Who is Pamela Smart and why has she been denied a sentence reduction hearing?
Pamela Smart, who was convicted of recruiting a teenager to kill her husband in 1990, has been denied a chance to ask for a sentence reduction.
The request for a sentence reduction hearing was denied on Wednesday (24 March) by a New Hampshire state council in a 5-0 vote.
Smart, now 54, has exhausted all judicial options for an appeal.
Who is Pamela Smart?
Smart was a high school media coordinator in Hampton, New Hampshire, when she began an affair with a 15-year-old student, William Flynn. Smart was 22 at the time and had married her husband Gregory Smart in 1989.
On 1 May 1990, Pamela Smart came home to find her husband lying dead in their apartment. She was accused of having plotted with Flynn to orchestrate Gregory Smart’s killing. Pamela Smart denied those claims but was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in March 1991. She was given a life sentence without parole.
Flynn and three other teenagers cooperated with the prosecution and served shorter sentences. They have since been released.
Why has she been denied a sentence reduction?
This was the third time Smart had tried to obtain a sentence reduction hearing.
Councilor Janet Stevens said she is “absolutely convinced that there’s no evidence or argument” to grant Smart’s petition.
In a recorded statement, Smart apologised to her husband’s family for the first time.
“I offer no excuses for my actions and behavior,” she said. “I’m to blame.”
She added: “I regret that it took me so long to apologize to the Smart family, my own family, and everyone else. But I think that I wasn’t at a place where I was willing to own that or face that,” she said. “I was young and selfish and I wasn’t thinking about the consequences of what I was doing.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
