Pamela Smart remains in prison without the possibility of parole after a New Hampshire judge dismissed her latest request to overturn her 1991 conviction for her role in her husband Gregory Smart’s murder.
The ruling, issued in September, is another setback for Smart, who admitted responsibility for her husband’s death in a videotaped statement in 2024.
Smart, now 59, was convicted after a 14-day trial in which prosecutors argued that she helped plan the killing with William “Billy” Flynn, a 15-year-old student with whom she was having an affair. Flynn fatally shot Gregory Smart in Derry, New Hampshire, in May 1990, according to CNN.
Pamela Smart gets sworn in before testifying in her own defense in Rockingham County Court.Photo by: Bettmann via Getty Images
Smart was 22 and working as a high school media coordinator at the time. She denied knowing about the murder plan during her trial, but a jury found her guilty of being an accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and witness tampering.
She received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. More than three decades later, her conviction remains in place despite repeated efforts to challenge her case or seek a shorter sentence.
Smart filed a petition in January asking a court to overturn her conviction. Her lawyers argued that several constitutional violations affected the trial and that she deserved another chance to challenge the verdict.
One major argument concerned transcripts of secretly recorded conversations presented during her 1991 trial, per CBS News. Smart’s lawyers said the transcripts included words that could not clearly be heard in the recordings. They argued that showing jurors the written words alongside unclear audio may have influenced what they believed they heard.
Among the disputed words were “killed,” “busted” and “murder.” Her lawyers said the written transcripts may have led jurors toward a conclusion rather than allowing them to judge the recordings on their own.
The legal team also challenged the effect of heavy media coverage, the instructions given to jurors and the mandatory life sentence imposed for her role in the crime.
A hearing took place in July. On September 2026, Merrimack County Superior Court Judge James Kennedy dismissed the petition after considering the arguments.
The judge said the claims had already been raised, could have been raised during earlier appeals, or lacked merit. He also questioned the legal value of a forensic study cited by Smart’s lawyers because the full study was not available for review and the description provided did not identify specific errors in the transcripts.
The state had asked the court to dismiss the petition. Its lawyers argued that Smart was trying to use the process to raise issues that should have been handled in earlier appeals.
The ruling means Smart remains in prison under her original sentence. Her latest attempt to overturn the conviction has not resulted in a new trial.
For years, Smart denied knowing about the plan to kill her husband. That changed in June 2024, when she released a videotaped statement as part of an effort to have her sentence reduced.
In the video, Smart said she had spent years avoiding blame and had begun to examine her role in the killing more deeply.
“I found myself responsible for something I desperately didn’t want to be responsible for, my husband’s murder,” she said, according to USA Today.
She also explained that accepting responsibility had been difficult.
“I had to acknowledge for the first time in my own mind and my own heart how responsible I was, because I had deflected blame all the time, I think, almost as if it was a coping mechanism, because the truth of being so responsible was very difficult for me.”
Smart asked New Hampshire officials for an opportunity to discuss her imprisonment, her acceptance of responsibility and her request for a reduced sentence.
Her lawyer, Mark Sisti, said there had been a major change in her position and urged state officials to consider her request. Smart also pointed to her work and studies while in prison as signs of personal growth.
She has earned two master’s degrees, tutored other inmates, become an ordained minister and taken part in an inmate liaison committee at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York.
However, accepting responsibility did not lead to her release. New Hampshire officials rejected her request for a commutation hearing in 2025. Her latest court petition was also dismissed in September.
Gregory Smart was killed at the couple’s condominium in Derry on May 1, 1990. Prosecutors said Pamela Smart had an affair with Flynn, then a 15-year-old student, and persuaded him to kill her husband.
Flynn and three other teenagers took part in the plan. According to testimony presented at trial, Flynn and another teenager entered the condominium, where Flynn shot Gregory Smart while the other boy held a knife to his neck. Another participant waited outside.
Prosecutors said the group tried to make the killing look like a burglary. They relied on testimony from the teenagers and secretly recorded conversations involving Smart during the investigation.
Smart acknowledged her affair with Flynn but denied planning the murder. She said Flynn and his friends acted on their own.
The trial drew intense public attention and was among the first high-profile American criminal cases to be broadcast live on television from start to finish.
The jury found Smart guilty on March 22, 1991. Her conviction included accomplice liability for first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and witness tampering.
Flynn was released in 2015 after serving a 25-year prison term. The other teenagers involved in the case have also been released.
The case continued to attract public interest long after the trial ended. Writer Joyce Maynard drew inspiration from it for her 1992 novel To Die For.
The book later inspired the 1995 film of the same name, starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix. The movie presented a fictional story about a woman who uses a young man to help arrange her husband’s death.
Smart’s case has also been explored in documentaries and television programs, including the 2014 HBO documentary Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart.
Despite the public attention and years of legal challenges, the outcome remains unchanged. Smart is still serving life without parole for her role in Gregory Smart’s murder, and her petition did not secure a new trial.
Related: Spiro Agnew resigned as vice president in 1973 after pleading no contest to federal tax evasion; he was fined $10,000, given three years’ probation and disbarred in Maryland
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