BOSTON (AP) — Pamela Smart, who is serving life in prison for orchestrating the murder of her husband by her teenage student in 1990, is seeking to overturn her conviction over what her lawyers claim were several constitutional violations.
The petition for habeas corpus relief was filed Monday in New York, where she is being held at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, and, in New Hampshire, where the murder happened.
“Ms. Smart’s trial unfolded in an environment that no court had previously confronted — wall-to-wall media coverage that blurred the line between allegation and evidence,” Jason Ott, part of Smart’s legal team, said in a statement. “This petition challenges whether a fair adversarial process took place.”
This petition is a continued effort following a rejection about seven months ago by New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte for a sentence reduction hearing, who stated that the case did not warrant such a review.
A spokesman for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, officials from New Hampshire's attorney general's office indicated they would refrain from commenting on pending litigation, maintaining that Smart's trial was fair, and her conviction valid.
Smart's legal team argues inaccuracies in the prosecution's use of recordings that allegedly misled jurors. They claim important words, such as 'killed' and 'murder,' were included in transcripts that were not audible in the recordings, which influenced the jury’s decisions.
“Modern science confirms what common sense has always told us: when people are handed a script, they inevitably hear the words they are shown,” Smart’s attorney, Matthew Zernhelt, stated. “Jurors were not evaluating the recordings independently — they were being directed toward a conclusion, and that direction decided the verdict.”
Additionally, they contend that media coverage compromised the trial's fairness and that jurors received incorrect instructions. The attorneys argued jurors were informed they must determine if Smart acted with premeditation while neglecting to instruct them to consider only trial-presented evidence.
Smart, convicted as an accomplice in a first-degree murder case, received a life sentence despite the lack of a mandatory sentence for such charges in New Hampshire. She was just 22 when she began a relationship with a 15-year-old student, William Flynn, who was freed after serving 25 years for the murder of her husband, Gregory Smart.
Despite previously denying involvement in the plot, Smart openly accepted responsibility for her actions in early 2024, revealing her struggles to cope with the blame she deflected for years.
The high-profile case raised eyebrows nationwide, drawing attention to the complexities of power dynamics in sexual relationships between educators and students and inspiring the 1992 book “To Die For” and the 1995 film adaptation starring Nicole Kidman.
