Judge Dismisses Pamela Smart’s Latest Request for a New Trial

On Thursday a New Hampshire judge put the final nail in the coffin of Pamela Smart’s most recent attempt to overturn her 1991 conviction. The ruling means the woman who has spent more than three decades behind bars will remain on life‑without‑parole, at least for now.

Smart, 59, was just a 22‑year‑old media coordinator at Derry High School when she began an illicit relationship with 15‑year‑old student William Flynn. That affair spiraled into a plot that ended with Flynn pulling the trigger on Smart’s husband, Gregory, in 1990. The case became a media frenzy, one of the first in the country to be broadcast live from start to finish.

It wasn’t until 2024 that Smart finally admitted—albeit in vague terms—to having a role in the murder, saying she had spent years “deflecting blame almost as if it were a coping mechanism.” That confession, however, did not open the door to a new trial.

In January she filed a petition for habeas corpus relief, arguing that the original trial was riddled with constitutional violations. Her lawyers claimed, among other things, that prosecutors had fed the jury an inaccurate transcript of secretly recorded conversations with Flynn, inserting words that were never actually spoken.

Judge James Kennedy of the Merrick County Superior Court listened to the arguments during a July hearing and, after a brief deliberation, granted the state’s motion to dismiss. He said the issues Smart raised had either already been presented on appeal or, if they truly were novel, they simply lacked legal weight.

The transcript controversy centered on three words—“killed,” “busted,” and “murder”—that Smart’s team said were phantom additions. They even pointed to a forensic study suggesting that jurors might trust a written transcript over muffled audio. Kennedy called that study “dubious,” noting it hadn’t been published and offered no concrete examples of errors in the actual transcript used at trial.

He also brushed aside claims that the verdict was tainted by the surrounding media circus or by flawed jury instructions, stating that any such influence was speculative at best.

The fallout from the case has lingered in popular culture. Joyce Maynard turned it into the novel “To Die For,” later adapted into a 1995 film starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix. All the teenage conspirators, including Flynn, have since been released, but the story still captures public fascination.

For now, Smart remains incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, and the door to a new trial appears firmly shut.