In Concord, N.H., Pamela Smart’s attorneys are hoping a New Hampshire judge will allow her new trial petition to proceed. Smart is serving a life sentence for orchestrating her husband’s murder in 1990. The trial was one of the first nationally televised from start to finish. At 22, Smart was a high school media coordinator engaged in an affair with a 15-year-old student who later killed her husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry.
The shooter was released in 2015 after a 25-year sentence. Though Smart denied any knowledge of the murder plot, she was convicted as an accomplice to first-degree murder and received life without parole. Her habeas corpus relief petition, filed in January, aims to overturn her conviction, alleging several constitutional violations.
Smart, now 58, will attend the hearing remotely from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York. Her lawyers argue that the trial transcripts contained inaccuracies, asserting that words not audible in the recordings were included in the transcripts.
“Modern science confirms what common sense has always told us: when people are handed a script, they inevitably hear the words they are shown,” said Smart’s attorney, Matthew Zernhelt, earlier this year.
The defense contends that the jury’s verdict was biased due to media attention and misleading jury instructions. They claim jurors misunderstood premeditation and were not instructed to consider only trial evidence. Further, the trial court imposed a mandatory life sentence, which was not required by New Hampshire law for Smart’s charge.
The state’s lawyers argue for dismissal, as most claims are either previously resolved by the New Hampshire Supreme Court or could have been raised earlier. They highlighted that during the trial, the defense only questioned transcript inaccuracies related to voice doubling when two people spoke simultaneously. Jurors were instructed to rely on audio over transcripts.
The defense has struggled to present evidence for ineffective counsel claims and jurisdictional issues. Smart’s attempts to reduce her sentence have been repeatedly denied by a state council and the Supreme Court. Her latest petition followed Governor Kelly Ayotte’s refusal to revisit the case in 2023, finding it unworthy of further hearings.
In a video in 2024, Smart assumed full responsibility for her husband’s death, reflecting on her years of deflecting blame as a coping mechanism. This case was one of America’s first high-profile stories involving a school employee’s affair with a student. The student, William Flynn, testified about Smart’s pressure to eliminate her husband, fearing divorce consequences. Flynn and three other teens cooperated with prosecutors and have all since been released.
Flynn and 17-year-old Patrick Randall were involved in Gregory Smart’s death at the couple’s condominium. Flynn shot Gregory Smart as instructed by Smart. Both teens pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, receiving 28 years to life, and were paroled in 2015. The case inspired both Joyce Maynard’s 1992 book “To Die For” and its 1995 film adaptation starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix.