Lawyers for Pamela Smart, who is serving a life sentence for orchestrating the 1990 murder of her husband, Gregory Smart, are seeking a new trial. A New Hampshire judge is considering her latest petition for habeas corpus relief, filed in January, which claims constitutional violations during her original trial.
Smart, now 58, was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder and other crimes. She was 22 years old and worked as a high school media coordinator when she began an affair with a 15-year-old student, who later shot and killed her husband in Derry, New Hampshire. The shooter was released in 2015 after serving a 25-year sentence.
Smart’s trial was one of the first in the nation to be broadcast live on television. She denied knowledge of the murder plot but was sentenced to life without parole. Her lawyers argue that prosecutors misled the jury by providing inaccurate transcripts of surreptitiously recorded conversations, which included words that were not audible on the recordings. Among the disputed words were "killed," "busted," and "murder."
Smart will attend the hearing remotely from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York. The judge’s decision on whether to allow the petition to proceed is pending.