Andrew v. White
On November 20, 2001, Rob Andrew was shot and murdered. His estranged wife, Brenda Andrew, and her new partner, James Pavatt, were quickly framed as suspects in the shooting. Though Pavatt ultimately confessed to the shooting, he denied that Brenda Andrew was involved. However, the State still charged Andrew with capital murder; at the trial, the prosecution drew from extensive evidence that depicted Andrew as sexually provocative and morally depraved. Andrew’s sex life became a central issue in the trial, with prosecutors arguing that her sexual history made her a “bad wife, bad mother, and a bad woman.” Andrew was convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to death.
Appealing the ruling, Andrew claimed that the prosecution had introduced irrelevant evidence about her sexual history, rendering the guilt and penalty phases of her trial “unfair.” By case precedent in Payne v. Tennessee (1991), Andrew argued that when “evidence is introduced that is so unduly prejudicial that it renders the trial fundamentally unfair, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides a mechanism for relief.” Citing this reasoning, she contended that evidence in her trial was prejudicial, violating the Due Process Clause. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit rejected the claim under the assumption that no holding of the Court clearly established a rule that erroneous inclusion of prejudicial evidence could constitute a violation of due process.
Coming before the Supreme Court in January 2024, Andrew, then the only woman on death row in Oklahoma, reappealed for federal habeas relief. To challenge the legality of one’s incarceration through federal habeas relief, the death-sentenced prisoner must show that the state court “unreasonably applied ‘clearly established Federal law, as determined by’ the Court.” In a per curiam decision, the Court vacated and remanded the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Tenth Circuit, arguing that Payne established that the Due Process Clause can protect against the use of prejudicial evidence that renders a trial fundamentally unfair. However, by sending the case back to the lower courts, the Court did not rule on whether the precedent of Payne applies to Andrew’s case. As Justice Alito acutely highlights in his concurring opinion, acknowledging that Payne and other case law are sufficient to establish the protections of the Due Process Clause does not constitute an admission that Andrew’s case meets the “high standard” necessary. Future rulings by lower courts will determine if the trial court’s admission of evidence was so prejudicial that Andrew’s trial was fundamentally unfair.
Beyond the Court’s immediate decision, Andrew v. White invites greater debate over the stereotyping of women in the criminal justice system. The prosecution convicted Andrew under the pretense that she did not fit the norms of the ‘ideal’ woman; her clothing was not demure enough, and her behavior was too sexually promiscuous. To impose these rigid gender norms as justification for the death penalty can pose a suffocating threat to any woman who does not adhere with the traditional stereotypes of womanhood. In a legal system that lauds itself on the ideals of impartiality, incorporation of biased stereotypes is “odious…[and] pernicious in the administration of justice.” Andrew v. White marks a potential turning point, as the Court seems to be signaling that the prejudicial evidence attacking women on the basis of their nonconformity to gender norms might pose a fundamental violation to women’s constitutional rights.