Opinion ID: 2543191
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Evidence of Accommodation of Sexual Abuse

Text: Evidence was presented that defendant may have been sexually abused, as well as physically and emotionally abused, by his stepmother. Some of the testimony came from Vahid Sadeghi, a marriage, family and child therapist who had worked with and examined defendant at age 16 when the latter was in a group home for adolescents on probation for minor crimes. He testified that defendant had told him that his stepmother asked him to take off his clothes and lay in bed before she hit him, which raised a red flag for Sadeghi that sexual abuse may have occurred. Defendant denied to Sadeghi that such abuse had occurred. Sadeghi testified that some children do not reveal to him that they have been molested, but when asked if he believed defendant's denial, the prosecution objected to the question as calling for speculation, which the trial court sustained. Later, forensic psychologist Eugene Couture testified that according to various studies, only 2 percent of sexual abuse within families is reported. Defendant claims the trial court committed error in sustaining the objection to the defense counsel's question. We disagree. Contrary to defendant's assertion, the exclusion of Sadeghi's answer to the above question did not undermine defendant's ability to make the case that he had been the victim of sexual abuse notwithstanding his earlier denials. The trial court acted within its discretion in disallowing a question that required the witness to speculate about the truth of defendant's denial of sexual abuse, while allowing evidence that such denial is common, permitting defendant to adequately make his case that the denial was untrue.