HOUSTON—Next month’s scheduled execution of a Texas death row inmate, whose attorneys say gouged out both of his eyes—each a separate incident—because of severe mental illness, was delayed by a judge on Tuesday.
Andre Thomas had been set to be executed on April 5, sentenced to death for fatally stabbing in March 2004 his estranged wife Laura Christine Boren, 20, their 4-year-old son Andre Lee, and her 13-month-old daughter Leyha Marie Hughes, cutting out the hearts of the two children.
The killings of Boren and her children shocked Sherman, a city of about 45,000 residents 65 miles north of Dallas.
State District Judge Jim Fallon on Tuesday issued an order withdrawing the execution date. Fallon’s decision came after Thomas’ lawyers had requested additional time to prepare for a court hearing to review his competency.
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.
“We are confident that when we present the evidence of Mr. Thomas’s incompetence, the court will agree that executing him would violate the Constitution,” Maurie Levin, Thomas’ attorney, wrote in a statement. “Guiding this blind psychotic man to the gurney for execution offends our sense of humanity and serves no legitimate purpose.”
His attorneys have said that after he gouged out the second eye, he ate it to ensure that the government could not hear his thoughts.
Fallon’s order gives Thomas’ attorneys until July 5 to file their motion asking that the inmate’s competency be reviewed before his execution can proceed. If Fallon decides Thomas’ lawyers have presented sufficient evidence to go forward, experts will be appointed to examine him, and other evidence will be reviewed by the judge before he would make a decision.
