By Leslie Acevedo
AUSTIN, TX – The 15th Judicial Court, Grayson County, withdrew the scheduled execution date of death row inmate Andre Thomas this week to allow Thomas’s legal team time to compile information showing Thomas is incompetent for execution.
Maurie Levin, attorney for Thomas, said, “The Court was right to follow the Constitution by withdrawing Andre Thomas’s execution date, as the law forbids the execution of people who are insane.”
Levin added, “The actions of the State prevented Mr. Thomas’s counsel from obtaining until last week even the most basic tools necessary to make the showing of his incompetence.”
Levin argued Thomas is one of the “[m]ost mentally ill prisoners in Texas history, having gouged out both of his eyes and eaten one of them,” because of enduring profound and lifelong mental illness.
Levin said, “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.”
