By Maddie Hanna
Concord Monitor
MERRIMACK COUNTY, N.H. — Jerome Thompson, whose sexual assault conviction was reversed by the state Supreme Court because of errors made by his lawyer, will not face a new trial.
County prosecutors decided last month they will not retry the 26- year-old Thompson, who was convicted by a Merrimack County jury in 2009 of sexually assaulting a 6-year-old girl in Concord. He was sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison.
The state Supreme Court reversed his conviction earlier this year after reviewing the record of Thompson’s trial. Although the girl had told her babysitter and the police that Thompson had touched her, she recanted days before the trial, leaving prosecutors with only hearsay testimony to present her allegations.
Defense attorney James Godron, however, repeatedly failed to object to that testimony. That deprived Thompson of a fair trial, the justices said. In an opinion issued in February, they wrote that “the State was able to prove its case only because of defense counsel’s failure.”
Given the court’s opinion, “there is simply insufficient evidence to proceed,” Merrimack County Attorney Scott Murray said. He said the county attorney’s office sent letters to the girl’s mother, but they went unreturned. The mother had previously indicated she would not want to put her daughter through another trial, Murray said.
“These are tough cases with kids,” Murray said. “One issue is whether the child can testify competently. The other is putting the child through it.”
Thompson, while cleared of the sexual offense, remains in prison for an unrelated crime. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder his former boss, Edward Rich of Pittsfield. He was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.
He went on trial the following year on the sexual assault charge, which stemmed from an October 2007 incident at the home he and his girlfriend shared in Concord. A 6-year-old girl who came with her father to the home told her babysitter that Thompson had touched her after showing her pornographic movies on a computer.
But while she testified about those movies during Thompson’s trial, she said he hadn’t touched her, and repeated questions from Assistant County Attorney Wayne Coull didn’t change her response.
Thompson’s mother, Jean Frenette, said Thompson was “elated” to have the charge dropped and his name removed from the state’s sexual offender registry.
But Frenette said she was upset that the county had attempted to retry her son. She said Coull repeatedly offered Thompson plea deals in advance of the trial that had been scheduled for last month.
“It wasn’t going to happen,” Frenette said. Coull is out of the office this week, according to the county attorney’s office. Murray said he couldn’t comment on any plea deal proposals.
Public defender Brooksley Belanger, who was assigned to represent Thompson after the state Supreme Court sent his case back to the superior court, declined to comment on the case.
Frenette has maintained her son’s innocence of the sexual offense. Now, “there will be nothing on his record, because there was nothing they could charge him with,” she said. “I do believe in justice, but it’s very hard to come by.”
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