HOUSTON (AP) — Next month's scheduled execution of a Texas death row inmate, whose attorneys say gouged out both of his eyes —each a separate incident— because of severe mental illness, was delayed by a judge on Tuesday.
Andre Thomas had been set to be executed on April 5, sentenced to death for fatally stabbing in March 2004 his estranged wife Laura Christine Boren, 20, their 4-year-old son Andre Lee and her 13-month-old daughter Leyha Marie Hughes, cutting out the hearts of the two children.
He later told police God had instructed him to commit the killings and that he believed all three were demons. The killings of Boren and her children shocked Sherman, a city of about 45,000 residents 65 miles north of Dallas.
State District Judge Jim Fallon on Tuesday issued an order withdrawing the execution date. Fallon’s decision came after Thomas’ lawyers had requested additional time to prepare for a court hearing to review his competency.
The Supreme Court has prohibited the death penalty for the intellectually disabled, but not for people with serious mental illness. However, it has ruled that a person must be competent to be executed.
"We are confident that when we present the evidence of Mr. Thomas’s incompetence, the court will agree that executing him would violate the Constitution,” Maurie Levin, Thomas’ attorney, wrote in a statement. “Guiding this blind psychotic man to the gurney for execution offends our sense of humanity and serves no legitimate purpose."
His attorneys have said that after he gouged out the second eye, he ate it to ensure that the government could not hear his thoughts.
More than 100 faith leaders and others had earlier asked Gov. Greg Abbott to stop the 39-year-old’s execution.
J. Kerye Ashmore, with the Grayson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, said the faith leaders and others calling for clemency for Thomas are not fully informed about tPost too long. Click here to view the full text.
