US Supreme Court gives boost to woman who claimed 'sexist stereotyping' in murder conviction

By John Kruzel

The U.S. Supreme Court gave a boost on Tuesday to a female Oklahoma death row inmate who claimed her 2004 conviction for murdering her estranged husband was tainted by what her lawyers called "sexist stereotyping" by prosecutors who presented to the jury evidence about her sex life and revealing clothing.

The justices in an unsigned ruling on Tuesday threw out a decision by the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejecting inmate Brenda Andrew's claim that her right to due process under the U.S. Constitution was violated by the type of prosecution evidence admitted during her trial.

Andrew's case will return to the 10th Circuit to assess whether her trial proceedings were fundamentally unfair under a legal standard that the Supreme Court clarified in its ruling.

"The state spent significant time at trial introducing evidence about Andrew's sex life and about her failings as a mother and wife, much of which it later conceded was irrelevant," the Supreme Court wrote.

The question that the 10th Circuit court must address is "whether a fair-minded jurist reviewing this record could disagree with Andrew that the trial court's mistaken admission of irrelevant evidence was so 'unduly prejudicial' as to render her trial 'fundamentally unfair,' " it added.

Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the Supreme Court's ruling, calling the 10th Circuit's decision "entirely correct."

Andrew was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the 2001 shooting death of her husband Robert Andrew at their Oklahoma City home. Her convicted co-conspirator and paramour, life insurance agent James Pavatt, was also sentenced to death.

Her lawyers had told the Supreme Court that the evidence presented in the case "was not merely irrelevant, but was unfairly prejudicial in ways that played on sexist stereotyping."

Jessica Sutton, an attorney for Andrew, said she is hopeful the 10th Circuit "will stop this injustice."

"The prosecution invited the jury to convict and condemn Ms. Andrew to death because she was not a 'stereotypical' woman - her clothing was not modest enough, her demeanor was not emotional enough, and she was not chaste enough," Sutton said.

"Wielding these gendered tropes to justify a conviction and punishment of death is intolerable and poses a threat to everyone who does not follow rigid gender norms," Sutton added.

Republican Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond's office expressed disappointment in the ruling.

Prosecutors during her trial presented evidence that she sought to benefit from her husband's $800,000 life insurance policy that Pavatt had helped arrange. She has denied any role in her husband's murder.

Brenda and Robert Andrew, who had two children together, were separated at the time of his death.

Brenda Andrew has said that while her husband was trying to help her light the furnace in the garage of their home, two masked men entered and shot him two times with a shotgun. She sustained a small caliber gunshot wound to her arm.

Emergency responders who arrived after she called the 911 emergency number were unable to revive her husband, who had suffered extensive blood loss, according to court records.

Brenda Andrew and Pavatt were convicted in separate trials of conspiring and carrying out Robert's murder and were each sentenced to death. Pavatt remains on Oklahoma's death row.

Prosecutors presented what they described as "overwhelming evidence that Andrew and Pavatt plotted the murder of Robert after seeking to gain control of Robert's life insurance policy."

At her trial, Brenda Andrew's lawyers sought to undermine the charges against her by establishing her standing as a good mother, an assertion prosecutors sought to rebut.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Brenda Andrew had worn revealing clothing to a restaurant and that a customer had called her a "hoochie," that her husband found new lingerie that he never saw her wear, that she had numerous affairs during their engagement and marriage, and that she had coached their children to be discreet about her being visited by men at home.

Other evidence presented at the trial showed that Pavatt helped Robert Andrew set up the life insurance policy prior to his killing, and that Pavatt and Brenda Andrew forged the victim's signature on a change-of-ownership form, according to court records.

Pavatt confessed to plotting and committing the murder without Brenda Andrew.