Andrew v. White
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 21, 2025 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- January 21, 2025
- Term
- October Term 2024
- Vote
- 7–2
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 1 Per Curiam SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES BRENDA EVERS ANDREW v. TAMIKA WHITE, WARDEN ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT No. 23–6573. Decided January 21, 2025 PER CURIAM. An Oklahoma jury convicted Brenda Andrew of murder- ing her husband, Rob Andrew, and sentenced her to death. The State spent significant time at trial introducing evi- dence about Andrew’s sex life and about her failings as a mother and wife, much of which it later conceded was irrel- evant. In a federal habeas petition, Andrew argued that this evidence had been so prejudicial as to violate the Due Process Clause. 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 ev- idence could violate due process. That was wrong. By the time of Andrew’s trial, this Court had made clear 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 mecha- nism for relief.” Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808 , 825 (1991). I A On November 20, 2001, Rob Andrew was fatally shot in his garage. Brenda Andrew, who herself had been shot in the arm during the incident, told the police that two armed assailants had…
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