AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas' highest criminal court has again vacated the death sentence of a Dallas man so that a jury can reconsider whether he's intellectually disabled.
The ruling Wednesday is the second time the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned the death sentence of Kenneth Wayne Thomas. He was convicted in 1987 of fatally stabbing the wife of a Dallas civil rights lawyer who was also killed in the attack.
The same court in 2010 vacated his first death sentence after saying jurors had no way of considering mitigating evidence that Thomas had low intelligence. A different jury again sentenced Thomas to death, concluding he didn't have an intellectual disability.
But the appeals court said in Wednesday's 5-4 ruling that the criteria jurors used was flawed and ordered another sentencing hearing.
