NH Supreme – More than two years after a jury found Adam Montgomery guilty of murdering his daughter, the New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed the second-degree murder conviction—saying the trial judge improperly joined that charge with a second-degree assault case tied to
CONCORD, N.H. — When a jury found Adam Montgomery guilty of murdering his daughter, the case moved into its next phase. Now, the New Hampshire Supreme Court has pulled the most serious charge out of that verdict.
More than two years after the conviction, the state’s highest court reversed Montgomery’s murder conviction. The Supreme Court ruled that the trial judge improperly joined the second-degree murder charge with the second-degree assault charge.
The original trial verdict had found Adam Montgomery guilty of second-degree murder, second-degree assault, falsifying physical evidence, witness tampering and abuse of a corpse in the death of his daughter, 5-year-old Harmony Montgomery, who disappeared in 2019.
Harmony wasn’t reported missing until 2021. Her mother, Crystal Sorey, had spent months trying unsuccessfully to contact her before she was finally reported missing. Sorey previously lost custody of her daughter due to substance abuse issues.
At trial, Adam Montgomery admitted that he helped dispose of Harmony’s body, but he insisted it was his wife, Kayla Montgomery, who killed their daughter.
In the opinion published on Thursday, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction on second-degree murder while leaving other convictions intact. The unanimous decision was authored by Justice Bryan Gould.
The court traced the problem to the way the assault and murder allegations were presented together. The assault charge stemmed from an incident in July 2019. when Adam Montgomery’s uncle reported seeing Harmony with a black eye. In contrast, all the other charges at trial centered on the child’s death.
Gould wrote that the evidence prosecutors presented for the July 2019 assault was far stronger than the evidence offered to prove the December 7 murder. In the court’s view. that imbalance created a real possibility that the jury could improperly carry the strength of the assault evidence over to the murder determination.
Kayla Montgomery’s testimony was described by the Supreme Court as the only direct evidence implicating Adam Montgomery in Harmony’s death. Prosecutors. however. also presented three witnesses who observed Harmony with a black eye after the July incident and four witnesses who said Adam Montgomery had admitted to hitting her.
Prosecutors relied as well on DNA and fingerprint evidence they presented as support for Kayla Montgomery’s account. The Supreme Court said that the physical evidence corroborated Kayla Montgomery’s testimony about Adam Montgomery’s actions after the victim’s death. but not her testimony that Adam Montgomery killed Harmony on December 7 by repeatedly punching her in the head.
Gould wrote: “The evidence. ” Gould wrote. “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 by repeatedly punching her in the head. It is also not inconsistent with the defendant’s theory of the defense — namely that Kayla caused the victim’s death and the defendant helped her cover up her crime.”.
The court said the mismatch mattered because it could lead jurors to reason from pattern to conclusion. The strong July evidence and the weaker murder evidence. the justices found. created “a significant risk” the jury would use the strength of evidence that Adam Montgomery struck Harmony in anger in July to decide that he similarly—fatally—struck her in December.
That’s where the decision turned: the justices tossed the murder conviction, but they did not throw out everything.
The Supreme Court found that the assault evidence had not infected the jury’s decision on the assault charge itself. The court concluded that the weaker murder evidence presented at trial did not impact the assault verdict.
Other convictions were allowed to stand. The Supreme Court said the additional charges—including abuse of a corpse and falsifying physical evidence—remained supported, and the article notes that Adam Montgomery’s own attorney conceded in her opening statement to the jury.
For Adam Montgomery, the ruling does not mean release. The Supreme Court’s decision leaves him behind bars. He will remain in custody to continue serving his sentence for the remaining convictions. and he will keep serving time tied to previous convictions on weapons charges. The defendant was previously moved out of the New Hampshire prison system, according to the state’s Department of Corrections.
The Montgomery case has also continued on a civil track. Earlier this week, a New Hampshire judge found in favor of Crystal Sorey in the wrongful death lawsuit she had filed against the defendant, according to records reviewed by Court TV.
Adam Montgomery Harmony Montgomery New Hampshire Supreme Court murder conviction reversed second-degree assault Crystal Sorey Kayla Montgomery wrongful death lawsuit