The only woman on death row in Oklahoma could have a retrial after almost 20 years behind bars following claims that she was “sex shamed” at the time.
Brenda Andrew, 61, is set to be executed for the murder of her estranged husband Rob Andrew in 2001 as part of an almost million-dollar insurance scam
But now her sentence could be overturned after her attorneys called into question the appropriateness of the prosecution’s actions at the time, which included showing her thong to the jury, as reported by Need To Know.
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It is believed that the alleged slut-shaming in the case was used to inspire the jury to give Brenda, a Sunday school teacher who had no prior criminal record, the most extreme possible sentence.
A Supreme Court ruling this month read: “The prosecution elicited testimony about Andrew’s sexual partners reaching back two decades; about the outfits she wore to dinner or during grocery runs; about the underwear she packed for vacation; and about how often she had sex in her car.
“The ultimate question is whether a fair-minded jurist could disagree that the evidence ‘so infected the trial with unfairness’ as to render the resulting conviction or sentence a ‘denial of due process.’”
Brenda, sentenced in 2004, was convicted alongside her lover James Pavatt, also a Sunday school teacher, who denied that she was even involved in the fatal shooting of her husband.
Pavatt claims that after selling Rob a life insurance policy worth $800,000 (£642,000), he murdered him with the help of a friend.
Court filings state that Brenda’s inappropriate shaming during the trial saw her called a “slut puppy” by prosecutors and had her “plainly irrelevant sexual history” publicised.
The New York Times reported that Brenda’s thong, in particular, was used as a smoking gun in the case.
The prosecutor said: “The grieving widow packs this to run off with her boyfriend.
“Can’t twist the facts, folks. Can’t twist the evidence.”
Brenda is said to have packed the thong to travel with Pravatt to Mexico days after the murder, where they lived for three months until they ran out of money.
The pair were arrested when they attempted to return to the United States in February 2002.
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