Court Opinion

ID: 9752212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 17:46:58.946176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:09.664625
License: Public Domain

FORD ELLIOTT, Judge,
dissenting:
As the majority very properly decides, the use of expert testimony on the dynamics of the Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome has been rendered wholly inadmissible in this Commonwealth by the recent decision of our supreme court in Commonwealth v. Dunkle, — Pa.-, 602 A.2d 830 (1992). Therefore, I agree that based on Dunkle an error occurred below. However, having carefully reviewed all of the evidence and testimony presented to the jury in this case, I would find any error to be harmless. The evidence of guilt against appellant including the testimony of the two older children and the other lay witnesses, was overwhelming. In determining that expert testimony on sexual abuse is inadmissible in Dunkle, Justice Cappy relied upon the common sense of all jurors to know that children may delay in reporting abuse and also omit details and contradict themselves and, therefore, such expert testimony is unnecessary. In reviewing the record herein, I would agree that such testimony was unnecessary and merely cumulative. Therefore, it seems to me to be wholly unnecessary, and perhaps the real injustice in this case, to subject *340these three children to a retrial and a reliving of the terror and violence which has already affected a significant part of their young lives. Can it be doubted since the trial of this case occurred almost five years ago, that the memories of both the children and the other witnesses as to details and dates has been eroded further by time.