New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte rejected on Thursday the latest request for a sentence reduction hearing from Pamela Smart, who is serving life in prison for orchestrating the murder of her husband by her teenage student in 1990. On Wednesday, Smart wrote to Ayotte and the governor's Executive Council asking for a hearing on commuting her sentence. But Ayotte, a Republican elected in November, said she has reviewed the case and decided it is not deserving of a hearing before the five-member panel, the AP reports.
"People who commit violent crimes must be held accountable to the law," said Ayotte, a former state attorney general. "I take very seriously the action of granting a pardon hearing and believe this process should only be used in exceptional circumstances." In her letter, Smart said she has spent the last 35 years "becoming a person who can and will be a contributing member of society." Describing herself "what rehabilitation looks like," she said she has taken responsibility for her husband's death. "I have apologized to Gregg's family and my own for the life taken and for my life denied to my parents and family for all these long years," she wrote.
Smart, 57, was a 22-year-old high school media coordinator when she began an affair with a 15-year-old boy who later fatally shot her husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry. The shooter was freed in 2015 after serving a 25-year sentence. Although Smart denied knowledge of the plot, she was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder and other crimes and sentenced to life without parole. It took until last year for Smart to take full responsibility for her husband's death.
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