Judge Dismisses Pamela Smart’s Request for a New Trial

On Thursday, Merrick County Superior Court Judge James Kennedy put an end to the most recent attempt by Pamela Smart to overturn her 1991 conviction. The 59‑year‑old, who has spent more than three decades behind bars for orchestrating the murder of her husband, saw her habeas corpus petition dismissed in a relatively brief hearing.

Smart, then a 22‑year‑old media coordinator at Derry’s high school, had an illicit relationship with 15‑year‑old student William Flynn. That affair spiraled into a plot that ended with Flynn pulling the trigger on Gregory Smart in 1990. The case made national headlines, becoming one of the first to be televised from start to finish and spawning a best‑selling book and a Hollywood film.

In January, Smart’s legal team filed a petition alleging a string of constitutional violations – from allegedly inaccurate transcripts of taped conversations to the influence of relentless media coverage. They also argued that jurors were misled by written transcripts that included words the muffled audio didn’t actually capture, such as “killed,” “busted,” and “murder.”

Judge Kennedy, however, was not convinced. He noted that many of the issues raised could have – and should have – been addressed during earlier appeals. Even if they hadn’t, he said, the arguments “lack merit.” The judge brushed off the forensic study cited by Smart’s attorneys, calling its legal relevance “dubious” because the study had never been published in full and failed to pinpoint any concrete errors.

“The record is clear,” Kennedy said, “and the petition does not raise any new, actionable claim.” He also rejected the contention that the original verdict was tainted by the media circus that surrounded the trial, pointing out that the jury instructions, while imperfect, were not fundamentally flawed.

The decision keeps Smart’s life‑without‑parole sentence in place. Flynn and the other teenage conspirators eventually cooperated with prosecutors, received reduced sentences and have all been released. Flynn, the boy who pulled the trigger, was freed in 2015 after serving 25 years.

Smart’s lawyers had hoped the case might finally move forward after she publicly acknowledged responsibility for her husband’s death in 2024, describing her earlier denials as a “coping mechanism.” The latest rejection, however, suggests that the courts see little room for revisiting a case that, for better or worse, has become a fixture of true‑crime lore.

While the story continues to captivate the public imagination, the legal chapter appears, for now, firmly closed.