A death row inmate who cut his own eyes out has pleaded for clemency to avoid his upcoming execution.
In 2004, Andre Thomas was 21 when he fatally stabbed his estranged wife Laura Christine Boren, 20, their 4-year-old son Andre Lee and her 13-month-old daughter Leyha Marie Hughes.
He cut out the hearts of the two children, later telling police God had instructed him to commit the killings and that he believed all three were demons.
The killings happened in his hometown of Sherman, Texas, US.
His execution is scheduled for April 5 but lawyers and civil rights groups claim he isn't competent to face his sentence.
Attorneys say Thomas has been plagued by mental illness all his life, started hearing voices when he was nine years old and first attempted suicide when he was 10.
At his trial jurors rejected his insanity defence with prosecutors saying he knew his conduct was wrong and exacerbated his mental condition with drug use.
Thomas is now blind having gouged out his eyes, eating one of them to ensure that the government could not hear his thoughts, his attorneys said.
His attorneys along with over 100 faith leaders and dozens of mental health professionals asked Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute his sentence to life in prison or to grant a reprieve so the courts can determine his competency for execution.
“Gov. Abbott has the power to stop the spectacle of prison guards leading a blind, mentally incompetent, delusional man to the death chamber,” said attorney Maurie Levin.
Abbott has granted clemency to only one death row inmate since taking office in 2015.
The killings of Boren and her children shocked Sherman, a city of about 45,000 residents 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of Dallas.
“A jury has spoken about what justice should be in this case. We are not going to ignore that,” said J. Kerye Ashmore, with the Grayson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case.
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.
Thomas’ attorneys will have to file a court motion asking that his competency be reviewed. A judge would ultimately decide the issue.
His attorneys say prison records show that as recently as December, Thomas “still hallucinate(s) constantly,” including “voices ‘from a spiritual prison’ and seeking ‘angels.’”
“He is one of the most mentally ill prisoners in Texas history,” Levin said.
Ashmore said the standard to determine if someone is competent to be executed is not “whether he is mentally ill or has hallucinations” but figuring out if an inmate understands why he is being put to death or that his execution is imminent.
The Texas Legislature is set to debate a bill that would make people with severe mental illness ineligible for the death penalty. Similar bills failed to become law in 2019 and 2021.
Kentucky and Ohio have approved such measures in recent years.
“It would be very troubling to execute Mr. Thomas at the exact time that the (Texas) House is once again considering exempting people like him from being executed, said Greg Hansch, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Texas.
If such a bill became Texas law, it wouldn’t be retroactive.
