By NANCY WEST, InDepthNH.org
Former state senator Jeffrey Woodburn of Whitefield filed an objection Friday to the state’s motion to impose the 30 days in jail he received for breaking a dryer door and kicking in the door to the home of his then-fiancée Emily Jacobs and asked that the sentence be modified.
Woodburn’s attorney Mark Sisti filed a motion Friday arguing the 30 days his client was sentenced to should be “modified to reflect the present reality of what charges and convictions exist in 2024 that did not exist when he was originally sentenced.”
The only two convictions that originated from the events in 2017 that are subject to sentencing are misdemeanor A criminal mischief convictions, not violent in nature with no allegations of bodily harm, Sisti wrote.
Woodburn was either found not guilty on some of the domestic violence charges or they were dismissed after a second trial jury couldn’t reach a verdict.
On Monday, Senior Assistant Attorney General Joshua L. Speicher responded to Woodburn’s objection arguing that it’s too late to seek a sentence modification. Speicher said Woodburn’s arguments were essentially the same as those dismissed by Superior Court judge Peter H. Bornstein on a motion for new trial on Aug. 10, 2023, in Coos County Superior Court in Lancaster.
Woodburn’s case has been ongoing since 2018, when the then-state Senate Democratic Leader was first arrested for allegedly abusing Jacobs, who was then running for Coos County treasurer.
Woodburn, 59, was convicted on counts of domestic violence, simple assault, and criminal mischief after his first trial in 2021, but a state Supreme Court ruling overturned the domestic violence and simple assault charges, sending them back for a second trial.
That second trial ended with a hung jury, and the state dropped the charges rather than require a third trial.
Woodburn appealed to the state Supreme Court for a new trial on the two criminal mischief convictions, claiming his prior defense attorney before Sisti did not provide effective counsel during his 2021 trial.
But the court ruled July 30 that Woodburn failed to show his original lawyer performed in a substandard way that would trigger overturning the convictions. The court also found that the 2021 jury found Woodburn not guilty on several counts, and therefore he could not show a particular bias.
In his latest motion, Sisti wrote: “The Court now has before it two minor property related crimes committed by a man with zero criminal record prior to these offenses and zero criminal record after these offenses.
“The kicking of a dryer door and residential door hardly requires actual incarceration in light of the history of this case and the character of Jeffrey Woodburn,” Sisti wrote, adding as attachments several character letters praising Woodburn, including one from his psychiatrist, one from an ex-wife and one from his present girlfriend.
“No other individual facing first offense level cases with the characteristics of Jeff Woodburn would be subjected to incarceration,” Sisti wrote.
“He should not be disproportionately punished because of his notoriety or the media attention to this matter.
“…A sentence involving actual incarceration would be excessive and would serve no logical purpose,” Sisti wrote.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Speicher argued in a motion filed Monday that “On July 30, the New Hampshire Supreme Court issued an order denying the defendant’s appeal, and affirming this court’s denial of the defendant’s motion for new trial. There is therefore no reason to continue staying the execution of the previously imposed sentences.”
Speicher asked the court to schedule the matter for a sentencing hearing on the criminal mischief convictions or issue an order requiring Woodburn to report to the House of House of Corrections within the next 60 days to begin serving the sentence.
“(T)he defendant has offered no valid basis upon which this court could grant his request,” Speicher wrote.
Woodburn’s contention that the court imposed the criminal mischief sentences through the lens of an individual who had also been convicted of a domestic violence crime, and should therefore reconsider the sentence now that the domestic violence convictions are no longer applicable, is simply incorrect, Speicher wrote.
When Woodburn made his first request to modify the sentence, the related conviction for domestic violence simple assault had already been reversed and remanded by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, he wrote.
“The defendant also, tellingly, ignores the fact that at the time this court imposed the sentence which he now seeks to amend, this court considered all of the factors he now raises in his favor, and nevertheless chose to impose a sentence including stand committed time,” Speicher wrote.
“This court specifically distinguished the domestic violence conviction for biting the victim on the arm from the two criminal mischief convictions, making clear that the sentence for the criminal mischief convictions was separate and distinct from the sentence for the domestic violence conviction,” Speicher wrote.
During Woodburn’s July 13, 2021, sentencing hearing, Speicher quoted the judge as saying, “With respect to the two criminal mischief charges, I view them a little differently.”
Speicher wrote: “This court also distinguished between the two criminal mischief convictions, highlighting that while kicking a dryer door is by no means acceptable behavior, there is a qualitative difference between that crime and the crime of kicking in the victim’s door.”
He quoted Judge Bornstein, “[I]n my view, the kicking down a locked door after the Defendant (Woodburn) had been asked to leave the house is more serious and significant and at least qualitatively different to some extent than kicking the dryer door, admittedly, repeatedly, and damaging it quite significantly.”
The kicking the door incident, like the domestic violence incident, was therefore worthy in the court’s eyes of stand committed time on its own merits, Speicher wrote.
