She’s on Death Row for Killing Husband. Will Claim She Was Sex-Shamed at Trial Set Her Free?

The only woman on death row in Oklahoma could get a new chance to challenge her murder conviction, following a Supreme Court ruling in her favor on claims she was sex-shamed during her trial.

Brenda Andrew was convicted of the 2001 murder of her husband, Rob Andrew, an advertising executive and church deacon, who was killed with a shotgun in the garage of his home in Oklahoma City.

Brenda was convicted of murder in 2004, as was her boyfriend, James Pavatt, whom she had begun seeing after her estrangement from Rob.

But on Tuesday, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, threw a lifeline to the death row resident.

The justices stated that a lower court could not prevent Andrew from mounting an appeal based on her contention that prosecutors unfairly focused on her personal life during her murder trial. The court ordered the case back to an appeals court for further proceedings.

The unsigned opinion stated that the prosecution “spent significant time” on evidence related to Andrew’s “sex life and about her failings as a mother and wife, much of which it later conceded was irrelevant.”

At her trial, prosecutors told jurors about Andrew’s previous affairs and clothing she wore, at one point holding up a pair of her thong underwear.

Andrew claimed in a habeas corpus petition that the evidence was prejudicial and violated due process.

“The Court of Appeals rejected that claim because, it thought, no holding of this Court established a general rule that the erroneous admission of prejudicial evidence could violate due process,” the Supreme Court wrote. “That was wrong.”

Rob Andrew was fatally shot on Nov. 20, 2001, while Brenda was shot in the arm. She called 911 to say she and her husband had been shot by two masked men.

Following the shooting, Brenda went with Pavatt and her two children to Mexico before she and her lover were named as suspects.

Prosecutors claimed that Brenda and Pavatt, an insurance agent, had killed Rob to cash out on a life insurance policy. A month before his murder, Rob discovered that his vehicle’s brake lines had been cut and told police that he suspected his wife, from whom he was separated, and her boyfriend.

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Pavatt confessed to killing Rob to a friend, but denied that Brenda was involved, the Supreme Court noted. 

Brenda’s attorneys claimed in the lead up to her trial that the prosecution’s case was completely “circumstantial,” PEOPLE previously reported.

Pavatt is also currently on death row, having been convicted of murder one year before Brenda.