Texas Schedules Execution of Mentally Ill Prisoner Who Ate His Eye, After SCOTUS Refuses to Review Evidence of Racial Bias

Texas is plan­ning to exe­cute a seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill pris­on­er who has gouged out both of his eyes because of his para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia. On November 7, 2022, the District Court of Grayson County, Texas set an April 5, 2023 exe­cu­tion date for Andre Thomas (pic­tured, left when arrest­ed; cen­ter, after goug­ing out his right eye pri­or to tri­al; right, after goug­ing out and eat­ing his left eye while on death row). Thomas has been described by his attor­neys as ​“one of the most men­tal­ly ill pris­on­ers in Texas history.” 

The issuance of an exe­cu­tion date comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a chal­lenge to Thomas’ con­vic­tion based on evi­dence of jurors’ racial bias. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dis­sent­ed from the denial of review. Justice Sotomayor wrote in the dis­sent that courts must ​“safe­guard the fair­ness of crim­i­nal tri­als by ensur­ing that jurors do not har­bor, or at the very least could put aside, racial­ly biased sentiments.” 

In a state­ment issued in response to Texas sched­ul­ing Thomas’ exe­cu­tion, Maurie Levin, Thomas’ lead coun­sel said, ​“For the past thir­teen years Mr. Thomas has resided at the Wayne Scott Unit, where the most men­tal­ly ill Texas pris­on­ers are housed. There he is giv­en mul­ti­ple pow­er­ful anti-psy­chot­ic drugs, which man­age only to mit­i­gate his audi­to­ry and visu­al hallucinations…As a blind and very sick man, Mr. Thomas pos­es no threat to others.”

Thomas has a long his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness begin­ning at age 9 and has attempt­ed sui­cide sev­er­al times. Two days before the mur­ders, he attempt­ed sui­cide and was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal, where a social work­er ​“not­ed that he was expe­ri­enc­ing delu­sions and reli­gious pre­oc­cu­pa­tions.” A doc­tor sought an emer­gency order to con­fine Thomas to a men­tal health facil­i­ty, but left him unat­tend­ed, and Thomas left the hos­pi­tal. Delusions con­vinced him that his estranged wife and her chil­dren were demon­ic and that killing them was a reli­gious mis­sion. Five days after the mur­ders, he gouged out his right eye because he believed that he was com­mand­ed to do so by the Bible. His men­tal state con­tin­ued to dete­ri­o­rate after he was sen­tenced to death, and years lat­er he gouged out his left eye and ate it. 

Thomas, who is Black, was con­vict­ed of killing his estranged wife, who was white, along with their bira­cial child and his wife’s child from anoth­er rela­tion­ship. The jury that con­vict­ed Thomas was all white, and three jurors – one quar­ter of the jury – said they dis­ap­proved of peo­ple of dif­fer­ent races mar­ry­ing or hav­ing chil­dren togeth­er. The pros­e­cu­tor played on the jury’s bias­es dur­ing the penal­ty phase, ask­ing the jury, ​“Are you going to take the risk about him ask­ing your daugh­ter out or your granddaughter out?” 

Sam Spital, Director of Litigation for the Legal Defense Fund and a mem­ber of Thomas’ legal team before the U.S. Supreme Court, said in the state­ment that ​“It should alarm every Texan that racial bias poi­soned Mr. Thomas’ case.… Mr. Thomas’ exe­cu­tion would make a mock­ery of a fun­da­men­tal con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple: racial bias must play no role in the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penalty.” 

In response to the Supreme Court deci­sion, Levin told The Texas Tribune that ​“Guiding a blind, delu­sion­al man onto Texas’ gur­ney would be an indeli­ble image that would cast a per­ma­nent shad­ow over Texas’ rep­u­ta­tion. Texas can keep the pub­lic safe by keep­ing Mr. Thomas in prison for life.”