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Criminal Law

: Grits for Breakfast

Prevention, punishment, mental illness and crime

The US Supreme Court has said executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional, but the mentally ill are still fair game. Dr. Lucy Puryear, a clinical psychiatrist from the Baylor College of Medicine offers a thoughtful discussion at Women in Crime Ink regarding the astonishing case of Andre Thomas, a schizophrenic death row inmate who plucked out his only good eye and ate it (he'd pulled the first one out while sitting in jail awaiting his capital murder trial), adding a whole new dimension to the biblical adage, "an eye for an eye."Thomas' crime couldn't have been more horrific. As Dr. Puryear described it:In 2004 Andre Thomas killed his wife and children, cut their hearts out, put the hearts in his pocket, and walked outside. He then went home, put them in a plastic bag and threw them out...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on January 21, 2009 (boomark / email).