CONCORD, N.H. (Court TV) — Prosecutors have filed a new motion urging New Hampshire’s highest court to reconsider its decision to overturn a man’s conviction for murdering his daughter.
Adam Montgomery listens during his sentencing hearing on May 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, Pool)
A jury convicted Adam Montgomery, 36, of second-degree murder, second-degree assault, falsifying physical evidence, witness tampering and abuse of a corpse in the death of his 5-year-old daughter, Harmony Montgomery, whose body has never been found.
Earlier this month, the New Hampshire Supreme Court overturned the second-degree murder conviction, finding that a judge had improperly joined the cases for assault and murder. Now, prosecutors say the justices got the law wrong when they issued that opinion.
First, the motion points out that the defendant initially requested that the charges be joined. It wasn’t until after prosecutors alerted Adam Montgomery that his wife, Kayla Montgomery, had changed her story and was willing to testify against him that he changed his mind and wanted the trials to be separate. Conceding that the defense has a right to ask for the charges to be severed even after requesting they be joined, prosecutors argue in their motion that the defendant’s “initial strategic decision to join those charges for trial constitutes strong evidence that joinder remains reasonable and not untenable or unreasonable to the prejudice of the defendant’s case, particularly where the state of the evidence had not changed.”
The state also argues in its motion that the justices erred when they considered the full trial record before authoring their opinion. Under the law, the motion argues, the justices should review only the evidence that existed before the court when the motions were decided. Because the motion to sever was never renewed at trial, prosecutors say, the full trial record should not be considered. “By reviewing the evidentiary trial record to determine whether the trial court struck that balance reasonably prior to trial, this Court departed from the established standard of review and, instead of reviewing for an unsustainable exercise of discretion, engaged in a different exercise of discretion.”
Harmony Montgomery. (Crystal Sorey)
Prosecutors bristled at the suggestion in the justices’ opinion that their murder case was “substantially weaker” than the assault case because it was built on Kayla Montgomery’s eyewitness testimony. “Evaluating witness credibility, resolving conflicts in testimony, and deciding the weight to be given to trial evidence are matters exclusively within the province of the jury,” the motion says.
In his motion for a new trial, Adam Montgomery argued that his wife’s testimony was the only direct evidence implicating him in his daughter’s death and suggested her story was self-serving and that she may well have been the one to kill Harmony. He admitted to having a role in dismembering the child, storing her body in a cooler and a duffel bag and disposing of the body, but said that he was only helping to cover up his wife’s crimes. “This overlooks the well-established principle that extraordinary post-offense conduct — such as concealing, dismembering, and disposing of a person’s own child — goes directly to a defendant’s culpable and guilty mind regarding the underlying homicide,” prosecutors wrote in their motion. “When paired with his admissions that he got rid of Harmony because of her bathroom accidents, his statement that he hated Harmony ‘right to his core,’ and his pacing and repeating ‘I f—d up,’ the State’s evidence of murder was overwhelming.”
Adam Montgomery remains in prison, serving sentences for his remaining convictions for assault and weapons charges.
