Pamela Smart is serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for her part in the murder of her husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry, New Hampshire, on May 1, 1990. She was convicted in March 1991 as an accomplice to first degree murder, together with counts of conspiracy and witness tampering. The killing itself was carried out by a teenager with whom she had a relationship. She was 22 at the time and worked as a school media coordinator. She has said, in her later accounts, that she did not ask him to kill her husband.
Her trial was among the first in the United States broadcast live on television from start to finish, and the case drew national attention. She has been held since 1993 in a prison in New York State. In the decades since, she has sought release through the courts and through the executive branch of New Hampshire, and in 2026 a Superior Court judge dismissed her latest petition.
Gregory Smart died in Derry on May 1, 1990. The prosecution case was that his wife had persuaded the teenager with whom she was in a relationship to kill him. The teenager and three other youths took part in the plan and the killing. All four were charged as adults.
Each of the four later reached agreements with the prosecution. They pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for their testimony against Smart. The teenager who carried out the offense testified that Smart had told him she needed her husband killed. He and one of the other youths pleaded guilty to second degree murder and were sentenced to 28 years to life; both were paroled in 2015. The other two served sentences and have also been released.
Smart was tried in 1991 in Rockingham County Superior Court, in Exeter. The jury convicted her on March 22, 1991. The court imposed life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on the accomplice count immediately after the verdict.
On May 6, 1991, the court sentenced her on the remaining counts: 7 1/2 to 15 years for conspiracy and 3 1/2 to 7 years for witness tampering. Both terms run concurrently with the life sentence. Her trial attorney said then that she maintained her innocence and had appealed.
The state Supreme Court heard the direct appeal and decided it in 1993. The court found that the jurors had been told to rely on what they heard, not what they read, and that the recordings controlled where they conflicted with transcripts. Her conviction stood.
Over the following decades Smart pursued a petition for a new trial in Superior Court, an appeal from its denial, proceedings in the United States Supreme Court, and habeas corpus petitions in state and federal courts. None changed the verdict or the sentence. She was transferred to a prison in New York State in 1993, where she has remained. During her imprisonment she completed three graduate degrees and worked as a teacher's aide and tutor.
Her remaining avenue has been commutation. Under Part II, Article 52 of the New Hampshire Constitution, the power to pardon, including commutation, belongs to "the governor, with the advice of council." By March 2023 three of her requests to the Executive Council since 2005 had been denied, and a petition may be renewed every two years.
In August 2021 her counsel submitted a Petition for Commutation under RSA 4:21 to the Governor, the Executive Council and the Attorney General's Office. It asked for a hearing and for the sentence to be modified to remove the words "without the possibility of parole" and commuted to time served, and it enclosed a memorandum, letters, her academic degrees and prison progress reports. The Governor placed it on the agenda of the Executive Council meeting of March 23, 2022. After discussion lasting less than two and a half minutes, the Governor and Council voted to deny "consideration of whether the petition of Pamela Smart" should be granted for a commutation hearing. The Attorney General's office had opposed her requests, arguing that she had never fully accepted responsibility.
Smart then petitioned the New Hampshire Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus requiring the Council to reconsider. The court heard argument on February 14, 2023. On March 29, 2023, it dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction, holding that it presented a "political, nonjusticiable question." The court said that Article 52 commits the commutation power to the Governor with the advice of the Council and imposes no procedures for its use, that Smart had no legally protected interest in a commutation hearing, and that imposing procedural rules on the process would violate the separation of powers.
In May 2024 she recorded a video for the five members of the Executive Council, asking for "an honest conversation" about her incarceration and her acceptance of responsibility. She said in it that she had spent years deflecting blame, and in later statements she took responsibility for her husband's death. Prosecutors continued to say that she had not shown remorse or fully accepted responsibility.
In May 2025 she wrote to Governor Kelly Ayotte and the Council again, saying she had spent 35 years becoming a contributing member of society and apologizing to her husband's family and her own. On May 29, 2025, the Governor announced that, after review, the case was not one that warranted a hearing before the Council and that a request would not be placed on its agenda. She said that people who commit violent crimes must be held accountable and that such a hearing should be used only in exceptional circumstances.
In January 2026 Smart filed a petition for habeas corpus in Merrimack County Superior Court. It alleged that prosecutors gave jurors inaccurate transcripts of recorded conversations that attributed words to her that she disputes, that media coverage had tainted the verdict, that the jury instructions were faulty, that her trial strategy forced her to accept guilt on one charge, and that her life sentence was mandatory when New Hampshire does not mandate it for that charge. The state moved to dismiss, arguing that most of the claims had been raised on appeal or could have been, and that the rest were unsupported.
A hearing was held on July 20, 2026, with Smart attending remotely from New York. On September 17, 2026, the Superior Court granted the state's motion to dismiss. The judge found that her arguments had either been raised already or could have been raised in earlier appeals, and that even if they had not, they lacked merit. A study of the transcripts that her lawyers relied on was unpublished, and the court called its legal relevance "dubious."
Smart has maintained that she did not know of the plan and did not ask the teenager to kill her husband. She has said she feels responsible for his death. The prosecution's case rested on testimony from the four youths and on recorded conversations, whose transcripts her lawyers have challenged. The Superior Court rejected those challenges in 2026.
May 1, 1990: Gregory Smart dies in Derry, New Hampshire.
March 22, 1991: Smart is convicted in Rockingham County Superior Court of accomplice to first degree murder, conspiracy and witness tampering; life without parole is imposed on the accomplice count.
May 6, 1991: Sentences of 7 1/2 to 15 years and 3 1/2 to 7 years imposed on the other counts, concurrent.
1993: State Supreme Court decides the direct appeal; Smart is moved to a prison in New York State.
2015: The teenager who carried out the offense and one other youth are paroled.
August 2021: Petition for Commutation submitted.
March 23, 2022: Governor and Executive Council vote to deny consideration of a commutation hearing.
March 29, 2023: State Supreme Court dismisses her mandamus petition for lack of jurisdiction.
May 2024: Smart records a video for the Executive Council.
May 29, 2025: Governor declines to place a commutation hearing on the Council's agenda.
January 2026: Habeas corpus petition filed in Merrimack County Superior Court.
July 20, 2026: Hearing on the petition.
September 17, 2026: Superior Court grants the state's motion to dismiss.