NH AG Says Supreme Court Got Adam Montgomery's Murder Ruling Wrong

By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH

CONCORD, NH — The state’s Supreme Court justices got it wrong when they unanimously ruled to overturn Adam Montgomery’s second-degree murder conviction due partly to the weak evidence presented, according to a new motion to reconsider filed by New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella’s office.

The motion, filed Monday, states that the justices incorrectly focused on detailed facts instead of the case as a whole, Assistant Attorney General Sam Gonyea wrote.

“The Court should not, as it has done here, zero in on specific pieces of evidence in each case and assess the relative strength of that evidence based on the Court’s own subjective view,” Gonyea wrote.

The state is trying to salvage Adam Montgomery’s conviction for killing his daughter, five-year-old Harmony Montgomery, in 2019. It’s likely that the state will have to retry Adam Montgomery of Manchester if it wants to press the case again in court.

The June 11 Supreme Court ruling made clear the direct evidence against Adam Montgomery, based largely on his ex-wife Kayla Montgomery’s testimony, wasn’t enough to convict him on its own. While there is circumstantial evidence, that evidence does not solely point to Adam Montgomery.

“This evidence, however, supports only Kayla’s testimony about the defendant’s actions after the victim’s death; it does not corroborate Kayla’s testimony that the defendant killed the victim on December 7 [2019] by repeatedly punching her in the head. It is also not inconsistent with the defendant’s theory of defense — namely that Kayla caused the victim’s death and the defendant helped her cover up her crime,” Associate Justice Bryan Gould in the opinion.

Adam Montgomery appealed his conviction partly on the ground that his murder trial should have been separate from a trial on the second-degree assault charges stemming from his abuse of Harmony. The Supreme Court sided with the abusive father, stating that the strong evidence of the assault charge covered up the deficiencies in the murder charge, and prejudiced the jury.

“As compared to the evidence of multiple disinterested witnesses substantiating the July [2019] assault, the evidence of the December 7, 2019 fatal attack is substantially weaker,” Gould wrote. “We conclude that, under these circumstances, trying the second-degree assault and second-degree murder charges in a single trial jeopardized the defendant’s right to a fair trial.”

Gonyea’s motion to have the justices reconsider their ruling faults them at length for not understanding case law when it comes to joining charges for trial. Gonyea also pushes back on the strength of the murder evidence, writing that the justices should bow to the wisdom of the jury.

“By defining the State’s second-degree murder case as weak because of Kayla’s prior convictions and inconsistent statements, this Court overlooked the fact that the jury heard all this impeachment evidence and still credited her account of the murder on December 7, 2019. It was solely the jury’s province to make that determination with respect to the trial evidence,” Gonyea wrote.

Adam Montgomery was sentenced to 45 years to life for killing Harmony, abusing her corpse, and then dumping her body in a still unknown location. Because of the assault conviction, and the convictions on the other charges, Adam Montgomery is not getting out of prison anytime soon.

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.