LIVINGSTON — A toxicology witness scheduled to testify at a rape trial will be allowed to speak generically about signs of intoxication but cannot opine on whether a woman was drunk or incapacitated at the time of a videotaped 2014 sexual encounter, an appeals court ruled Monday.

State prosecutors wanted Dr. Patricia Williams to weigh in at the trial of Melanie Curtin, who is accused of simple rape and video voyeurism. The victim testified last week that she had so much to drink she wasn't aware of who initiated sexual activity among her, Curtin and Dennis Perkins, a former Livingston Parish deputy at the center of a yearslong sex-crimes investigation.

The state has said the victim appeared on the video to be incapacitated and, therefore, unable to consent.

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeal said Monday that Williams can provide "general testimony" about how an intoxicated person may appear, act or behave. The court said the information may help jurors, but Williams cannot offer an opinion on whether the woman captured on videotape was intoxicated.

The woman who testified at Curtin's trial told jurors last week that, late on Nov. 7, 2014, she had invited Curtin and her son to her home to watch a movie. At the time, the woman knew Curtin from the ballpark where their sons played. According to texts on Nov. 8, 2014, Curtin told the woman she had passed out.

As sex-crimes investigators looked into Perkins' activities, including assaults involving children, they came across a videotape of the 2014 sexual encounter. Ultimately, the state determined that a crime had taken place.

Perkins and his wife Cynthia were arrested in October 2019 and ultimately faced 150 counts alleging they raped two children and an adult, produced child pornography and served schoolchildren baked goods contaminated with a bodily fluid. Perkins is serving 100 years in prison after pleading guilty to a number of charges, and Cynthia Perkins was sentenced to 41 years.

The accusations against Curtin do not involve children.

Curtin was previously convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but the 1st Circuit said the trial judge erred when he admitted some evidence harmful to Curtin and rejected other items that could have benefited her case.

The retrial is scheduled to resume Monday afternoon.