Lawyers for Texas death-rower Andre Thomas ask for clemency, citing mental illness

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A pardon petition was filed on Wednesday for death-rower Andre Thomas, asking Gov. Greg Abbott and the Board of Pardons and Parole of Texas to commute the blind 39-year-old man’s sentence to life in prison or grant a reprieve to determine whether Thomas is competent to be executed. this year.

The petition for clemency was accompanied by letters of support from dozens of Texas mental health professionals and more than 100 Texas religious leaders. Thomas, who first began to experience hallucinations as a child, faces execution on April 5th.

“We are united in our belief that this will be a senseless act of revenge,” Rev. Dr. Jaime Caulessar, senior pastor of the city’s Dallas Temple, said at a news conference Wednesday. “The answer to violence will never be violence again.”

Since his initial arrest in 2004 for the stabbing of his ex-wife, Laura Boren, 20 years; their 4-year-old son Andre Jr.; and her one-year-old daughter, Leiha Hughes, Thomas gouged out both of his eyes. He immediately confessed to the murders and told investigators that God told him to commit the murders. The following year, he was found guilty of the death of the youngest child, an automatic death sentence.

“Andre Thomas is one of the most mentally ill inmates in Texas history. Only the most mentally ill person can commit such acts of irreversible self-harm,” his lawyer, Maury Levine, said Wednesday. “If ever there was a case worthy of clemency, this is it.”

Thomas suffered from mental illness throughout his life and was treated with medication in prison.

The day before the murder, Thomas went to the local hospital for help because of his delusions. The reception form noted that he appeared psychotic and suicidal. He was left alone, and believing that no one was helping him, he left the hospital.

Last October, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal motion against Thomas’s conviction in which his lawyers argued that the jurors who convicted him of killing his wife and two children expressed racist views.

Thomas’ appeals lawyers argued that the three members of the all-white jury that found Thomas, who is black, guilty, expressed opposition to interracial marriages. His wife was white. At the time, Thomas’ lawyer did not object to the jury.

Five days after the murders, while awaiting trial in the Grayson County Jail, he gouged out his right eye. After being sent to the state prison, he gouged out his remaining eye and ate it.

At a press conference called by his attorney to discuss the application, Levine noted that House Bill 727, sponsored by Rep. Tony Rose, Dallas, ensures that defendants on death row with “severe mental illness” will be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. than death.

In 2021, the House of Representatives passed a similar bill with strong bipartisan support. The law is not retroactive and will not apply to Thomas or others who have already been convicted.