The defense for former Portsmouth police commissioner Brenna Cavanaugh and the Rockingham County District Attorney’s Office are negotiating whether her case will be sent to a retrial.
Cavanaugh was convicted of being an accomplice to attempted first degree assault and accomplice to criminal mischief by a Rockingham County Superior Court jury in August 2019. In December 2020, however, the New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed the court’s ruling and remanded the case back to Rockingham Superior Court for a new trial.
The case is the result of an incident in the summer of 2018 in which Cavanaugh s domestic partner, Mark Gray, fired shots at a fleeing intruder, who turned out to be a high school student who thought there was a party at the house. At his separate trial, Gray was found not guilty of all charges. Cavanaugh, however, was found guilty in superior court of her accomplice role.