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If Andre Thomas is not insane, the insanity-defense law is

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that capital murderer Andre Thomas, who plucked out both eyes while incarcerated awaiting his death sentence - and ate one of them - "is clearly 'crazy,' but he is also 'sane' under Texas law," reports the Dallas News. What that tells me is that we're confronting a bad law if it's so constricting the state's highest criminal court doesn't have leeway to deliver justice in cases where the defendant's criminal behavior is clearly driven by mental illness. It's just ridiculous to send somebody who's so obviously nuts to death row - what's the moral point of killing a guy who'd mutilate himself to death if you let him? What's the insanity defense for if not cases like this one?These are deep, murky waters the court has waded into to fish out yet another questionable death sentence from the drink, exposing either an inherent bias on the court, some poorly written law, or possibly both...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on March 18, 2009 (boomark / email).