Diverse Amici File Briefs in Support of Brenda Andrew, Urging U.S. Supreme Court to Intervene in Most Recent Petition

On October 29, 2026, five groups filed amicus briefs asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review Brenda Andrew’s death sentence, which they say was shaped by pervasive gender bias at her trial. Her petition, which was filed on September 25, argues that the prosecution’s reliance on prejudicial evidence denied her the due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. At trial, prosecutors portrayed her as a bad wife and mother and dwelled on intimate details of her sex life. In their arguments to the jury, prosecutors called Ms. Andrew a “hoochie” and a “slut puppy.” They opened a suitcase and showed the jury Ms. Andrew’s underwear, asking, “The grieving widow packs this in her appropriate act of grief?” The prosecutor held a thong and lace bra in front of the jury and stated that a “grieving widow doesn’t pack her thong underwear and run off with her boyfriend.” Ms. Andrew’s jury sentenced her to death.

Among the amici is a coalition of Oklahoma-based organizations, faith communities, advocates, and individual allies, all of whom argue the state’s legal system faces systemic gender-based discrimination, explaining that the circuit court’s decision “compounds the unfairness of Ms. Andrew’s legal proceedings and mirrors Oklahoma’s disregard for gender bias in the legal system.” The filing adds that “[m]ost federal circuits have recognized that a fundamental fairness determination requires review of the whole record,” something the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit disregarded in reviewing Ms. Andrew’s case.

A group of advocates against gender bias and sex stereotyping, including Legal Momentum, the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Women’s Law Project, and twelve scholars write about the negative impact of “evidence that portrays a female defendant as violating society’s expectations of wives and mothers leads jurors to see her as immoral and especially deserving of severe punishment.” Their filing notes that prosecutors presented evidence “designed to produce exactly that effect,” and the fact that this evidence was presented “despite its admitted irrelevance” is the reason for the need for review. 

Three additional briefs were filed by Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, Fair and Just Prosecution, and Fair Trial Analysis, Inc.

On August 14, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit declined to reconsider Ms. Andrew’s case and the totality of the evidence in determining whether her trial was fundamentally unfair — leaving in place a panel ruling that found gender-biased evidence at her trial did not amount to a constitutional violation. Ms. Andrew, the only woman on Oklahoma’s death row, had asked the Tenth Circuit to rehear her case, arguing that a three-judge panel had improperly limited its review of the “rampant gender bias” that permeated her trial and had failed to follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2025 remand instructions.

The case dates to Ms. Andrew’s 2004 trial for the murder of her husband, Robert Andrew. The state alleged that Ms. Andrew, along with James Pavatt, a fellow member of her church, fatally shot Mr. Andrew, and offered circumstantial evidence of her involvement. At trial, the prosecution called witnesses to testify about Ms. Andrew’s “provocative” clothing and previous sexual relationships and questioned aloud “whether a good mother would dress or behave” in the ways Ms. Andrew had.

In its 2025 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court noted “[t]he State spent significant time at trial introducing evidence about [Ms.] Andrew’s sex life and about her failings as a mother and wife, much of which it later conceded was irrelevant,” including testimony from her previous sexual partners, evidence of the kind of clothing she wore before the crime, as well as attacking her fitness as a mother.