The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 21 summarily overturned the conviction of an Oklahoma woman sentenced to death for murdering her estranged husband.
Justice Clarence Thomas filed an opinion dissenting from the new decision. Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the dissent.
The high court issued a 7–2 opinion reviving the case of petitioner Brenda Evers Andrew and sending it back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit for reconsideration. The opinion’s author was not identified. No oral argument was held.
Andrew is Oklahoma’s only female death row inmate.
Andrew said prosecutors “sex-shamed” her at her trial, displaying her thong underwear for the jury to see. Prosecutors’ use of her “plainly irrelevant sexual history” ran afoul of her due process rights and ought to invalidate her 2004 conviction, the Supreme Court said….