Oklahoma’s solely feminine demise row inmate, whose attorneys argue was “sex-shamed” throughout her husband’s homicide trial, might have one other day in courtroom after a Tuesday Supreme Court docket ruling.
Brenda Andrew, now 61, was sentenced to demise in 2004 for the homicide of her estranged husband, Rob Andrew.
She was convicted within the 2001 homicide, alongside along with her lover and fellow Sunday college trainer, James Pavatt. Pavatt, who had offered Rob Andrew an $800,000 life insurance coverage coverage, had confessed to killing Rob with a buddy. He denied that Brenda was concerned.
Brenda Andrew advised police after the capturing, throughout which she was shot within the arm, that two masked males attacked her and her husband whereas he was serving to her ignite the pilot gentle on the furnace of their storage, in response to courtroom paperwork reviewed by Fox Information Digital.
Her attorneys argue that proof about her “plainly irrelevant sexual historical past” wasn’t truthful to make use of in courtroom, the place prosecutors referred to as her a “slut pet” and confirmed jurors one in every of her thongs, in response to their courtroom filings.
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Brenda Andrew in courtroom in Oklahoma Metropolis in 2004. (David McDaniel/The Oklahoman)
The prosecutor mentioned the thong was robust proof that Andrew had murdered her husband, the New York Occasions reported.
“The grieving widow packs this to run off along with her boyfriend,” he mentioned, holding her garment. “Can’t twist the info, of us. Can’t twist the proof.”
Andrew had packed the underwear for a visit to Mexico days after her husband’s demise. Andrew and Pavatt ran out of cash three months after the homicide, in February 2002, and re-entered america, in response to the outlet, the place they had been arrested on the border. Andrew’s two kids, who had been touring with them, had been put into their paternal grandparents’ custody.
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Supreme Court docket justices wrote of their resolution that the prosecutor “spent a major period of time on the trial” going over particulars about Andrew’s intercourse life that had been unrelated to her husband’s homicide.
“Amongst different issues, the prosecution elicited testimony about Andrew’s sexual companions reaching again twenty years; concerning the outfits she wore to dinner or throughout grocery runs; concerning the underwear she packed for trip; and about how usually she had intercourse in her automobile,” the bulk wrote of their resolution. “The final word query is whether or not a fair-minded jurist may disagree that the proof ‘so contaminated the trial with unfairness’ as to render the ensuing conviction or sentence a ‘denial of due course of.’”
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Brenda Andrew is pictured at left in 2004 and in her most up-to-date mugshot in 2024 at proper. (Oklahoma Division of Corrections)
Nonetheless, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch dissented.
“Intercourse and marriage had been unavoidable points at Andrew’s trial, and the state launched a wide range of proof about her sexual habits,” Thomas wrote.
In a quick urging the Supreme Court docket to not hear Andrew’s case, prosecutors argued that testimony concerning her look and sexuality had been “however a drop within the ocean” of proof in opposition to her. Earlier than the Supreme Court docket’s Tuesday resolution, decrease courts had advised that whereas prosecutors’ presentation of the case was inappropriate, the case in opposition to Andrew nonetheless stands.
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The tenth Circuit Court docket of Appeals in Colorado will now evaluation Andrew’s claims.
Andrew’s lawyer, Ed Blau, advised KOCO Information 5 that it will likely be as much as the tenth Circuit Court docket of Appeals to find out whether or not proof “concerning [his client’s] intercourse life” and “concerning her qualities as a mom… mustn’t have been given to the jury, and whether or not it rose to the extent of violating her due course of rights.”
He mentioned Andrew could possibly be resentenced or get a wholly new trial primarily based on the appeals courtroom’s findings. The courtroom may additionally determine that no motion is required, and that Andrew ought to stay on demise row.
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Jessica Sutton, one other one in every of Andrew’s attorneys, advised The Oklahoman that she hoped the courtroom would “cease this injustice.”
“Wielding these gendered tropes to justify a conviction and punishment of demise is insupportable and poses a risk to everybody who doesn’t observe inflexible gender norms,” she advised the outlet.
Though she doubts the courtroom will acquit Andrew of homicide, forensic psychologist Dr. Carole Lieberman advised Fox Information Digital mentioned she is more likely to get a retrial.
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James Pavatt is pictured in a 2003 mugshot at left and a 2024 mugshot at proper. (Oklahoma Division of Corrections)
“The proof about her function within the homicide was not sufficient to get the demise penalty so [prosecutors} preyed on jurors‘ stereotypes of a ‘fallen lady’ and received them to despise her,” Lieberman mentioned. “The prosecution’s so-called proof was extra prejudicial than probative… I feel it was inappropriate private hatred of the prosecutors towards her or inappropriate private revenge or a private want to punish her extra severely as a substitute of simply giving her life in jail.”
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A 3-judge panel voted 2-1 to reverse a part of Pavatt’s demise sentence in June 2017. They decided that Andrew’s husband died too rapidly for his demise to be thought of “merciless and heinous,” an aggravating circumstance that allowed the state to concern him the demise penalty, Oklahoma Metropolis’s KFOR reported.
Andrew’s final attraction in 2008 was denied, in response to the Oklahoma Division of Corrections.
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