CONCORD, N.H. — A New Hampshire judge on Thursday dismissed the latest petition for a new trial from Pamela Smart, who is currently serving a life sentence for orchestrating the murder of her husband more than three decades ago.
Smart, 59, was a 22-year-old high school media coordinator in 1990 when she began an affair with a 15-year-old student who later fatally shot her husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry. The shooter was released in 2015 after completing a 25-year sentence. Although Smart maintained at the time of her trial that she had no knowledge of the plot, she was convicted in 1991 as an accomplice to first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. Her case gained national attention as one of the first trials in the United States to be broadcast live on television in its entirety.
Smart did not acknowledge responsibility for her husband’s death until 2024, stating that she had spent years deflecting blame “almost as if it was a coping mechanism.”
In January, Smart filed a petition for habeas corpus relief seeking to overturn her conviction based on alleged constitutional violations. Following a hearing in July, Merrimack County Superior Court Judge James Kennedy granted the state’s motion to dismiss the petition. Kennedy ruled that Smart’s arguments had either been presented or could have been raised during previous appeals, and further concluded that the claims lacked merit even if they had not been previously addressed.
Among the key issues raised by Smart’s legal team was the allegation that prosecutors misled the jury by providing transcripts of secretly recorded conversations between Smart and her student intern that contained words not audible on the actual recordings. The disputed terms included “killed” in the phrase “you had your husband killed,” “busted” in “I’m gonna be busted,” and “murder” in “this would have been the perfect murder.”
Smart’s attorneys also cited a forensic study suggesting that juries exposed to both muffled audio and written transcripts are prone to believing the text even when it is inaccurate. However, Judge Kennedy found the study’s legal relevance “dubious,” noting that it was not published and was unavailable for full review. He added that the description provided by Smart’s lawyers failed to identify specific inaccuracies in the transcript.
The judge also rejected Smart’s arguments that her verdict was influenced by extensive media coverage and incorrect jury instructions. The trial was widely regarded as a media spectacle and one of the earliest prominent U.S. cases involving a sexual relationship between a school employee and a student.
During the original proceedings, William Flynn testified that Smart told him she needed her husband killed because she feared losing everything in a divorce and threatened to end their relationship if he refused. Flynn and three other teenagers involved in the conspiracy cooperated with prosecutors and have all since been released.
The case later inspired Joyce Maynard’s 1992 novel “To Die For” and a 1995 film adaptation starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix.
The judge dismissing the forensic study because it wasn’t published seems legally sound, even if it frustrates the defense.
Wait, she only admitted guilt in 2024 after decades of denial? That seems like a pretty convenient timing for a new appeal.
I never watched the trial live, but the Nicole Kidman movie made this case infamous. Does it matter now?
Thirty-four years later and still fighting? That transcript dispute sounds like a long shot to me.