August 29, 2007. The cases were tried before Leila R. Kern, J. Eric S. Brandt, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for the defendant. Catherine L. Semel, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. CYPHER, J. After a mistrial, the defendant, Kevin Quinn, was retried before a jury and the same Superior Court judge and was convicted of forcible rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child. On appeal, the defendant argues, first, that the prosecutor’s cross-examination of the victim’s therapist exceeded the permissible bounds of expert testimony; and second, that it was error to exclude evidence that the victim was pregnant when she made her first complaint of sexual assault by the defendant. We affirm. Factual background. We summarize the facts the jury could reasonably have found, reserving certain details for discussion with the specific issues raised. The victim was about seven years old at the time of the incidents. The defendant was her mother’s boyfriend, and the three lived together for a total of about ten years. The abuse occurred when they were living on Spruce Street in Lawrence from about July, 1997, until December, 1998. The victim testified that during this period, three incidents occurred, all in the evening before bedtime, and all in largely the same way. The defendant would join the victim in her playroom, which was a long, large closet off the kitchen where the victim could play with and store her toys. The defendant would grab her under her nightclothes, touch her chest, and put his hands in her underwear and “all over [her] body.” She testified that on each of the three occasions, the defendant put his finger in her vagina. She said it hurt and that she cried and tried to push him away. During the last incident, the victim testified that the defendant forced her hand onto his penis and moved it up and down […]