“Killer who tore out own eyes fuels Texas debate on insanity defense”
The title of this post is the headline of this piece from the Dallas Morning News. Here are some excerpts from the piece:
Everyone agrees Andre Thomas is crazy. In 2004, he cut out the hearts of his wife and her two children and pocketed them. Before his murder trial, he plucked out his right eye. In January, while on death row, he ripped out his other eye and swallowed it.
Thus far, courts say Thomas is not insane. His case is a classic example of the complexities of Texas’ insanity defense law – and why some mental health advocates are pushing to change it. Several bills pending in the Texas Legislature would do just that….
Thomas is “clearly ‘crazy,’ ” a judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals wrote in a concurring denial of his appeal last month, “but he is also ‘sane’ under Texas law.”
Death penalty opponent Maurie Levin, an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, is appalled. “There is something just horribly wrong with a system that permits somebody as severely mentally ill as Andre Thomas to be found competent to stand trial or sane at the time of that crime,” said Levin, who consulted with Thomas’ defense attorney.
[Professor Bruce] Winick … expects the U.S. Supreme Court eventually to weigh in on the issue. So far, the court has ruled only that an inmate must be competent to be executed. Last summer the high court also ruled a mentally ill defendant cannot represent himself in court. But the court has not ruled on whether an inmate may be forcibly medicated to render him competent – and therefore eligible for execution. That issue may be ripe for the Supreme Court to decide.
Winick thinks the court ultimately may have to rule whether it is unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on someone who is sane but mentally ill. That issue is a “natural extension,” he said, of the court’s decisions prohibiting execution for the mentally retarded and juveniles because they have less ability to understand the consequences of their crimes.
Some related posts: