NH Supreme Court Reverses Murder Conviction for Man Who Killed Daughter
L'essentiel
- The New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed Adam Montgomery's murder conviction for killing his 5-year-old daughter, Harmony Montgomery.
- The court ruled that the murder charge should have been prosecuted separately from an assault charge, potentially prejudicing the jury.
- The murder charge has been sent back to the lower court.
Résumé généré par IA
Pourquoi c'est important
Adam Montgomery was convicted of second-degree murder for killing his 5-year-old daughter, Harmony Montgomery, whose body was never found. He was sentenced to 56 years in prison. The conviction was based partly on evidence of an earlier assault.
CONCORD, N.H. -- The New Hampshire Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a murder conviction for a man accused of killing his 5-year-old daughter and moving her corpse around for months before disposing of it.
Though her body has never been found, police believe Harmony Montgomery was killed in 2019, nearly two years before she was reported missing. Her father, Adam Montgomery was sentenced to a minimum of 56 years in prison in 2024 after being convicted of second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, falsifying evidence, witness tampering and assault.
The Supreme Court, however, reversed the most serious charge, agreeing with Montgomery that the lesser assault charge should have been prosecuted separately. It sent the second-degree murder charge back to the lower court while letting the other convictions stand.
In their unanimous ruling, justices said combining the cases jeopardized Montgomery’s right to a fair trial because jurors may have used the stronger evidence about the assault to conclude based on weaker evidence that he killed her months later.
“There was a significant risk that the jury would draw the impermissible inference that because the defendant assaulted the victim before by striking her in the head, he must be the one who fatally assaulted her in December by again striking her in the head.”
The second-degree murder conviction accounts for 45 years of Montgomery’s 56-years-to-life sentence, which was imposed on top of an earlier 32 ½-year sentence he already was serving on unrelated gun charges.
The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment Thursday on whether it plans to re-try him on the murder charge. Emails also were sent to Montgomery’s attorney.
À surveiller
Perspective IA — des possibilités, pas des certitudes
The attorney general's office will decide whether to re-try Adam Montgomery on the murder charge.
Probable · En quelques semaines
Questions ouvertes
- Will the attorney general's office re-try Adam Montgomery on the murder charge?
- What will be the outcome if the murder charge is re-tried?
- Will the lesser assault charge be prosecuted separately as the Supreme Court suggested?
