HAMPTON -- The state is fighting the sentence reduction request of William Flynn, the teenage lover of Pamela Smart who shot and killed her husband 17 years ago.

The office of the attorney general earlier this month filed a motion objecting to Flynn's request to shorten his 40-year to life sentence for second-degree murder. An evidentiary hearing on Flynn's request has been set for Jan. 25 at Rockingham County Superior Court.

"A sentence reduction at this stage would appear to minimize the seriousness of the defendant's conduct," stated prosecutors in a brief filed with Judge Kenneth McHugh. "Society and (the) victim's families must be assured that those who commit murder will be incarcerated for the sentence that was imposed."

The state's objection states that Flynn, who is not eligible for parole until 2018, already got a reduction in his sentence when he accepted a plea bargain. At the time, prosecutors agreed to drop a first-degree murder charge to second-degree charge in exchange for his testimony against Pamela Smart, who was convicted of orchestrating the murder.

Flynn, originally from Seabrook, was 15 when he shot and killed Gregory Smart at the Derry condo he shared with his wife. Flynn confessed he was having an affair with Pamela Smart, who was 22 at the time, and that she persuaded him to murder her husband so they could be together.

Flynn met Pamela Smart at Winnacunnet High School; he was a student and she worked as the school's media services director. Flynn said in court documents the reason why he didn't file for a sentence reduction until now was because he deserved to be there.

"I decided a long time ago that before I could ask you for a sentence reduction in good conscience I would have to spend as many years behind bars as I had been alive prior to my arrest," Flynn stated.

Flynn's letter was part of a 100-page filing that includes letters of support from friends, his wife and step-daughter, prison guards and nonprofits he worked with while behind bars. The state argued while Flynn's record of self improvement while incarcerated is commendable "that alone does not justify any special treatment." Prosecutors noted Flynn also had several behavioral infractions while incarcerated including excessive personal items in his cell.

In 2005, Judge McHugh granted a three-year sentence reduction to Vance Lattime Jr., who drove the getaway car the night of Gregory Smart's murder. Lattime, who served 13 years of his original 18-year sentence, was paroled in August 2005. Raymond Fowler -- who was in the getaway car with Lattime -- was paroled in April 2003. Patrick Randall, who held Gregory Smart down while Flynn shot him, remains incarcerated and his earliest parole date is June 4, 2018.

Pamela Smart remains behind bars at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York, serving a life sentence for being an accomplice to first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.