"I am not guilty of shooting anyone," James Pavatt told Oklahoma's Pardon and Parole Board last month, KOCO reported. The board voted 3 to 2 against recommending clemency, and the state plans to execute him on Thursday, November 12, for the 2001 murder of Rob Andrew in Oklahoma City.
Pavatt, an Air Force veteran, turns 73 two days before the scheduled date, Military.com reported. About 100 veterans wrote in support of sparing him. His lawyer, assistant federal public defender Hunter Labovitz, told the board the letter writers represented "an estimated 750 years of combined military service." The board was not persuaded. The October 14 vote, KTUL reported, came on a Wednesday morning in Oklahoma City.
Oklahoma's system leaves little room after a vote like that. It is one of the states where the governor must have a favorable recommendation from the independent board before granting clemency, which means a denial largely closes that door.
Two stories about the same night
At the hearing, Labovitz said the state has no "credible evidence" putting Pavatt at the scene, KOCO reported. "Here's what the state concedes. The blood spatter conclusively shows that Brenda Andrew fatally shot Rob Andrew," he said. The defense also pointed out that at the separate trial of Rob Andrew's wife, Brenda Andrew, prosecutors said she was the shooter, while at Pavatt's trial they said he was. Pavatt himself told the board, "It wasn't until my trial that I began to see the extent to which I have been manipulated by Brenda." Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Crabb answered that the two were "truly equally culpable."
The fullest public account of the evidence comes from an unlikely place: the U.S. Supreme Court's January 21, 2025, decision in Brenda Andrew's case, Andrew v. White. The case was about her trial, not his. But both the unsigned majority opinion and the dissent describe Pavatt's role, and we read both closely.
The majority opinion sets the scene in one sentence: "On November 20, 2001, Rob Andrew was fatally shot in his garage." Brenda Andrew, who was shot in the arm, told police two armed assailants had done it. She and Pavatt then traveled to Mexico together and soon became suspects. The opinion then says: "Eventually, Pavatt confessed to committing the shooting with a friend. Pavatt denied that Andrew had been involved."
The dissent, written by Justice Clarence Thomas and joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, fills in where that confession came from. "While in Mexico," it says, "Pavatt wrote a letter addressed to Andrew's daughter claiming that he and an unnamed 'friend' had killed Rob, and that Andrew had nothing to do with it."
That letter sits at the center of the clemency fight. Pavatt's position now is that he shot no one and that Brenda Andrew did. His written account from Mexico, as the justices describe it, said the reverse: that he and a friend did the killing and that she had no part in it.
What else the record says
The dissent lays out the case prosecutors built against the pair. We count six distinct strands in its account.
First, money. In February 2000, Rob Andrew bought an $800,000 life insurance policy through Pavatt, who was an insurance agent, with Brenda Andrew as beneficiary. Pavatt and the Andrews attended the same church, and by August 2001 Pavatt and Brenda Andrew were having an affair.
Second, an earlier attempt. One morning in October 2001, Rob Andrew found that his car's brake lines had been cut. That day he got calls from two callers falsely saying his wife was in the hospital. One caller turned out to be Pavatt's adult daughter, Janna Larson. Phone records showed Pavatt and Brenda Andrew exchanged 82 calls that day and more than 50 the next.
Third, the policy fight. After the brake lines were cut, Rob Andrew tried to remove his wife as beneficiary and told another agent he thought the two were trying to kill him. The dissent says they forged his signature on a form transferring ownership of the policy to her.
Fourth, the gun. Pavatt bought a .22 caliber handgun about a week before the murder. On the day of the killing he borrowed Larson's car, claiming he would have it serviced, and after he returned it she found a .22 caliber shell.
Fifth, the flight. Instead of attending the funeral, the pair went to Mexico with her children. Pavatt researched travel to Argentina after hearing it did not extradite. Larson cooperated with the FBI and refused to wire them money. They came back when they ran out, three months later, and were arrested.
Sixth, the letter.
None of this is new to the courts. The question in Andrew v. White was narrower: whether her jury heard so much irrelevant evidence about her sex life and clothing that her trial was unfair. The majority sent her case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to decide that question. Justice Samuel Alito agreed with the result but not the reasoning. Thomas and Gorsuch would have left her conviction alone.
Our count, by the calendar
By our arithmetic, Thursday is 9,123 days after Rob Andrew was killed, almost exactly 25 years. It is 29 days after the clemency vote and 660 days after the Supreme Court's ruling in Brenda Andrew's case.
Oklahoma has carried out three executions this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center's list of 2026 warrant outcomes: Kendrick Simpson on February 12, Raymond Johnson on May 14 and Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez on August 13. We counted the gaps. Each is exactly 91 days, and each date was a Thursday. Pavatt's November 12 date is 91 days after the last one, another Thursday. If it goes ahead, he would be the fourth person Oklahoma has executed in 2026, on the same day Texas plans to execute John Rubio.
After the clemency vote, Attorney General Gentner Drummond said, "Justice will be served when the death penalty is carried out on Nov. 12." Rob Andrew's family did not attend the hearing, KOCO reported.
What to watch
Any last request for a stay would have to be decided before Thursday. For how clemency hearings have gone elsewhere this fall, see our story on the Indiana board that urged denial for Jeffrey Weisheit, and on Texas's case this week, what the courts said about John Rubio's insanity claim. Tennessee's halted execution of Christa Pike is the other case shaping this season's death penalty calendar.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
