Pamela Smart, serving life, waits for chance to be heard

By KATHY McCORMACK
Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Vanessa Santiago first met Pamela Smart in 2003 as a fellow prison inmate in New York, working with her as a teacher’s aide and participating with her in an arts rehabilitation program.

The two became close, and when Santiago, 43, was released from the maximum security Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in 2020, she continued to stay in touch. She supports Smart’s petition for a sentence reduction hearing.

“Pamela is like an icon in a sense, meaning, she has life with no parole, and when things are tough, you remember Pamela,” Santiago said in an interview with The Associated Press. “If she wasn’t there, if I never met her, I’m telling you, I probably wouldn’t have made it this far.”

Smart, 55, has served over 30 years of a life-without-parole sentence for plotting with her teenage lover to kill her husband in 1990. She has exhausted all of her judicial appeal options. The New Hampshire Supreme Court is expected to release an opinion Wednesday on whether a state council that rejected her request for a sentence reduction hearing last year should reconsider it.

The state attorney general’s office has opposed Smart’s commutation requests — there have been three denied by the council since 2005 — saying she has never accepted full responsibility for the crimes.

Smart, who has earned two master’s degrees at Bedford Hills, tutored fellow inmates, been ordained as a minister and is part of an inmate liaison committee, said in her last petition that she is remorseful and has been rehabilitated. She apologized to Gregory Smart’s family.

Santiago was one of a group of supporters sitting in court during oral arguments for Smart’s case in February. They wore pink T-shirts saying “Enough is Enough.”

Santiago runs a small furniture donation business in New York City and is taking classes toward a master’s degree. In addition to helping her with her English — Santiago’s first language is Spanish — she said Smart was a source of strength and emotional support.

“She would take time out to come see you, or come spend time with you in the garden, do something with you to make you feel better,” Santiago said.

Smart’s longtime attorney, Mark Sisti, argued that the five-member Executive Council, which also votes on the spending of much of the money appropriated by the Legislature and votes on Gov. Chris Sununu’s nominations to government leadership positions, simply “brushed aside” Smart’s case. Sisti said the elected council did not spend any time poring over Smart’s voluminous petition — which included many letters of support from inmates, supervisors and others — or even discuss it before rejecting her request for a sentence reduction hearing in less than three minutes.

Sununu, who brings forth matters for the council to consider, had the option of putting the commutation request on the agenda, and did so, argued Laura Lombardi, senior assistant attorney general. She said there is no requirement for the governor and council to create rules regarding the process.

Smart was 22 and working as a high school media coordinator when she began an affair with a 15-year-old student who later shot and killed her husband, Gregory Smart, in 1990. Though she denied knowledge of the plot, she was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and other crimes and sentenced to life without parole.

The teen, William Flynn, and three other teens cooperated with prosecutors, served shorter sentences and have been released.

The trial was a media circus and one of America’s first high-profile cases about a sexual affair between a school staff member and a student. Joyce Maynard wrote “To Die For” in 1992, drawing from the Smart case. That inspired a 1995 film of the same name, starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix.

Former Bedford inmate Kelly Harnett, 41, who also was in court to hear Smart’s case last month and designed the T-shirts, said she could talk to Smart about the law and that Smart helped her through legal and personal setbacks. She said Smart deserves a hearing.

“Whenever something came up serious for me, I always went to Pam, and she would give me — not what I wanted to hear — but she would give me the best solution to the problem at that moment,” Harnett, of New York, said. “She was basically like having a 24-hour counselor at your service.”

Smart can refile a petition with the council every two years if her request is denied.