Law360 (October 23, 2026, 9:47 PM EDT) -- A Connecticut appeals court on Friday ordered a new trial for a man convicted of sexual assault of a child, ruling the prosecutor was incorrectly allowed to ask witnesses to evaluate the credibility of the victim's testimony.

The three-judge panel said in an opinion officially released on Oct. 27 that the defendant, referred to in the opinion as Evans E. to protect the victim, should be retried because a prosecutor inappropriately asked three witnesses during trial to comment on whether they believed the testimony from the victim, known as J.

"The improprieties were particularly severe in this case because the prosecutor violated the well established principle of law that it is improper to ask a witness to testify as to the credibility of another witness and, in so doing, invaded the province of the jury," said Appeals Judge Melanie L. Cradle, who in August was appointed as an associate justice to the Connecticut Supreme Court. "The improper inquiries, which were compounded by the subsequent argument pertaining to J's credibility, were neither indirect nor subtle."

Evans began dating his victim's mother in 2013 and shortly after the start of their relationship, he moved into the mother's home. J moved with her mother, Evans and a sister to Connecticut in July 2018, the opinion says.

Evans began touching and kissing J inappropriately when she was 8 or 9 years old, and referred to the incidents as "massages," the panel wrote. The conduct continued to get more sexually explicit until Evans began exposing his penis, and forcing the child to engage in oral sex, the opinion says.

In March 2021, J disclosed to her mother that Evans had been inappropriately touching and kissing her for the preceding three or four years, the panel said. The mother kicked Evans out of the home and contacted law enforcement, the opinion says.

A forensic interviewer interviewed J and the child confirmed the allegations of abuse she made against Evans, and the timeline she provided to her mother, the panel said. J declined a medical examination, and a rape kit was not completed because it had been more than five days since the most recent incident, the opinion says.

Evans was charged with several counts of child sex abuse and injury to a child. He was found not guilty of two charges of sexual assault in the second degree and guilty of the remaining charges and sentenced to 40 years in prison, which can convert to probation after 18 years, the opinion says.

Evans appealed, claiming the prosecutor committed several violations of his right to a fair trial based on his line of questioning to witnesses. The appeal claims the prosecutor asked a police detective, the forensic examiner and J's mother whether they found J's testimony to be credible, the opinion says.

The appeal claims that because the three witnesses found J's testimony to be credible, they unfairly bolstered the victim's testimony at trial. Evans also claimed that during closing arguments, the prosecutor unfairly referenced the detective's statement that he wouldn't have sought charges for Evans if J was not "credible," the opinion says.

The panel said it is "well established" that a witness cannot comment on the truthfulness of another witness's statements. Such commentary is prohibited because it is the job of the jury to determine questions of credibility, the opinion says.

The panel also found that the line of question lacked any specific value to the jury in terms of actually evaluating another witness's actual credibility. The questions about J's credibility were particularly egregious because the prosecutor should be aware of the rules on unfairly bolstering witness credibility, the opinion says.

An attorney representing Evans and a spokesperson for the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

Judges Melanie L. Cradle, Nina F. Elgo and Dennis G. Eveleigh sat on the panel for the Connecticut Appellate Court.

The state is represented by Lena Ann Arnold of the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice.

Evans E. is represented by Virginia M. Gillette and Trent Alan Lalima of Brown Paindiris & Scott LLP.

The case is State of Connecticut v. Evans E., case number AC48504, in the Connecticut Appellate Court.

--Editing by Marygrace Anderson.

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