Judge to rule on Pamela Smart’s petition for new trial

Lawyers argue inaccurate transcripts tainted murder-case verdict

Pamela Smart’s lawyers hope a New Hampshire judge will allow her latest petition for a new trial to move forward on Monday. Smart, who is serving life in prison for orchestrating the murder of her husband by her teenage student in 1990, filed a habeas corpus petition in January arguing that prosecutors used inaccurate transcripts of surreptitiously recorded conversations to mislead the jury.

Her attorneys say the transcripts contained words that were not audible on the actual recordings, including “killed,” “busted,” and “murder.”

“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, said in a statement earlier this year. “Jurors were not evaluating the recordings independently — they were being directed toward a conclusion, and that direction decided the verdict.”

MSI previously reported in January that Smart argued constitutional violations denied her a fair trial, including prosecutors’ alleged use of inaccurate transcripts that attributed words to recordings where those words were not audible.

Smart’s lawyers also contend the verdict was tainted by extensive media attention and that the jury received faulty instructions. They argue jurors were told they must find Smart acted with premeditation without being instructed to consider only evidence presented at trial. Her attorneys further argue that the trial court imposed a mandatory life sentence without parole for being an accomplice to first-degree murder, despite New Hampshire not mandating that sentence for the charge.

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office has asked the judge to dismiss the petition, saying nearly all of the claims are barred because they were already raised on appeal and resolved by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, or could have been raised on appeal but were not.

State lawyers noted that during Smart’s trial, the defense only raised concerns about the “doubling” of voices when two people spoke simultaneously, not about specific inaccuracies in the transcripts. The judge at the time instructed jurors that if the tapes differed from what they were reading, they should rely on what they heard. The state Supreme Court found that Smart’s lawyers did not make any “particularized showing of inaccuracies in the transcripts relative to the recordings or how she may have been prejudiced” by them.

Smart’s legal options have narrowed considerably over the years. She has unsuccessfully sought a sentence reduction hearing several times before an elected state council in New Hampshire that approves contracts and appointees to the courts and state agencies. She appealed one rejection to the state Supreme Court, which dismissed her petition in 2023.

Her latest petition was filed after New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte rejected a request last year to put the matter before the council again. Ayotte said she reviewed the case and decided it was not deserving of a hearing.

In 2024, Smart took full responsibility for her husband’s death in a video, saying she spent years deflecting blame “almost as if it was a coping mechanism.”

Smart was a 22-year-old high school media coordinator when she began an affair with a 15-year-old student, William Flynn, who later fatally shot Gregory Smart in the couple’s Derry condominium. Though Smart denied knowledge of the plot, prosecutors argued that she told Flynn she needed her husband killed because she feared she would lose everything if they divorced and that she threatened to break up with him if he did not carry out the killing.

Flynn and 17-year-old Patrick Randall forced Gregory Smart to his knees in the foyer of the home. As Randall held a knife to the man’s throat, Flynn fired a hollow-point bullet into his head. Both pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and were sentenced to 28 years to life. They were granted parole in 2015 after serving 25 years. Two other teenagers who cooperated with prosecutors also served prison sentences and have been released.

Smart’s trial, broadcast live on television from start to finish, drew national attention and became one of America’s first high-profile cases involving a sexual affair between a school employee and a student. The case inspired Joyce Maynard’s 1992 book “To Die For” and the 1995 film of the same name, starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix.