MENTAL ILLNESS: Texas Inmate Gouges Out Eyes, Remains on Death Row

Texas death-row inmate Andre Thomas has been diag­nosed with para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, and audi­to­ry hal­lu­ci­na­tions drove him to gouge out both of his eyes. Nevertheless, pros­e­cu­tors still believe he should be executed. 

In a reveal­ing recent essay in Mother Jones mag­a­zine, author Marc Bookman described in vivid detail Thomas’s fam­i­ly his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness, sub­stance abuse, and domes­tic vio­lence going back at least two generations. 

A brief excerpt from the arti­cle epit­o­mized Thomas’s delu­sions: ​“On July 14, 2008, Andre man­aged to pro­cure some­thing sharp and slash a sev­en-cen­time­ter gash in his throat, requir­ing eight stitch­es. He insist­ed that he was the cause of all the prob­lems in the world, and that if he killed him­self all the prob­lems would stop. The next day, he report­ed that he had been read­ing his Bible and got con­fused because he was­n’t sure if it was the voic­es or his own thoughts that were telling him to kill him­self. During a psy­chi­atric assess­ment one week lat­er, he explained that ​‘The gov­ern­ment is con­spir­ing to read my mind. That’s why I ripped out my right eye. That’s the right­eous side. They can’t hear my thoughts no more. I cut my throat. Gotta shed a lit­tle blood to save the world.’ ” 

In the three weeks before he killed his wife and two chil­dren, police were asked to appre­hend him and bring him to a men­tal hos­pi­tal on two sep­a­rate occa­sions. After Thomas removed his sec­ond eye, he was moved to a facil­i­ty for men­tal­ly ill pris­on­ers, but the state con­tin­ues to pur­sue his execution.

In addi­tion to the issue of men­tal ill­ness, Thomas’s tri­al was taint­ed with racial prob­lems: 4 of the 12 jurors expressed dis­ap­proval of inter­ra­cial mar­riage (Thomas is black, his wife was white), and his tri­al jury was 100% white.