Andre Thomas just ate his OTHER eyeball.

Young Texas Death Row inmate Andre Thomas plucked out his eyeball and ate it a couple of years ago; this week, he finally got around to extracted his other eyeball and eating it, as well, leaving himself completely blind.

The young man was convicted in 2004 of stabbing to death his wife and two small children. He then cut out their hearts, put them in his pocket, and left the scene with them.

The man is very clearly clinically insane, and has been diagnosed with numerous mental health issues.

After the removal of his second eyeball, he is currently- at least temporarily- in a prison psych facility. It is doubtful that many state resources will be poured into treating his mental illness, since he's scheduled to die soon anyway.

This man no more knows right from wrong than a feral animal does, or an infant.
Texas never should've sentenced him to death. They had no right.
It's not that I think he could ever be "cured", or become a productive citizen, or even live in the free world. I don't.
But if it's important to conservatives to keep a vegetable like Terri Schaivo alive, then we owe no less to this poor soul. He's as ill, as profoundly disabled, as Schaivo, and if we can't cure him, we owe it to him to keep him safe and comfortable. He's done nothing wrong. He's just sick.
The executioner who kills him will have the murder of an innocent on his immortal soul, if such things exist.


Texas death row inmate in psych facility after eating his eyeball

Andre Thomas

1069 said:

The executioner who kills him will have the murder of an innocent on his immortal soul, if such things exist.

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Is there any place to sign up for that job? :2wave:

1069 said:

Young Texas Death Row inmate Andre Thomas plucked out his eyeball and ate it a couple of years ago; this week, he finally got around to extracted his other eyeball and eating it, as well, leaving himself completely blind.

The young man was convicted in 2004 of stabbing to death his wife and two small children. He then cut out their hearts, put them in his pocket, and left the scene with them.

The man is very clearly clinically insane, and has been diagnosed with numerous mental health issues.

After the removal of his second eyeball, he is currently- at least temporarily- in a prison psych facility. It is doubtful that many state resources will be poured into treating his mental illness, since he's scheduled to die soon anyway.

This man no more knows right from wrong than a feral animal does, or an infant.
Texas never should've sentenced him to death. They had no right.
It's not that I think he could ever be "cured", or become a productive citizen, or even live in the free world. I don't.
But if it's important to conservatives to keep a vegetable like Terri Schaivo alive, then we owe no less to this poor soul. He's as ill, as profoundly disabled, as Schaivo, and if we can't cure him, we owe it to him to keep him safe and comfortable. He's done nothing wrong. He's just sick.
The executioner who kills him will have the murder of an innocent on his immortal soul, if such things exist.


Texas death row inmate in psych facility after eating his eyeball

Andre Thomas

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On the bright side, he can't do it again, he's out of eyeballs to eat.

Putting him to death would be the most humane act we could take.

That dude is truly one ****ed up individual. He should be institutionalized in hope that we can figure out what is wrong and perhaps treat it effectively in the future.

I thought being crazy bat**** in and of itself does not exclude culpability
one can be a loon, but still know what he was doing and that it was wrong

1069 said:

But if it's important to conservatives to keep a vegetable like Terri Schaivo alive, then we owe no less to this poor soul. He's as ill, as profoundly disabled, as Schaivo, and if we can't cure him, we owe it to him to keep him safe and comfortable. He's done nothing wrong. He's just sick.

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Sick or not, he has done something very wrong, something that we as a society cannot tolerate. And you note yourself that there is nothing that we can do for him-- no way to fix him, no way to return him back to life in the community.

Allowing Ms. Schiavo to die was the right thing to do, and a better society than ours would have eased her of her life more gracefully than allowing her to dehydrate for two weeks.

1069 said:

The executioner who kills him will have the murder of an innocent on his immortal soul, if such things exist.

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I would volunteer. And I am certain that I would sleep well that night.

Tucker Case said:

That dude is truly one ****ed up individual. He should be institutionalized in hope that we can figure out what is wrong and perhaps treat it effectively in the future.

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How do you know that eyeballs aren't really, really tasty? :lol:

independent_thinker2002 said:

How do you know that eyeballs aren't really, really tasty? :lol:

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I lol'd and spit water on my keyboard.

I'm... so ashamed. :3oops:

DiAnna said:

I lol'd and spit water on my keyboard.

I'm... so ashamed. :3oops:

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Tucker's taught me to look at the bright side of things. :rofl

Korimyr the Rat said:

Sick or not, he has done something very wrong, something that we as a society cannot tolerate. And you note yourself that there is nothing that we can do for him-- no way to fix him, no way to return him back to life in the community.

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About the 'he has done something very wrong' notion, I disagree. Does a shark that eats a human do something 'wrong'? There is no 'wrong' unless the creature in question can understand the moral concept in question, and also apprehends the circumstances of a situation realistically.

If a person believes that god is telling them to stab someone 144 times because it will cleanse said person of their evil thoughts and the person obeys the moral imperative to render aid and goes ahead and stabs said person 144 times, said 'murderer' has acted morally as they understand it. The fact that their apprehension of reality is completely flawed is an unfortunate thing, a dangerous thing, but it warrants our compassion rather than our moral outrage.

In fact, when I watch people get into a big old tizzy of moral outrage about the acts of the insane I think it's pathetic.

Now, the sort of thing I have described is not what people usually get all wound up about. What they seem to get freaked out about is severe psychopaths, because they appear to be capable of making moral decisions. People think the same thing about their house pets too, when they think their dog has a "guilty" look on it's face when they catch the animal studiously ripping the stuffing out of a pillow. Appearances can be deceiving.

Because the psychopath is able to make some kinds of logical and causal connections, people assume that moral decision making is also possible. It is my opinion that such is not the case. Morality involves a whole set of abilities that I believe a small minority of people were simply born without.

Perhaps such people are not really "human" under some definitions. Perhaps the most 'humane' thing is for us to put them to death. I can see these positions. However, the moral outrage against them is just entirely illogical.

Dezaad said:

About the 'he has done something very wrong' notion, I disagree. Does a shark that eats a human do something 'wrong'?

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A shark does not live among men. And society's response to shark which has eaten men is no different than what I would advocate for this unfortunate person-- and it would hold the exact same moral judgment.

Dezaad said:

The fact that their apprehension of reality is completely flawed is an unfortunate thing, a dangerous thing, but it warrants our compassion rather than our moral outrage.

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I do not think it warrants either. As pointless and misplaced as moral outrage would be, our compassion would serve no more purpose. Our compassion is better reserved for people who can benefit from it, and people for whom we can benefit from their improvement.

Korimyr the Rat said:

A shark does not live among men. And society's response to shark which has eaten men is no different than what I would advocate for this unfortunate person-- and it would hold the exact same moral judgment.



I do not think it warrants either. As pointless and misplaced as moral outrage would be, our compassion would serve no more purpose. Our compassion is better reserved for people who can benefit from it, and people for whom we can benefit from their improvement.

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You speak as if compassion is a limited commodity.
As if, should we show Andre Thomas compassion and mercy, we wouldn't have enough left over for other, more deserving recipients.
That is simply not the case.

Korimyr the Rat said:

A shark does not live among men. And society's response to shark which has eaten men is no different than what I would advocate for this unfortunate person-- and it would hold the exact same moral judgment.

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Well, then, as long as you have no moral revulsion toward shark attacks, we agree well enough.

I do not think it warrants either. As pointless and misplaced as moral outrage would be, our compassion would serve no more purpose. Our compassion is better reserved for people who can benefit from it, and people for whom we can benefit from their improvement.

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In the case of psychopaths, I think I may agree. I'd have to do more study to determine whether their state of mind is truly hopeless.

Some other types of insanity are treatable with the use of medications. These people can often be returned to the general population of citizens with a reasonable level of confidence that they will be assets to that society. These ones benefit from our compassion and that compassion is therefore entirely warranted.

1069 said:

You speak as if compassion is a limited commodity.
As if, should we show Andre Thomas compassion and mercy, we wouldn't have enough left over for other, more deserving recipients.
That is simply not the case.

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The sentiment may be as you say unlimited. However, some people view 'compassion' as more than just the sentiment that is associated with it. That 'more' is the comprised of the actions one takes, the resources one dedicates, the emotional energy one expends, toward relieving the suffering of another. This may be more limited.

I have the sentiment of compassion toward psychopaths (even though I find them very frightening). I have the action based sort of compassion toward the insanely delusional.

1069 said:

You speak as if compassion is a limited commodity.
As if, should we show Andre Thomas compassion and mercy, we wouldn't have enough left over for other, more deserving recipients.
That is simply not the case.

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Compassion and mercy are not barriers to the death penalty. Just because you hold a person accountable for their actions doesn't mean you haven't compassion or mercy. That's the danger of your thinking.

You break down the tried and true walls of society. "We believe X is wrong, commit X act and you will suffer Y punishment."

And most of your objections are, well hell let's be honest here, all of your objections are based on how you feel about holding a persona accountable for their actions, because you cannot handle the consequence for that action.

I'm sorry but, bat **** insane would apply to every one that killed another in anger, because let's face it, murder ain't a rationale action. However there are people whom no help can be given, no matter how much you feel that it would be good to try. This guy is an obvious case... like a mongral dog that attacks children, or a wolf that preys on livestock. We could waste months, years and many man hours attempting to fix the problem with only probable dubious results, or we could put them down.

Why is it people like you are willing to waste time, and that's what your suggesting, waste, effort and money because you cannot handle the thought of a person being held accountable for their actions?

Ya know, interestingly enough, and I might start a topic on this cause it's got me pissed off btw, but the computer labs I work in, we have some old ass computers, with small15" monitors. We got about a dozen really nice ones in, wide screen types. Guess where they went? TO the adaptive tech computers.

Those might get used once a week on a GOOD week, but we dropped serious $$ on them. Good money that could have been used to upgrade our lab, buy parts to fix broken equipment, but instead it went to provide really good monitors for a 1% of the population. Because it "felt good".

That's the same mindset you have here, on a diff scale and subject, but the results are the same, wasted time because.. of emotion.

independent_thinker2002 said:

How do you know that eyeballs aren't really, really tasty? :lol:

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I already know they are tasty, you just don't eat your own because then you can't see enough to pluck out someone else's and eat it.