29 August 2010 :

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the death sentence of Kenneth Dewayne Thomas. Jurors who in 1987 convicted Thomas, now 49, black, of capital murder had no way when deliberating punishment to consider mitigating evidence that he had low intelligence, brain damage and mental illness, the state's highest criminal court said. Thomas' case now returns to his trial court in Dallas County for a new punishment hearing. Thomas has been on death row more than 23 years for the March 1986 slaying of Mildred Finch, 64, black. She and her husband, attorney Fred Finch, 66, were found dead in their home.