I am encouraged by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s recent decision to authorize the limited release of the February 2019 trial audio recording to a documentarian—an unprecedented step toward transparency in a case that ended in tragedy. This one-day proceeding resulted in a custody order awarding Harmony Montgomery to her father, who would later murder her.
The Court’s ruling affirms the factual account presented in my book, A Cruel Injustice and was informed heavily by the investigation of the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate. The Court echoed the position taken in the book regarding the Committee for Public Counsel Services’ invocation of privacy rights and of attorney-client privilege on behalf of a child who was no longer alive to assert those rights. As the Court stated, “any lingering privacy interests that the child might be said to have are greatly diminished as to the February 2019 recordings.”
My book is not, and never was, just about a single day in court. It is about a broader, broken system—particularly the dangerous legal framework that empowers attorneys for children to advocate for their client’s stated wishes, even when those clients are too young to understand or articulate what is safe or in their best interests. It is this systemic failure that allowed Harmony to be placed in harm’s way.
Even now, after three years, the Massachusetts Trial Court has yet to release the promised recommendations from its secret committee allegedly making systemic changes. This continued lack of transparency underscores the culture of secrecy that pervades our child welfare and legal systems.
The SJC’s decision reveals important details not previously disclosed in the Office of the Child Advocate’s visitation timeline of events. Notably, during the same year that Adam Montgomery failed to attend supervised visits or communicate with DCF, Harmony’s mother was reportedly allowing him unsupervised overnight access to her. No one has any idea what happened to Harmony during those unsanctioned visits.
But now, through evidence made public in the New Hampshire murder trial and other proceedings, we know the full extent of the abuse Harmony suffered in New Hampshire when there were no supervisors present to protect her.
The abuse Harmony endured—forced to scrub bathrooms with a toothbrush, beaten, punched in the head, isolated, cruel punishments, and subjected to neglect in a home surrounded by drugs and firearms—is now well documented in New Hampshire’s DCYF reports and in the trial testimony. These horrors occurred while she was supposedly under the care of the very systems designed to protect her.
I look forward to the release of the upcoming documentary. Not just for Harmony’s memory, but for the countless children still trapped in a defective, secretive, and dysfunctional child welfare system.
I renew my call for a federal investigation into the violation of Harmony Montgomery’s constitutional rights by the State of New Hampshire, its agencies, and officials. To that end, I will soon release the evidence I believe supports an investigation by the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Hampshire or through one of its investigatory agencies. The failure to protect Harmony cannot be buried beneath red tape and bureaucratic silence. Justice demands full accountability.
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