07 December 2018 :

A divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals voted 5-4 to overturn the death sentence imposed on Kenneth Thomas, 57, Black, and remanded the case to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing. The court ruled that "because the jury was not presented with the proper diagnostic framework regarding Thomas’s claim of intellectual disability, then as a matter of due process, Thomas is entitled to a new punishment hearing." Thomas was first sentenced to death in 1987 in the March 1986 slaying of Mildred Finch, 64, black. She and her husband, Fred Finch, 66, were found dead in their home. Thomas was sentenced to life in prison in Mr. Finch death. In 2010 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the death sentence because of irregularities in the instructions given to the jury. The trial court held a new punishment hearing in 2014, and Thomas again received a death. Today the Court ordered a new punishment hearing based on Thomas' claims of intellectual disability and the modern standards for assessing intellectual disabilities.