Judge won’t reconvene jury after disputed verdict in New Hampshire youth center abuse case
CONCORD, N.H. — The judge who oversaw a landmark abuse trial at New Hampshire’s juvenile detention center will not reconvene the jury but says he will consider other options to address the disputed $38 million verdict.
David Meehan, who alleged he was repeatedly raped, beaten and held in solitary confinement at the Youth Development Center in the 1990s, was awarded $18 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in enhanced damages on May 3. But the attorney general’s office is seeking to reduce the award under a state law that allows plaintiffs against the state to recover a maximum of $475,000 per “incident.”
Meehan’s attorneys asked Judge Andrew Schulman on Tuesday to reconvene and question the jury, arguing that multiple emails they received from distraught jurors showed they left a question on the verdict form about the number of incidents for which the state was liable, had misunderstood. But Schulman said Wednesday that recalling the jury would be inappropriate since jurors have been exposed to “intense publicity and criticism of their verdict.”
“We are not going to get a new verdict from the same jury,” he wrote in a brief. “Regardless of what the jurors now think of their verdict, their testimony is inadmissible to change it.”
Jurors were unaware of state law limiting damages to $475,000 per incident. When asked on the verdict form how many incidents they believed Meehan had proven, they wrote ‘one’, but a juror has since told Meehan’s lawyers they meant ‘one’ incident/case of complex PTSD, as a result of more than 100 episodes. of abuse (physical, sexual and emotional) he has suffered at the hands of state neglect and abuse of his own power.”
Schulman, who plans to elaborate in a longer order, acknowledged that “the finding of ‘one incident’ was contrary to the strength of the evidence,” and said he would grant motions to set aside the verdict or order a new trial. But he said a better option might be a practice outlined in a 1985 New Hampshire Supreme Court order. In that case, the court ruled that a judge could add punitive damages to the original amount awarded by the jury. granted if a suspect waives a new trial.
Meehan, 42, went to police in 2017 and sued the state three years later. Since then, 11 former state workers have been arrested and more than 1,100 other former residents of what is now the Sununu Youth Services Center have filed lawsuits alleging physical, sexual and emotional abuse over six decades. Charges against a former employee, Frank Davis, were dropped Tuesday after the 82-year-old was found incompetent to stand trial.
Meehan’s lawsuit was the first to go to trial. For four weeks, his lawyers argued that the state encouraged a culture of abuse characterized by pervasive brutality, corruption and a code of silence.
The state portrayed Meehan as a violent child, a troublesome teenager and a delusional adult who lies to get money. Defense attorneys also said the state is not liable for the conduct of rogue employees and that Meehan waited too long to bring charges.