A woman named Pamela Smart will remain in prison for the foreseeable future. New Hampshire’s highest court on Wednesday rejected the latest attempt to get a sentence reduction for Smart, who infamously was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for manipulating her teenage lover into killing her husband in 1990.
Smart, who was a 22-year-old multimedia coordinator for a school district when her liaison with a 15-year-old male student turned deadly, was sentenced to life in prison without possibility for parole. Now 55, Smart, actually serving her time in a New York state women’s prison, has earned two master’s degrees, tutored fellow inmates, been ordained as a minister and is part of an inmate liaison committee, according to an Associated Press article.
Nevertheless, Wednesday’s ruling effectively quashed any immediate hope she may have for getting another hearing before an elected state council on her appeal for a sentence reduction. AP reported that, last year, the council rejected her latest request in less than three minutes, prompting her latest appeal for another try to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
I bring all this up because when I saw the AP story about Smart, I immediately made a comparison to the release on parole of Edward Kindt.
Of course, Kindt is the now-39-year-old former Salamanca resident who went to prison as a teenager for the brutal rape and murder by strangulation of Penny Brown on Mother’s Day in 1999. Brown, a registered nurse and midwife in Salamanca, was on a jog with the family dogs on the Pennsy Trail not far from her home when she was attacked.
Kindt, 15 at the time of the terrible crime, was sentenced to nine years to life in prison — the strongest sentence allowed by law at the time — and he had been up for parole biennially for several years. He was granted parole by the New York State Parole Board on Feb. 17, according to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
Word of Kindt’s impending release, first reported by the Times Herald last week, resulted in a firestorm of condemnation by community members and elected officials in Salamanca and beyond. Emotions have run the gamut from outrage to fear that Kindt could be walking the streets of any number of communities in the Southern Tier, although his release was delayed on Wednesday, as reported by the DCCS, because of uncertainty about specifically where the parolee would reside.
Kindt was scheduled to check into an Allegany motel before that arrangement was rejected. It was then revealed by state Sen. George Borrello that Kindt was scheduled to be released to a hotel in Westfield in Chautauqua County, likewise an arrangement that brought outrage from that corner of Western New York and was subsequently put on hold. Borrello announced Thursday that Kindt was released to an undisclosed location in Dutchess County.
The Seneca Nation of Indians joined in condemning parole for Kindt — he is a Seneca — and the Nation has banished him from its territories for a period of one year.
The comparisons between Pamela Smart and Edward Kindt don’t align exactly — not least because the backgrounds involve the judicial systems of different states. Smart was 22, an adult at least in age, when her husband was shot to death by a 15-year-old boy who enlisted the help of friends in the killing. Smart has insisted for all these years — her trial was a sensation at the time — that she did not plot with her lover to have her husband killed and she knew nothing about the teenager’s intentions.
Meanwhile, virtually by all accounts, Smart has been a model prisoner, as mentioned earlier, and she has supporters in New Hampshire and beyond who believe she has more than paid her debt.
The community that hosts Kindt has far less evidence to suggest he can be a positive contributor to society, much less one who isn’t a danger. The state has offered no information about any emotional and behavioral progress that Kindt might have attained in prison since a monstrous impulse caused him to rape and murder Penny Brown.
Cattaraugus County District Attorney Lori Rieman expressed concern earlier this week, saying she never expected Kindt to be released and that he will always be dangerous. “I feel particularly bad for Penny Brown’s family — they deserve peace and to feel safe,” Rieman said. “I am also concerned for our community. He is a predator of the worse sort. It highlights many of the significant deficits in our criminal justice system.”
There are those who believe that redemption and reformation are possible for anyone, particularly in the case of a young person, like Kindt, who was raised in difficult circumstances and then commits even a heinous crime. But if there are any examples of keeping someone behind bars for the good and safety of society, Kindt is one.
New York state appears to have just dropped off a rapist and murderer in an unwitting community, and while it is assumed Kindt will be under the supervision of the parole system, in many ways the state is doing nothing more than keeping its fingers crossed.
As must anyone who someday might cross paths with Edward Kindt.
(Jim Eckstrom is editor of Bradford Publishing Co. His email is jeckstrom@oleantimesherald.com.)
