Andrews was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He sought to overturn his sentence on the ground that he had been denied the effective assistance of counsel. Andrews argued that his trial attorneys had failed to introduce mitigating evidence on a variety of issues, including the possibility that he had FAE.

In this post-conviction proceeding, Andrews offered the testimony of a psychiatrist that Andrews "might have suffered from Fetal Alcohol Effect." (52 P. 2d at 680).

The majority concluded for a variety of reasons that the trial attorneys acted reasonably in not offering more mitigating evidence. The justifications relied on by the court, however, all were related to other forms of mitigating evidence. The court explained that Andrews had failed to tell his attorneys about his reform school and prison experiences (another possible mitigating facto), that much of the mitigating evidence would have been from fellow prisoners with criminal records, that raising certain issues, would have allowed the prosecution to offer evidence of Andrews other crimes, and that Andrews did not want to involve his family. Only the latter was relevant to FAS, and there clearly were ways it could have been raised. It appears that, as in other cases, the majority mentioned the FAS factor but then focussed its opinion on other mitigating issues, losing track of the FAS problem.