Oklahoma’s only female death row inmate, whose attorneys argue was “sex-shamed” throughout her husband’s homicide trial, could have one other day in courtroom after a Tuesday Supreme Court docket ruling.
Brenda Andrew, now 61, was sentenced to dying in 2004 for the murder of her estranged husband, Rob Andrew.
She was convicted within the 2001 homicide, alongside along with her lover and fellow Sunday faculty trainer, James Pavatt. Pavatt, who had offered Rob Andrew an $800,000 life insurance coverage coverage, had confessed to killing Rob with a pal. He denied that Brenda was concerned.
Brenda Andrew instructed police after the taking pictures, 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 line with courtroom paperwork reviewed by Fox Information Digital.
Her attorneys argue that proof about her “plainly irrelevant sexual historical past” wasn’t honest to make use of in courtroom, the place prosecutors known as her a “slut pet” and confirmed jurors one in all her thongs, in line with their courtroom filings.
Brenda Andrew in courtroom in Oklahoma Metropolis in 2004. (David McDaniel/The Oklahoman)
The prosecutor mentioned the thong was sturdy proof that Andrew had murdered her husband, the New York Instances reported.
“The grieving widow packs this to run off along with her boyfriend,” he mentioned, holding her garment. “Can’t twist the information, of us. Can’t twist the proof.”
Andrew had packed the underwear for a visit to Mexico days after her husband’s dying. Andrew and Pavatt ran out of cash three months after the homicide, in February 2002, and re-entered the USA, in line with the outlet, the place they had been arrested on the border. Andrew’s two youngsters, 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 choice 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 murder.
“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 typically she had intercourse in her automobile,” the bulk wrote of their choice. “The last word query is whether or not a fair-minded jurist might disagree that the proof ‘so infected 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)
Nevertheless, 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 conduct,” Thomas wrote.
In a short urging the Supreme Court docket to not hear Andrew’s case, prosecutors argued that testimony relating to 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 choice, 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 evaluate Andrew’s claims.
Andrew’s lawyer, Ed Blau, instructed KOCO News 5 that will probably be as much as the tenth Circuit Court docket of Appeals to find out whether or not proof “relating to [his client’s] intercourse life” and “relating to her qualities as a mom… shouldn’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 completely new trial based mostly on the appeals courtroom’s findings. The courtroom might additionally determine that no motion is required, and that Andrew ought to stay on dying row.
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Jessica Sutton, one other one in all Andrew’s attorneys, instructed The Oklahoman that she hoped the courtroom would “cease this injustice.”
“Wielding these gendered tropes to justify a conviction and punishment of dying is insupportable and poses a menace to everybody who doesn’t observe inflexible gender norms,” she instructed the outlet.
Though she doubts the courtroom will acquit Andrew of homicide, forensic psychologist Dr. Carole Lieberman instructed 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 dying penalty so [prosecutors} preyed on jurors‘ stereotypes of a ‘fallen woman’ and got them to despise her,” Lieberman said. “The prosecution’s so-called evidence was more prejudicial than probative… I think it was inappropriate personal hatred of the prosecutors toward her or inappropriate personal revenge or a personal desire to punish her more severely instead of just giving her life in prison.”
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A three-judge panel voted 2-1 to reverse part of Pavatt’s death sentence in June 2017. They determined that Andrew’s husband died too quickly for his death to be considered “cruel and heinous,” an aggravating circumstance that allowed the state to issue him the death penalty, Oklahoma City’s KFOR reported.
Andrew’s last appeal in 2008 was denied, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
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