US Supreme Court revives challenge by Oklahoma death row inmate following sex-shaming claims News
iclifford, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
US Supreme Court revives challenge by Oklahoma death row inmate following sex-shaming claims

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday revived a challenge by a death row inmate in Oklahoma who claims prosecutors “sex-shamed” her during her trial. Brenda Andrew claimed prosecutors called her a “slut puppy,” holding up her underwear for the jury.

In an opinion from the Supreme Court, the majority ordered the US 10th Circuit of Appeals to reconsider Andrew’s claim that her 2004 trial was unfair due to prosecutors’ alleged sex-shaming. The majority stated that during her trial, prosecutors detailed Andrew’s personal life, which was found to be impertinent to the case.

Andrew faces the death penalty for the 2001 murder of her husband, Rob Andrew. In November 2001, Rob Andrew was fatally shot and Brenda Andrew suffered from a gunshot wound to her arm. The incident occurred when Rob Andrew came to the family house to pick up the couple’s two minor children for Thanksgiving. That same year, Brenda Andrew had begun a relationship with James Pavatt and filed for divorce from her husband, resulting in him moving out. Shortly after the incident, Andrew and Pavatt left for Mexico with the children. They were apprehended in February 2002 upon their return to the States.

A jury convicted Pavatt, Andrew’s boyfriend, of the murder and sentenced him to death in 2003. Both parties have filed appeals, with Andrew’s most recent appeal filed in January 2024.

In her appeal, Andrew’s attorneys claimed:

[T]he State exploited sex-based stereotypes and presented concededly irrelevant evidence about her sexual history, gender presentation, demeanor, and motherhood. At trial, the prosecution relentlessly derided Ms. Andrew, using sexually-charged descriptions to cast her in the role of an unchaste wife. The State elicited testimony about Ms. Andrew’s “short skirt, low-cut tops, just sexy outfits,” “very tight” dresses, “a leather outfit” that was not “appropriate,” and otherwise “improper clothing.” The State’s sexbased argument peaked when the prosecution called Ms. Andrew a “slut puppy” and displayed her thong underwear during its guilt-phase closing argument.

The Supreme Court presented the issue for the 10th Circuit of Appeals of whether a fair-minded jurist reviewing the record could disagree with Andrew that the trial court’s admission of irrelevant evidence was “so ‘unduly prejudicial’ as to render her trial ‘fundamentally unfair.'”

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