El Dorado News-Times

Texas death row inmate who gouged out his eyes shouldn’t be executed

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Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas parole board should commute Andre Thomas’ sentence.

Andre Thomas, the Texas death row inmate who is so mentally ill that he gouged out both of his eyes and ate one of them, is scheduled to die by lethal injection in six weeks.

That should not be allowed to happen.

Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles should grant a clemency request made this week by Thomas’ attorneys, who say the delusional North Texas man is not mentally competent and should not be executed.

In their petition, the attorneys wrote that “the image of this eyeless, psychotic man being guided to the gurney would be a shameful spectacle — an unconscion­able use of the ultimate government­al power.” They are right.

The attorneys are asking the governor and parole board to show Thomas mercy by commuting his sentence to life in prison or, at the very least, granting a 120-day reprieve to allow time for the competency question to be considered by the Grayson County district judge who signed his death warrant in October.

Thomas’ case illustrate­s all too tragically why the state of Texas should not be in the business of executing people. Our criminal justice system does not consistent­ly mete out capital punishment, particular­ly when it comes to people who are mentally ill.

No one disputes that Thomas, who began hallucinat­ing at the age of 10, in 2004 killed his estranged wife, their 4-year-old son and her 1-year-old daughter. Believing they were possessed by demons, he cut out the childrens’ hearts and part of the woman’s lung, stuffing them in his pockets. The 21-year-old also tried to kill himself by stabbing himself in the chest. When he didn’t die he left the scene, turning himself in to police shortly after.

In the weeks before the killings, a paranoid Thomas twice tried to kill himself. Just two days before the slayings, an emergency room doctor deemed him mentally ill enough to be involuntar­ily committed. Thomas wandered away from the hospital before the paperwork

was completed, and an emergency order was issued for his immediate apprehensi­on but was never executed by police.

In March 2005, a jury rejected Thomas’ insanity defense in a trial. He was sentenced to death after his attorney failed to introduce evidence detailing his lengthy history of mental illness.

We’d like to think that over the last two decades a lot has changed in the way the criminal justice system handles people who are clearly mentally ill — from the actions of police to those of prosecutor­s and juries. A letter from 77 mental health officials nationwide to Abbott and the parole board supporting Thomas’ clemency states that the greater appreciati­on for early interventi­on that exists today might have prevented the tragic killings.

We can’t know if that would have been the case. But the execution of Thomas is indefensib­le, and Texas should commute his sentence.

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