Andrea Yates' capital murder conviction overturned

Since the appeals court was able to rule on the single issue of false testimony, it did not consider several other challenges being made. There may have been several more errors commited in the first trial.

I tend to prefer giving people like her Life. I think it is a worse punishment than killing them.

What is not said in the version of the report quoted above, is that Dietz's testimony was that Yates patterned her crime upon the actions of the (imaginary) woman in the (imaginary) episode of Law and Order - thus supporting a view that Yates' was a premeditated crime.

"At the 2002 trial, Dietz told the jury Yates patterned the killings on an episode of the television series "Law & Order," for which he had worked as a consultant. However, defense lawyers discovered the episode he cited never existed.

"We conclude that there is a reasonable likelihood that Dr. Dietz's false testimony could have affected the judgment," the court said in a unanimous ruling overturning the convictions.

The prosecution plans to appeal the ruling.

Defense attorney George Parnham unsuccessfully sought a mistrial based on Dietz's error. He contends the statement unfairly planted the seed of premeditation in jurors' minds. "

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7257755&src=rss/topNews


I won't be voting in the poll - I think such things are fatuous in the face of our knowing only what the media prints about such cases, and the awesome tragedy involved.

The Prosecution is appealing the decision to overturn the conviction, I note.

Query: Would overturning the conviction mean that she went free, or trigger a re-trial???

I think she's guilty, but insane and that prison is no place for her.

Ditto.

so give her some meds and put her in a hospital for a few year then send her home or what ?

I was disturbed and surprised by the original sentence. I hope next time around they consider her mental state more than her television watching habits.

I'm not sure BBK as I am not a mental health professional or a prison expert.

I would assume that most prisons have a hospital/psychiatric wing or that some hospitals have a prison area.

Prison is supposed to be about rehabilitation.

This woman, with proper medication is rehabilitable. With proper mental health care she would never commit such crimes again - and maybe wouldn't have in the first place.

Murderers who don't have psychiatric problems get parolled every day. Why not Andrea Yates?

I understand that a mentally or clinicaly insane person is in some extent not responsible for thier actions.. they can not control them.
So if this is the case with her, and her plea of insanity simply means... " I can not control my actions, it isnt my fault" then why is she allowed back into society? She cant control it . Neither could her children. They died from her actions.

If her actions are that severely out of control then no, i agree jail isnt a PERFECT place for her, but given the nature of her crime, jail should not be out of the question either.
IMO = the rest of her life shoul dbe spent in an institution. If there is no institution available at one moment, she should wait in jail. Releasing someone with no ' control' over thier actions is allowing someone else to be the victim of that lack of control. And that isnt fair.

Let's not get ahead ourselves here re her diagnosis. She certainly merits a sentence of some sort rather than death, but I wouldn't be in any rush to see her back on the streets again...

Deb, The appeal means that she will have to stand trial again.

BTW, Park Dietz is a fairly well-known testifier--for the prosecution. I don't know what else he does, but I got to know him through Court TV. He testified at the trial of the young man who killed Rebecca Schaeffer (an actress). I thought the defendant was insane, but Dr. Dietz didn't agree.

I had no idea that naming a tv network would end up looking like this: AUTO SPAM FILTER. I'm referring to the network that shows trials. The one with "court" in its name.

court tv


> trying it myself.. <

wow... will it happen if you say fox ? f.o.x
Cbs? c.b.s
hmm.. obviously not.

Any-who.
I have a long winded opinion about this andrea yeates person and the death penalty ( not saying she needs it!!! )
I will work on it and post it later tonight.

This is an interesting conversation. I want to see what everyone thinks.

court tv
court tv

hmm.. e.s.p.n ( still trying tv stations )

Guilty, by reason of temporary insanity. No sane person does that. Give her her choice of death penalties, last meal and a blind fold and be done with it. The quicker the better.

I do not know about the American system - here, people found to be insane often serve longer than those simply found guilty (or did - I haven't workerd with these folk for a long time)- but they tend to be in programs that gradually - if possible return them to the community - under supervision.

Of course, many people who do commit such tragic acts when psychotic (and psychotic people are usually NOT a danger to anyone except themselves - but some are, of course) respond perfectly well to medication, and are quite safe when they maintain it.

If this woman was psychotic at the time of the offense, then keeping her in prison (or killing her - if you happen to live in a country where this is still allowed) serves the function only of vengeance - and making the people who like vengeance feel good. If the US wants to base their treatment of the insane on such criteria, well, I can't stop you. If she is ablt to regain her sanity with treatment, what other purpose can prison or killing serve? She is highly unlikely to kill again - though she ought never to be allowed near children unsupervised - which is the sort of thing that can be on a treatment order - since her putative psychosis took that bent. Her detention or judicial murder will not deter any other insane people. Shrugs...

The problem with such folk can be maintaining them on a good treatment order - with groaningly overburdened mental health systems - or bad psychiatric assessments in the future - eg releasing them from treatment orderswhen such is not warranted.

This is the real trick - that and really good assessment of their mental state in the beginning.

I gather the insane defence is much harder to prove here (Australia) than in the US, though - so your population of people may be different from that with which I have worked.

In a criminal prosecution, the state must prove all elements of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt. In the most simple terms, a crime consists of the mens rea (the culpable state of mind -- the guilty mind) and the actus reus (the prohibited conduct -- the act). The mens rea and actus reus must coincide (occur simultaneously)

Murder is a specific intent crime. It is defined (by the Model Penal Code) as "intentionally causing the death of another."

There was absolutely NO DOUBT that Andrea Yates caused the death of her children (the actus reus). The only issue at trial was whether she was criminally culpable for her act. If she was legally insane at the time she committed the acts -- if due to mental disease or defect, she was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct -- then the state cannot prove the necessary element of intent (the mens rea element of the crime charged.

A plea of "not guilty by reason of insanity" does not necessarily mean that the accused "cannot control her actions." It means she could not appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME when the mens rea and the actus reus must join in order for a crime to occur.

Andrea Yates was, at that moment in time, an extremely sick woman. Her mental illness was severe. Her thought processes were twisted. If she had received proper mental health care, this tragedy would not have occurred. Yet, when one applies the two-part test -- did she know what she was doing and did she know it was wrong -- the answer is yes to both parts. Her insanity defense fails and she is guilty of murder in accordance with the law.

Andrea Yates knew she was killing her children by drowning them one by one in the bathtub. She knew it was wrong. In fact, after she was done killing her children, she called the police and confessed. She had the mental acuity to know she had committed a crime and to call the police.

Yet, we know that she was suffering from a severe mental illness at the time she committed the crime. Regardless of man's law, her deluded mental thought processes convinced her that she was saving her children from damnation in hell.

In my opinion, there is a huge difference between someone who kills due to mental illness and would not have killed but for that mental illness -- and someone else who intentionally kills in cold blood (e.g., someone who kills during the course of a felony in order to eliminate a witness or someone who kills for financial gain). I don't think it's equitable to treat these people the same and to subject them to the same punishment.

I'm appalled that so many people seem intent on seeing Andrea Yates "punished to the full extent of the law." My heart goes out to this poor, sick, misguided woman who must be suffering the mental torments of hell over what she has done. Because she does have moments of clarity. She knows the enormity of her actions. No harsher punishment than this constant awareness can possibly be imposed.

She should not be set free, I agree. Not because she might be a danger to someone else. Not because she is likely to kill again. She should not be free because, I believe, she would be at risk to herself. I assume she is on suicide watch now, as she should be.

The odious suggestion that she should be found "guilty by reason of insanity" and, therefore, executed smacks of the Nazi policy of simply executing all mentally ill and other socially undesirables. That is a chilling thought.

Yes, it is. Chilling.