(Photographer: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg)
The Supreme Court’s recent Death Penalty jurisprudence has been pretty dark: their decision to deny a stay of execution for Marcellus Williams is and will be a mark of shame on this country’s history. But, in an unexpected break from the Court’s live and let die approach to death row, they are giving an Oklahoma inmate a second bite at due process. EJI has coverage:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday granted relief to Brenda Andrew, who was sentenced to death in Oklahoma after prosecutors introduced evidence about her sex life and her failings as a wife and mother. The Court ordered the federal appeals court to assess whether this “irrelevant evidence about [her] demeanor as a woman … deprive[d] her of a fundamentally fair trial.”
…
The State accused Ms. Andrew of conspiring with Mr. Pavatt to murder her husband. At trial, according to the Court’s per curiam decision, 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 prosecutor also displayed her thong underwear to jurors while urging them to convict her of capital murder.
It would have been bad enough if the prosecution just referred to Ms. Andrew as a “slut puppy” throughout the trial (which they did), but parading around her underwear? How did that even play out in closing argument? “Were her finger prints on the murder weapon? No. But we did find these revealing Victoria’s Secret panties in one of her drawers. What other secrets might she be hiding?!”
Justices Thomas and Gorsuch were the only two Justices that dissented from the order. The bar is in hell, but a pat on the back for Kavanaugh not making that duo a trio.
Supreme Court Grants Relief in Oklahoma Death Penalty Case [EJI]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.