Save Andre Thomas
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Governor Greg Abbott
For the past 15 years, Andre Thomas has resided at the Wayne Scott Unit, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s psychiatric facility, where the most mentally ill Texas prisoners are housed. He suffers from schizophrenia and permanently blinded himself by gouging out both of his eyes, on separate occasions. These were acts of permanent self-mutilation that only the most mentally ill person could ever undertake. Over the course of his life, Mr. Thomas sought treatment for the symptoms of his severe mental illness, but no one responded to his increasingly desperate pleas for help.
UPDATE: On March 7, 2023, the 15th Judicial District Court in Grayson County withdrew Andre Thomas’s April 5th execution date to allow his legal team reasonable time to investigate and prepare a threshold showing that Thomas is incompetent for execution. Thanks to everyone who has signed and shared this petition. We will be in touch with further developments in this case.
Original petition:
Attorneys for Mr. Thomas have asked Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute his death sentence to life in prison or, in the alternative, to grant a reprieve to allow the courts to determine whether he is competent for execution, as the Constitution requires.
Join TCADP and the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Texas in insisting the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Abbott spare Andre Thomas’s life.
Sign this petition and join our campaign to #SaveAndreThomas today.
More information about Andre Thomas:
Andre Thomas is a Black man with severe mental illness who was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury in Grayson County (Sherman), Texas in 2005.
Mr. Thomas grew up in extreme poverty in a family riddled with mental illness. At the age of nine, he started hearing voices in his head, and he attempted suicide for the first time when he was ten years old. He later made several more attempts to take his own life, including during the crime.
In 2004, when Mr. Thomas was 21 and suffering from severe schizophrenia and active psychosis, he followed the voices in his head and murdered his estranged wife, Laura Boren, a white woman, their son Andre, and his wife’s daughter, Leyha, before attempting to take his own life by stabbing himself in the chest. When he realized he was not dying, he turned himself into the police.
Mr. Thomas's case is riddled with disturbing details, including racial bias. Several members of the all-white jury that sentenced him to death expressed overt racial bias on their pre-trial jury questionnaires. Their reasoning included the beliefs that “we should stay with our Blood Line” and “I don’t believe God intended for this,” referring to interracial marriage, a fact in Mr. Thomas’s case.
The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of a prisoner who, like Mr. Thomas, does not understand why he is being executed. Since being on death row, Mr. Thomas’s mental health has deteriorated. He is not competent to be executed.
Keeping Mr. Thomas in prison for life would be a just punishment that keeps the public safe. Executing Mr. Thomas would make a mockery of decency, fairness, and justice.
For more information about our work to stop executions, visit www.TCADP.org. For more information about NAMI-Texas, visit https://namitexas.org/.
Thank you!
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To:
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Governor Greg Abbott
From:
[Your Name]
Dear Governor Abbott, Chairman Gutiérrez, and Members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles:
I am deeply alarmed the State of Texas seeks to execute Andre Thomas, a man with severe mental illness who has gouged out both of his own eyes, on April 5, 2023. The State’s pursuit of his execution makes a mockery of decency, fairness, and justice.
For the past 15 years, Mr. Thomas has resided at the Wayne Scott Unit, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s psychiatric facility, where the most mentally ill Texas prisoners are housed. Over the course of his young life, Mr. Thomas repeatedly sought help for the symptoms of his schizophrenia, but no one responded to his increasingly desperate pleas. This lack of attention from those who could have helped Mr. Thomas had dire consequences, leading to the horrific murders for which he was sentenced to death in 2005.
Instead of recognizing the killings of Laura, their son Andre Jr., and her daughter, Leyha as acts committed by someone in the throes of active psychosis, the Grayson County District Attorney sought the death penalty for Mr. Thomas and then stacked the deck against him by removing any potential Black jurors from the jury pool. Even more egregious, several people who expressed opposition to interracial marriage were allowed to sit on Mr. Thomas’s all-white jury. This kind of explicit racial bias has no place in a Texas courtroom and it cannot be allowed to stand, especially in a case with a life-or-death outcome.
Mr. Thomas does not pose a threat to anyone. Keeping him in prison for the rest of his life will hold him accountable for his crime and keep the public safe. I respectfully request the Board recommend clemency for Andre Thomas and for Governor Abbott to grant it. The reputation of the State of Texas depends on it.
Signed,