It’s been a little over ten years since Andrea Yates was found insane and I wrote about the verdict.
Fifteen years after drowning her five children in the bathtub of her suburban Houston home, Andrea Yates lives a reclusive life in a Texas mental health facility and frequently watches videos of her children laughing and playing, sources close to Yates tell PEOPLE. Source: People.com
It continues to be a sad end to a sad case.
From three seperate articles in the Houston Chronicle:
(Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle)
A Harris County jury has found Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity during her second capital murder trial for the drowning deaths of her children in the family’s bathtub in 2001.
The restrictive, outdated Texas statute under which Yates twice was tried requires juries to find defendants guilty if they knew the difference between right and wrong, even if they are mentally ill. The second jury’s verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity reflects the jurors’ reasonable conclusion that the psychotic delusions that led Yates to believe she was saving her children by killing them prevented her from making rational judgments.
Defense attorneys [were] trying to convince a jury that Yates was insane when she killed the children.
Prosecutors [said] Yates, although mentally ill, knew right from wrong.
When is someone just sane enough to know right from wrong but just insane enough to kill 5 children? It’s a retorical question, and the retorical answer is never. I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of people living today know that killing another human being is (morally, legally, mentally…) wrong.
Defense attorneys are trying to convince a jury that Yates was insane when she killed the children.
Prosecutors say Yates, although mentally ill, knew right from wrong.
When is someone just sane enough to know right from wrong but just insane enough to kill 5 children? It’s a retorical question, and the retorical answer is never. I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of people living today know that killing another human being is (morally, legally, mentally…) wrong.
Like clock work they started her new trial.
Jury selected in second Yates trial
By PEGGY O’HARE Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
The new jury seated tonight for Andrea Yates’ retrial was culled from a panel of 120 people who were each familiar with her case in some way. After a 10-hour jury selection process – during which issues such as
mental illness and the insanity defense made for lively discussion – 12 jurors and three alternates were chosen to decide whether Yates knew right from wrong when she drowned her five children in a bathtub at her Clear Lake-area home five years ago. Testimony will begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday and is expected to last four to five weeks.
Artical source: http://www.chron.com/
Image source: http://www.boston.com/ and AP Photo/Brett Coomer, Pool.
The drama continues…Source: http://www.cnn.com/
UPDATE: May 8, 2006
You know you are important when you get a Wikipedia page
CNN.com – Yates: Not guilty by reason of insanity – Jan 9, 2006.
Read the whole story and the last paragraph is the clincher here:
Her convictions were overturned last January by a state appeals court because of testimony by the state’s expert witness, forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz. He testified that, shortly before Yates killed her five children, television’s “Law and Order” series broadcast an episode about a woman with postpartum depression who drowned her children. No such episode ever existed.
So “Law and Order” is influencing our court system now? Which is worse a kooky “psychiatrist” that tried to rewrite history (revisionist?) by quoting a non-existant episode of a TV series – or the fact that she was convicted by this (and other) testimony in the first place and now gets a retrial.
Well, I think Law and Order would get a kick out of this one. Don’t be surprised if they rip this one from the headlines and poke a little fun at themselves as “evidence” during a trial.