Andrea Yates' capital murder conviction overturned

First of all, I SWEAR that I have seen an episode of Law & Order very similar to this case.
I think she is crazy, but anyone who can drown her own five children, one by one, and watch them struggle with the most horrific death I can think of is definitely sick in the head. But I think she should be in jail and punished for it! Death is too good for this woman and why put her in a hospital? It isn't like she needs rehabilitated for when she becomes a member of society again, so why go through the trouble? I have no sympathy for her, she is responsible for what she did. The only victims here are her children.

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shyone wrote:

First of all, I SWEAR that I have seen an episode of Law & Order very similar to this case.

Yes, it was on AFTER Park Dietz (paid expert for the prosecutions of oh-so-many) testified. He claims he contacted the prosecution and told them he had 'made an error' when using it against Yates in his testimony.

Quote:

I think she is crazy, but anyone who can drown her own five children, one by one, and watch them struggle with the most horrific death I can think of is definitely sick in the head. But I think she should be in jail and punished for it! Death is too good for this woman and why put her in a hospital? It isn't like she needs rehabilitated for when she becomes a member of society again, so why go through the trouble? I have no sympathy for her, she is responsible for what she did. The only victims here are her children.

Yates has a history of mental illness.

"Death is too good for this woman?" Good grief!

"Why put her in a hospital?" GOOD GRIEF!!

"The only victims here are her children?" Not true. Yates is a victim as well as her entire family and society at large.

Yates requires hospitalization until such time as she is deemed fit to return to society. As another person posted, most people in the USA spend longer terms in mental hospitals than in prison.

By the way, the most disappointed person (should my opinions be followed) would be her husband. He is already set to remarry. Interesting since Andrea Yates had tremendous problems with post-partum depression earlier in their marriage, yet he continued to have children with her.

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I was busy and missed this.

Merry Andrew wrote:

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.

Surely you jest. Not "all mentally ill and other socially undesirables"... just those who are guilty of murder... though if you want to know how I really feel, you could add rape and child molestation to the list.

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We have a legal system, not a nazi practice, and she killed five people and confessed. It is as simple as that. Insanity pleas have been so abused. She is not a victim, she should be put away forever.

Even if she did get sent to a hospital, she killed five children, why should she ever be a free woman again?
Even if she is mentally ill, she is a murderer - period.

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O'Bill, mentally ill is mentally ill. A mentally ill person legally cannot be held responsible for their actions (in most jurisdictions). They can be isolated from society, but not held responsible. If you wish to alter that concept of justice, you're on a slippery slope. Once you start executing persons for no other reason that they are mentally ill and have committed a felony, where does the line get drawn?

Rape and child molestation are totally different matters. You might get some grudging support from me on that one.

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Merry Andrew wrote:

O'Bill, mentally ill is mentally ill. A mentally ill person legally cannot be held responsible for their actions (in most jurisdictions). They can be isolated from society, but not held responsible. If you wish to alter that concept of justice, you're on a slippery slope. Once you start executing persons for no other reason that they are mentally ill and have committed a felony, where does the line get drawn?

The line gets drawn at murder and I see nothing slippery about that slope. I neither believe it's possible for a sane person to commit the crime nor do I think society should suffer any further on the guilty party's behalf. I have a preference for simple, permanent solutions to heinous problems.<shrugs>

Merry Andrew wrote:

Rape and child molestation are totally different matters. You might get some grudging support from me on that one.

Good on you. Those two are heinously under-addressed.

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shyone wrote:

We have a legal system, not a nazi practice, and she killed five people and confessed. It is as simple as that. Insanity pleas have been so abused. She is not a victim, she should be put away forever.

Even if she did get sent to a hospital, she killed five children, why should she ever be a free woman again?
Even if she is mentally ill, she is a murderer - period.

1. No, its not 'as simple as that.'

2. Insanity pleas may have been abused, but not in this case. Her record is a long one.

3. Yes, she is a victim and, again, she will (statistically) spend more time in a mental hospital than in a prison.

4. She is a murderer, but not using the legal meaning. The woman has been mentally ill throughout her entire life.

5. By the way, putting the mentally ill to death is in fact a Nazi practice and putting people to death at all has become an almost exclusively American practice. Know anything about countries refusing to extradite because of that fact?

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Where, in any of my posts, do I say anything about putting her to death?
I said she doesn't deserve the death peanalty because she shouldn't get off that easily.
Also, there is a difference between putting a crazy person to death just because they are mentally ill and giving the death penalty to a woman, who may or may not be crazy, who killed her five children.
People say pedofiles are mentally disturbed, too and some of you support killing them.
Why is that ok?
Why is it wrong for this woman to be severely punished for killing her 5 children?
Even if she did have ppd, which a lot of women do, that is no excuse. I have spent time working with people who are mentally ill and I have compassion for them.
Yates is in a different catagory She took her kids one by one and sucked the life out of them. The were probably crying, struggling, scared to death yet she took them, one at a time, and cold bloodedly killed them.

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Andrea Yates' capital murder conviction overturned

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