WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court issued a rare ruling Tuesday in favor of a death row inmate, finding that an Oklahoma woman convicted of murdering her estranged husband can pursue a claim that prosecutors inappropriately focused on her sex life at trial.
Divided 7-2, the court opened the door to Brenda Andrew’s challenging her conviction and death sentence. She is the only woman on death row in Oklahoma.
The court ruled an appeals court was wrong to conclude that Andrew's claim that her due process rights were violated by the focus on her personal life, including treatment of her children, could not move forward.
The right to due process under the Constitution's 14th Amendment "forbids the introduction of evidence so unduly prejudicial as to render a criminal trial fundamentally unfair," the Supreme Court said in an unsigned opinion.
The case will return to the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for further litigation on Andrew's habeas corpus claim.
"We are pleased that the court looked closely at the State of Oklahoma’s manipulation of irrelevant and blatantly sexist evidence during Ms. Andrew’s trial," Jessica Sutton, one of Andrew's lawyers, said in a statement.
Now, the appeals court will "determine whether such evidence was so prejudicial as to render Ms. Andrew’s trial fundamentally unfair," she added.
Andrew was convicted in state court of the 2001 murder of her husband, Rob, who was shot twice with a shotgun in the garage of their former family home in Oklahoma City when he arrived to pick up their two children.
Her alleged accomplice, boyfriend James Pavatt, was also prosecuted and is on death row. Andrew, now 61, was herself shot in the arm during the incident.
Andrew's conviction was upheld in state court, prompting her to file a habeas corpus claim in federal court, which was also rejected.
Andrew’s lawyers say prosecutors focused on her personal life because they lacked concrete evidence connecting her to the crime.
Among the issues raised at trial were that Andrew previously had affairs with other men, that she dressed provocatively and that she had made sexual advances toward two young men working in her yard.
Toward the end of the trial, a prosecutor held up thong underwear owned by Andrew and asked the jury whether a "grieving widow" would wear such an item of clothing. The prosecutor also used the term "slut puppy" to refer to Andrew, her lawyers said, although the state says the comment was not a direct reference to her.
The prosecutors' case "fixated on obtaining a conviction and death sentence by denigrating her character as a woman," her lawyers said in court papers.
Two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, disagreed with Tuesday's ruling.
Thomas wrote in a dissenting opinion that the court had not followed its own rules in determining whether a habeas corpus claim arising from a prosecution in state courts can move forward.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in court papers that there was "overwhelming evidence that Andrew and Pavatt plotted the murder" to access a life insurance payout.
Andrew, he added, had a "visceral hatred" of her husband, and evidence of her "ability to get men ... to do her bidding" was relevant to the case.
"We are disappointed but respect the court's decision," Drummond spokeswoman Leslie Berger said in an email.
