A Massachusetts juvenile court must provide a journalist with a recording of a crucial closed-door hearing in the case of Harmony Montgomery, the young girl who was killed by her father after a judge awarded him custody, the state’s highest court ruled Wednesday.
In a unanimous decision, Supreme Judicial Court Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt wrote that “good cause’’ existed to turn over the material to a journalist making a documentary. While state law shields most juvenile proceedings from public view, the questions that continue to surround the death of the 5-year-old girl have placed intense scrutiny on this hearing.
“The extent of community interest in this case could not be overstated,’’ Wendlandt wrote. “The child has died at the hands of the father, to whom custody was given at the February 2019 hearings.’’
That hearing took place before juvenile court Judge Mark Newman, who ruled that Adam Montgomery was not an unfit parent and awarded him full custody of Harmony despite his violent criminal history. Within a year, Adam Montgomery beat the child to death. He was convicted of the killing last year.
The hearing has been the subject of numerous reports, interviews, and characterizations, but the specifics of how it played out have remained hidden from the public.
“Releasing these recordings to the journalist for purposes of the documentary he proposes may help to better inform the public both about what happened to this child specifically and whether there are steps the child welfare system generally can take to minimize the possibility of repeating this tragedy,’’ Wendlandt wrote.
The ruling forces the juvenile court to turn over a recording to documentarian Bill Lichtenstein of LCMedia Productions, who is reporting on the state of the child welfare system in Massachusetts. The recording will not include the names of other children mentioned and Lichtenstein can’t disseminate the recording except via his documentary, according to the ruling.
“A significant impediment to protecting children in the Massachusetts foster court and juvenile court systems has been their absolute unconditional secrecy,’’ Lichtenstein said in a statement following the ruling. “This decision brings sunlight to these vital issues to help protect children and families.’’
The question has swirled around the high-profile case for years: What exactly led the judge to place a vulnerable girl in the custody of a man with a troubled history and a lengthy criminal record?
Her death exposed dangerous lapses in the child protection services of two states, in part because her disappearance in 2019 went largely unnoticed by authorities in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts for two years. Her mother, Crystal Sorey, had lost custody of Harmony in 2018 while she was struggling with addiction, leading to the 2019 hearing in which Adam Montgomery was granted custody.
It wasn’t until Sorey went to police in Manchester, N.H., in November 2021 that authorities began to mount a concerted effort to find Harmony.
In 2022, New Hampshire Governor Christopher T. Sununu wrote a letter to the SJC encouraging the court system to probe the judge’s decision in the custody hearing.
“It is unclear why the Massachusetts courts moved so quickly with this permanent placement prior to the completion of the home study,’’ Sununu wrote. “Why would the Massachusetts court choose to place custody of Harmony with this horrible individual? What caused such a fateful decision?’’
Two years ago, Maria Mossaides, director of the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate, produced a 101-page report detailing how different elements of the child welfare system had failed Harmony. Regarding her 2019 custody hearing, the report faulted the Department of Children and Families attorney, saying they “did not present a strong legal case’’ about why Adam Montgomery should not receive custody.
Sean Cotter can be reached at sean.cotter@globe.com. Follow him @cotterreporter.
