Texas Schedules Execution of Mentally Ill Prisoner Who Ate His Eye, After SCOTUS Refuses to Review Evidence of Racial Bias

Texas is planning to execute a seriously mentally ill prisoner who has gouged out both of his eyes because of his paranoid schizophrenia. On November 7, 2022, the District Court of Grayson County, Texas set an April 5, 2023 execution date for Andre Thomas (pictured, left when arrested; center, after gouging out his right eye prior to trial; right, after gouging out and eating his left eye while on death row). Thomas has been described by his attorneys as “one of the most mentally ill prisoners in Texas history.”

The issuance of an execution date comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to Thomas’ conviction based on evidence of jurors’ racial bias. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the denial of review. Justice Sotomayor wrote in the dissent that courts must “safeguard the fairness of criminal trials by ensuring that jurors do not harbor, or at the very least could put aside, racially biased sentiments.”

In a statement issued in response to Texas scheduling Thomas’ execution, Maurie Levin, Thomas’ lead counsel said, “For the past thirteen years Mr. Thomas has resided at the Wayne Scott Unit, where the most mentally ill Texas prisoners are housed. There he is given multiple powerful anti-psychotic drugs, which manage only to mitigate his auditory and visual hallucinations…As a blind and very sick man, Mr. Thomas poses no threat to others.”

Missouri Prepares to Execute Kevin Johnson Despite Special Prosecutor’s Call to Vacate Death Sentence

Despite a court-appointed special prosecutor’s request to vacate his death sentence, Missouri death-row prisoner Kevin Johnson (pictured, with daughter Khorry Ramey, left, and newborn grandson) is scheduled to be executed on November 29, 2022. The Missouri Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding a stay in the case less than 36 hours before the scheduled execution. Missouri Governor Mike Parson announced during the court's hearing that he would not grant clemency in the case.

St. Louis Circuit Judge Mary Elizabeth Ott appointed E.E. Keenan as special prosecutor on October 12. Keenan’s investigation found that Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch sought death sentence for Black defendants charged with killing police officers but didn’t seek the equivalent for a white defendant, Trenton Foster, charged with the same crime. The investigation also uncovered a memo indicating that McCulloch’s team struck Black jurors “deliberate[ly]” during Johnson’s second trial. Johnson’s first trial had resulted in a hung jury. Keenan concluded that, “These facts and others leave no serious doubt that Mr. McCulloch’s office discriminated,” and, in a November 15 motion, he urged the court to vacate Johnson’s death sentence so a “lawful trial and sentence may proceed.”

Ott denied Keenan’s motion on November 16 and in a later order on November 19 cited the time constraints preventing parties from appropriately preparing for a hearing and the court from “thoughtfully consider[ing]” the facts. Ott wrote that it was “inexplicable” that these claims were brought forward only 14 days prior to Johnson’s execution date and found it “disconcerting” that the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s office requested the court appoint a special prosecutor only a month earlier in October. On November 21, Keenan filed a motion with the Missouri Supreme Court, which set oral arguments regarding the stay of execution for November 28, one day before Johnson’s execution date. “There is no benefit to the public in rushing this execution forward tomorrow,” Keenan told the court. “What staying this execution will do is allow the legal process to proceed and, whatever the outcome is, it will ensure the public can have confidence that if we have a process or the death penalty that is carried out equitably and in a way the public can have confidence in.”

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