Lawyers for a former guard charged with killing a patient held in the Secure Psychiatric Unit at the state prison want recently resigned New Hampshire Corrections Commissioner Helen Hanks to sit for an interview, saying her department withheld evidence that could help their client until the eve of trial.
Prosecutors have charged former officer Matthew Millar with causing the death of 50-year-old Jason Rothe in 2023. They allege he knelt on Rothe’s back for several minutes, while Rothe was face down and in handcuffs, causing him to asphyxiate.
The case has highlighted longstanding concerns about New Hampshire’s practice of placing some civilly committed patients in an unaccredited psychiatric facility on the grounds of the state men’s prison and run by the Department of Corrections.
Millar was scheduled to go to trial in March, but that was pushed back when his attorneys learned just weeks before trial that the Department of Corrections had additional materials related to the case that it had not turned over, according to a motion filed in court.
Among the newly disclosed documents were records from an internal investigation Hanks conducted in 2024, after Millar was charged. At a hearing Thursday, Millar’s attorney, Jordan Strand, said that during those interviews, one officer made a statement “walking back” a claim that she had seen Millar kneeling on Rothe’s back for several minutes. Another officer said he’d never made such a claim in the first place, despite it being included in a police affidavit.
Hanks did not include those statements when memorializing the review’s findings in letters to the officers, and she subsequently shredded her handwritten notes of those meetings, Strand said.
“No one but Miss Hanks can answer for why exculpatory information did not make these letters, and why these letters and their associated documentation and correspondences were not turned over,” Strand said. “No one but Miss Hanks can answer for why everyone else in those meetings preserved their notes, and she did not.”
Prosecutors say Hanks — who abruptly stepped down as commissioner this month — told investigators it was her normal practice to get rid of handwritten notes after she’s done with them.
Prosecutor Dan Jimenez said there’s no need to depose Hanks, because another Department of Corrections official took comprehensive notes from those meetings that are available to the defense.
He also said the trial is not about how Hanks handled things, but about what happened the day of Rothe’s death, and there is plenty of evidence to determine that.
“We have grand jury testimony from those percipient witnesses,” he said, referring to the officers and a nurse present that day. “We have interviews with state police with those percipient witnesses. We have transcriptions of those interviews. We have some surveillance. And we also have multiple written statements.”
Judge Dan St. Hilaire said he would take the matter under consideration and issue a written ruling.
According to an affidavit prosecutors filed in court, Rothe was committed to New Hampshire Hospital, the state’s main psychiatric facility, in 2019 because of a serious mental illness. He was later transferred to the Secure Psychiatric Unit, on the grounds of the state prison in Concord, due to safety concerns.
On the day of his death, prosecutors say Rothe refused to leave a day room and corrections officers decided to forcibly remove him. Officers said Rothe resisted their efforts to subdue him.
Prosecutors say the struggle ended with Rothe face down and in handcuffs, with Millar pressing his knee into Rothe’s back — a position that makes it harder to breathe and has been associated with hundreds of in-custody deaths around the U.S.
Prosecutors have charged Millar with second-degree murder, alleging he “recklessly” caused Rothe’s death. Millar has pleaded not guilty. He is scheduled for trial next month.
