CONCORD, N.H. — The New Hampshire Department of Justice is asking a Superior Court judge to dismiss Pam Smart’s latest bid to get out of prison, a habeas corpus petition arguing she was wrongly convicted based on dodgy transcripts of tape recordings with one of the prosecution’s key witnesses.
The state’s Solicitor General and Associate Attorney General Anthony J. Galdieri filed a 34-page response in objection to Smart’s petition on Tuesday in Merrimack County Superior Court, claiming that Smart fails to explain the legal relevance of the centerpiece of her habeas petition.
That centerpiece is a study manufactured specifically for her case concerning transcripts of tape-recorded conversations with one of the prosecution’s key witnesses, student Cecelia Pierce.
Smart claims her study is of “monumental’ significance,” and that it identifies “at least 11 sections of the transcript that are facially inaccurate.”
Smart is serving a life sentence with no chance for parole for orchestrating the murder of her husband, Gregg Smart, on May 1, 1990.
In 1991, a New Hampshire jury convicted her of being an accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and witness tampering
Her legal team is pursuing a new approach as it relates to evidence at trial with the petition for a writ of habeas corpus. That means that an order is issued to bring the person before the court to determine if their detention is lawful.
The state is asking the court to dismiss the petition in its entirety and to deny any request for an evidentiary hearing.
“(Smart’s) objection fails to clarify the basis for her claim that the jury’s decision 35 years ago finding her guilty of murder may now be reevaluated,” the state argued.
The state argues that Smart’s claim is on shaky legal grounds.
“Not only does she fail to identify the inaccuracies in the recording transcripts she alleges, in rejecting her direct appeal, the New Hampshire Supreme Court found that the superior court had repeatedly instructed the jury it must determine what was said in the tape-recorded conversations at issue based on what the jurors heard, not read, and cautioned them that, in the event of a conflict, the recordings controlled.”
The state challenges Smart’s claim that the jury failed to follow Superior Court instructions, saying that is unsupported and in any case fails to allege actual prejudice.
Smart argued the transcripts doomed her to prison for her husband’s murder.
Jurors heard audio recordings of Smart during the trial, and prosecutors gave the jury printed transcripts of those recordings during deliberations. But, those transcripts attributed words to Pamela Smart that she now challenges.
“When people read a transcript while listening to unclear audio, they almost always ‘hear’ the words they are shown — even when those words are not actually present in the recording,” according to attorneys for her law firm, Zernhelt Law.
Her lawyers also argued the verdict was tainted by the extensive media coverage, that Smart was forced to accept guilt on one charge through her trial attorney’s defense strategy, that jurors received faulty instructions from the trial judge, and that Smart’s life-without-parole sentence is illegal since she, herself, was just the accomplice in Gregg Smart’s murder.
Smart was 22 when she was the media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton and had an affair with 15-year-old student Billy Flynn. The lurid true crime inspired a best selling novel that was later turned into the movie, “To Die For,” starring Nicole Kidman. Flynn and two friends convicted in connection with Gregg Smart’s murder have all been released on parole.
In a video sent to members of the Executive Council, Pamela Smart claimed in 2024 that she takes responsibility for Gregg Smart’s murder. As part of her application to be released from prison, Smart spoke in the video about coming to terms with her guilt while taking part in a writing class led by Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler.
“She pressured us and encouraged us to go beyond and into spaces we didn’t want to be in,” Smart said. “It’s in those spaces where I found myself responsible for something I desperately didn’t want to be responsible for, my husband’s murder.”
This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.