Facts of Capital Punishment and Mental Disability or Mental Illness

A collection of clips created by five students at The University of Texas at Austin showing how the media portrays mentally ill or mentally disabled persons facing capital punishment. This video hopes to correct the misrepresentation of the said subject by bringing out the facts. Link to Youtube video.

Produced by:
William Brown
Ken Stambaugh (video editor)
Taha Ahmed
Shreya Sigdel
Steven Rodriguez



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AP: Death row inmate pulls out eye, eats it

Associated Press is reporting that Andre Thomas, a Texas death row inmate pulled out his only good eye and told officers he ate it. He had already pulled out his other eye in 2004 while awaiting trial in Sherman. He was ruled competent to stand trial. This is a disturbing case of Texas' incompetence in addressing the needs of the mentally ill and also the injustice of executing the mentally ill and retarded.

By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press Writer

HOUSTON — A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye, authorities said Friday.

Andre Thomas told officers he ate it.

Thomas, 25, was arrested for the fatal stabbings of his estranged wife, their young son and her 13-month-old daughter in March 2004. Their hearts also had been ripped out. He was convicted and condemned for the infant's death.

While in the Grayson County Jail in Sherman, Thomas similarly had plucked out his right eye before his trial later in 2004. A judge subsequently ruled he was competent to stand trial.

A death-row officer at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found Thomas in his cell with blood on his face and had him taken to the unit infirmary.

""Thomas said he pulled out his eye and subsequently ingested it," agency spokesman Jason Clark said Friday.

Thomas was treated at East Texas Medical Center in Tyler after the Dec. 9 incident. Then he was transferred and remains at the Jester Unit, a prison psychiatric facility near Richmond southwest of Houston.

"He will finally be able to receive the mental health care that we had wanted and begged for from day 1," Bobbie Peterson-Cate, Thomas' trial attorney, told the Sherman Herald Democrat. "He is insane and mentally ill. It is exactly the same reason he pulled out the last one."

At his trial, defense lawyers also argued he suffered from alcohol and drug abuse.

Thomas does not have an execution date.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in October upheld his conviction and death sentence for the death of 13-month-old Leyha Marie Hughes. Also killed March 27, 2004, were his wife, Laura Christine Boren, 20, and their son, 4-year-old Andre Lee.

Thomas, from Texoma, walked into the Sherman Police Department and told a dispatcher he had just murdered the three and had stabbed himself in the chest.

Thomas told police how he put his victims' hearts in his pocket and left their apartment, took them home, put them in a plastic bag and threw them in the trash.

Court documents described the three victims as having "large, gaping wounds to their chests."

Breaking News: Supreme Court stops execution of Scott Panetti

High court blocks execution of mentally ill killer

The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the execution of a Texas killer whose lawyers argued that he should not be put to death because he is mentally ill.

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

Last update: June 28, 2007 – 9:32 AM

WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the execution of a Texas killer whose lawyers argued that he should not be put to death because he is mentally ill.

Scott Louis Panetti shot his in-laws to death 15 years ago in front of his wife and young daughter.

Panetti knows what he did, but believes that he is on death row because he preaches the word of God, his lawyers say.

Panetti's lawyers wanted the court to determine that people who cannot understand the connection between their crime and punishment because of mental illness may not be executed. The court voted 5-4 to stop his execution.

The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bars "the execution of a person who is so lacking in rational understanding that he cannot comprehend that he is being put to death because of the crime he was convicted of committing,'' they said in court papers.

Texas said the court should reject Panetti's appeal on procedural grounds. But it also argued that the court should set a tougher standard for mental illness exceptions to capital punishment. Only if a Death Row inmate "lacks the capacity to recognize that his punishment both is the result of his being convicted of capital murder and will cause his death'' should his execution be halted, the state said. Panetti is competent on that basis, it said.

The killings took place in September 1992.

A former ranch hand and native of Hayward, Wis., Panetti had a history of mental problems before his conviction, recording 14 hospital stays over 11 years.

Four courts have said he was competent when he fired his trial lawyers. A jury and two courts rejected his defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. He personally argued that only an insane person could prove the insanity defense, dressing in cowboy clothing and submitting an initial witness list that included Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy.

Then-Justice Lewis Powell said 20 years ago that a person may not be put to death if he cannot perceive "the connection between his crime and his punishment.''