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Recently a Texas Judge delayed the execution of Andre Thomas \u2013 a man who is so severely mentally ill, the crime he committed of killing his wife and mixed race children involved cutting out their hearts and carrying them in his pocket.\n\nHe proceeded to separately gouge out both of his eyes, the second of which he ate.\n\nTalking with Marc Bookman, who founded the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation in Philadelphia and has followed this case, he laid out a number of the concerns about this case.\n\nHis late white was white, the children were mixed race, and as Bookman noted, \u201cfour of the twelve eventual jurors were opposed to people of mixed-race backgrounds marrying and/ or having children.\u201d\n\nOne even stated that he did not believe \u201cGod intended for this.\u201d Andre\u2019s court-appointed lawyers did not object, and the jurors were seated. The entire jury\u2014not to mention the judge and all of the lawyers\u2014were white.\nThe prosecutor in his closing argument clearly played the race card, asking the jurors if they were willing to risk Andre \u201casking your daughter out, or your granddaughter out?\u201d\n\nThis is a case tinged in racism, dogged by ineffective assistance of counsel, and by a mental health system that failed all the way through.\nAnd somehow, at least to this point, the legal system has failed to stopped the execution train.\n\nListen as Marc Bookman discusses one of the most disturbing death penalty cases in memory.