CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Advocates for Pamela Smart, who's serving a life sentence for plotting with her teenage lover to kill her husband, say they are planning to file a petition seeking a reduced sentence.
Dr. Eleanor Pam, a legal advocate for Smart, tells WMUR-TV (http://bit.ly/2nctxWE ) the new petition could reach the desk of Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu in a few months. Smart's mother is involved in preparing the petition and supporters of Smart launched a Twitter campaign over the weekend.
Smart was a media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton when she seduced 16-year-old William Flynn in 1990. At trial, Flynn testified that Smart told him she needed her husband killed because she feared she would lose everything if they divorced. He said she threatened to break up with him if he didn't kill him.
Smart has admitted seducing Flynn, but said she didn't plan her husband's murder.
The petition will request the possibility of parole, with the consideration that Flynn and three other teens convicted in the case have been paroled.
"She's the one carrying the burden of this exceptional sentence, and they're walking around free," Pam said.
It was not described as a pardon request, although a statement from the governor's office said Sununu will share pardon requests with members of the Executive Council, and then decide as a group whether the requests will be considered.
Prosecutors said on May 1, 1990, Flynn and 17-year-old Patrick Randall entered the Smarts' Derry condominium and forced Gregg Smart to his knees in the foyer. As Randall restrained him, holding with a knife to his throat, Flynn fired a hollow-point bullet into his head. Vance Lattime supplied the gun and was the getaway driver; Raymond Fowler was in the car.
The trial was a media circus and one of the first high-profile cases about a sexual affair between a school staff member and student. It inspired the Joyce Maynard novel "To Die For," which, in turn, was made into a movie starring Nicole Kidman.
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Information from: WMUR-TV, http://wmur.com