A Cardiff University academic's research has been instrumental in giving a woman on death row in the USA a fresh chance to challenge her conviction.
Dr Amanda Potts is a scholar who has previously researched stereotyping narratives of women who kill . Based on this expertise, Dr Potts was co-author on an amicus brief , a document commonly used in the US courts and filed by relevant experts, which argued that evidence presented in the trial of Brenda Andrew was prejudicial and that prosecutors may have violated her right to a fair trial by introducing lurid evidence about her sexual activities.
Brenda Andrew is the only woman on Oklahoma's death row and was convicted of killing her husband. Last month, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision, so that she can go back to the appeals court to ask them to reconsider her case. This landmark ruling was covered in The New York Times .
The Court held that the Constitution clearly prohibits the State from introducing evidence that is so prejudicial that the criminal trial becomes fundamentally unfair. It also acknowledged that prosecutors introduced sex-based stereotypes throughout Brenda's trial, such as the outfits Brenda wore to dinner, the underwear she packed for a holiday, testimony about her sexual history, and how good mothers ought to behave.
Dr Potts, a linguist based at the University's School of English, Communication and Philosophy, said: "The Court's opinion is historic. It sends the message that using gendered tropes to justify a conviction and death sentence is intolerable, and that the Constitution provides protections for those who do not follow rigid gender norms.
"Brenda's case will now return to the Tenth Circuit, where she will have a new opportunity to show that the sex-shaming evidence that prosecutors weaponised against her at trial was indeed so prejudicial that her trial was rendered fundamentally unfair."
Amicus briefs are filed by people, groups, or organisations who have strong interests in the subject of a case but are not parties to or directly involved in the litigation. A court can decide to take these viewpoints into account when making their ruling. In addition to co-authoring amicus briefs, Dr Potts has written on the role of these texts in abortion cases over 50 years in the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
