New Hampshire Supreme Court Rejects Pam Smart’s Appeal to Executive Council

🔴 Pamela Smart is serving a life sentence at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York

🔴 The Executive Council took less than three minutes to reject her last commutation request

🔴 The state Supreme Court ruled said it cannot force the Executive Council to reconsider

Pamela Smart's request for a commutation hearing of her sentence was rejected by the New Hampshire Supreme Court Wednesday.

The Executive Council rejected her request in March, 2022, by a 5-0 unanimous vote, because there was no argument or evidence that warranted a hearing. Smart's attorney took the case to the Supreme Court, claiming that the council did not give her request proper attention and consideration in a hearing that lasted just two-and-a-half minutes.

In its dismissal of Smart's petition, The Supreme Court agreed with the state's argument that the court lacked jurisdiction for a political question, and could not force the Executive Council to reconsider the request.

Taking Responsibility for Husband's Death

Attorney General John Formella opposes Smart's request, contending she has never taken responsibility for the death of her husband Gregory Smart in 1990.

In a letter to the councilors in 2022, Smart, now 54, said that she is to blame for Smart's death in 1990 at the hands of Billy Flynn, a 15-year-old student she was having an affair with when she was a media aide at Winnicunnet High School.

"For many years, I blamed others for my incarceration because I was immature, selfish and proud. I refused to see my own role in Gregg's death," Smart wrote in her letter, according to WMUR which obtained a copy. "It took years, even decades, for me to accept responsibility, and I must carry that burden."

“This ruling by the New Hampshire Supreme Court is a continuing disappointment that devastates our hopes for Pamela Smart finally receiving reasonable due process in the State of New Hampshire,” Smart’s spokeswoman, Eleanor Pam, said in an email to the Associated Press.

Smart is serving out her life sentence at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNH