U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case of Texas Prisoner Whose Jurors Expressed Racist Views

With three jus­tices dis­sent­ing, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case of Texas death-row pris­on­er Andre Thomas, who was sen­tenced to death by jurors who admit­ted to racial bias. In a case involv­ing an inter­ra­cial mur­der and mar­riage, jurors who opposed inter­ra­cial rela­tion­ships were allowed to serve with­out objec­tion by defense coun­sel. These beliefs were ref­er­enced by the pros­e­cu­tion dur­ing clos­ing argu­ment at the sen­tenc­ing phase, where jurors were tasked to weigh Thomas’ long his­to­ry of severe men­tal ill­ness in decid­ing whether to sen­tence him to death. 

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?”

Dissenting from the Court’s denial of review, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, empha­sized the impor­tance of an unbi­ased jury. ​“No jury decid­ing whether to rec­om­mend a death sen­tence should be taint­ed by poten­tial racial bias­es that could infect its delib­er­a­tions or deci­sion, par­tic­u­lar­ly where the case involved an inter­ra­cial crime,” Sotomayor wrote. She wrote 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.” 

Maurie Levin, Thomas’ attor­ney, said in response to the Court’s denial, ​“Today’s cert denial in Mr. Thomas’s case abdi­cates the Court’s role and respon­si­bil­i­ty to ​‘con­front racial ani­mus in the jus­tice sys­tem’ Instead, the Court failed to even attempt to ensure ​‘the promise of equal treat­ment under the law that is so cen­tral to a func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy.’” She described Thomas’ severe men­tal ill­ness and said, ​“No one who hears the sto­ry of Mr. Thomas’ life believes he is men­tal­ly com­pe­tent. 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.”

Because the case involved an inter­ra­cial mar­riage, jurors were asked about their views on peo­ple of dif­fer­ent races mar­ry­ing and/​or hav­ing chil­dren. Three of the peo­ple who served on Thomas’ jury said they opposed inter­ra­cial mar­riage. One wrote, ​“I don’t believe God intend­ed for this.” Another wrote, ​“I think it is harm­ful for the chil­dren involved because they do not have a spe­cif­ic race to belong to,” and a third said, ​“I think we should stay with our Blood Line.” Thomas’ defense coun­sel did not attempt to remove any of the jurors for cause and did not use the avail­able peremp­to­ry strikes to remove them from the jury. 

Thomas had a long his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness and had 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. The delu­sions he was expe­ri­enc­ing led him to believe that his wife and the 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. His attor­ney described him as ​“one of the most men­tal­ly ill peo­ple in the his­to­ry of Texas’ death row.” Levin wrote, ​“To pur­sue his exe­cu­tion would be noth­ing but an ugly spec­ta­cle and would not make Texans safer.”