Judge rejects Pamela Smart’s lawsuit over prison punishment for morphine possession
Hampton Union, February 3rd, 2021
[The following article is courtesy of the Union Leader]
HAMPTON — A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit brought forward by Pamela Smart, who claimed she was wrongfully disciplined by prison officials for possessing morphine pills in her prison cell.
Judge Cathy Seibel dismissed the seven-count suit last week in the New York U.S. District Court, where Smart claimed she was put in solitary confinement for 40 days and the false charge cost her to lose her prison job as an HIV/AIDS counselor.
Smart is serving a life sentence at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York for enlisting her then-teenage lover William “Billy” Flynn and his three friends to kill her husband Greggory on May 1, 1990. A media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton at the time of her husband’s murder, Smart has denied her involvement in the murder and has said if she had planned to kill her husband, the plot wouldn’t have involved teenagers.
According to her lawsuit filed Aug. 22, 2019, Smart’s prison cell was searched April 20, 2017, when pills were seized and later tested “positive for morphine.” Smart contends the pills were actually the pain reliever Tramadol and were prescribed to her by the prison facility doctor.
Her suit alleges the person who conducted the drug test did not follow testing protocol and that during a discipline hearing on the charge Smart presented an affidavit from a chemist/toxicologist who stated the testing conducted was “unreliable and incorrectly performed and interpreted.”
Six of the seven counts accused prison officials of violating her due process rights by relying on an incorrectly performed test on the pills and falsely interpreted results.
Smart said the finding of guilt not only led to her losing her prison job as a counselor but also lost commissary and phone privileges for 100 days and two months loss of good time. She also missed out on a family reunion trailer visit with her elderly parents.
She also spent 40 days in solitary confinement prior to the discipline hearing and then a year in the mental health unit.
Seibel rejected all claims that Smart’s due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated, noting that even Smart admitted in a letter complaining about her treatment after being disciplined that “the meds were prescribed to me (Tramadol), but were supposed to be taken at the med window.”
“Plaintiff concedes she was not allowed to possess this medication, a synthetic opioid painkiller and controlled substance, away from the medication window,” stated Seibel in her decision. “This fact alone would render any alleged due process violation in relation to the morphine finding to be harmless error, as she would have been found guilty of possession of Tramadol.”
The judge noted that Smart was able to present her defense at the disciplinary hearing including cross-examining the officer who searched her cell as well as presenting evidence that the test on the pills was faulty. While Smart was denied requests to have the pills tested by an independent toxicologist, the judge said the law states prisoners do not have “a due process right to engage in secondary testing.”
Seibel said Smart’s transfer to solitary confinement may have been “unusual” compared to other similar disciplines of inmates, but Smart did not “suggest anywhere (in the suit) that the conditions were harsher than normal.”
While Smart claimed she was exposed to constant disruptive behavior, outbursts which caused her sleep deprivation, violence, and frequent lockdowns” at the mental health unit, the judge stated Smart did not explain how she got there or if it was connected to the discipline hearing.
Seibel stated what Smart described is “not atypical to prison life.”
As for Smart’s other claims, Seibel said the law is clear that prisoners do not have protected liberty interests in job assignments, visits, or other privileges
Smart filed a similar suit in New York state court but it was dismissed in March of 2019.
She filed the suit after the state Supreme Court ordered a rehearing in her drug possession case because the audio from the 2017 hearing was inaudible. The hearing was canceled, and the charge dropped because the pills were destroyed.
Smart previously sued prison officials in federal court claiming she was wrongfully put in solitary confinement after guards found a plastic cake knife in her cell in 2012. The case was dismissed by the judge, who stated Smart did not provide sufficient evidence that she was deprived of due process by prison officials, nor that she suffered inhumane treatment.
In 2009, Smart received a $23,875 settlement after she sued the state of New York for unfair treatment by prison officials after scantily clad photos of her in a prison cell appeared in the National Enquirer.