Andrea yates insanity defense
Andrea yates insanity defense, A jury in Houston today found Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity in the 2001 drowning of her children. It was the second time Ms. Yates had been tried for the deaths of her children, in a long-running case that has highlighted the issues of postpartum depression and the insanity defense in the Texas legal system.
Ms. Yates, whose lawyers said she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis when she drowned her five children, ages 6 months to 7 years, will likely spend the rest of her life in a state mental institution, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine if she should be released.
Prosecutors had maintained that Ms. Yates, who is 42, failed to meet the state’s definition of insanity, because they said she was able to distinguish right from wrong.
When the verdicts were read today, Ms. Yates appeared stunned, and then her eyes misted over, while one of her lawyers, George Parnham, wiped away tears. Later, he called the verdict a “watershed event in the treatment of mental illness.”
In 2002, a jury rejected Mrs. Yates’s insanity defense, found her guilty of capital murder, and sentenced her to life in prison for the drowning of three of her children. She has not been tried in the deaths of the other two.
Last year, an appeals court overturned the conviction after finding that a prosecution witness provided false testimony during her trial.
Today, her former husband, Rusty Yates, who has sat through most of the retrial, said he was glad the jury accepted the insanity plea instead of sending Ms. Yates to prison. He talked about how the prosecution showed pictures of the couple’s five children before their deaths to the jury, hoping to convince them prison was the best resolution for Ms. Yate’s actions.
“Did they think our children want Andrea to be in prison?” he asked reporters outside the courtroom. “Did they think that we, her family on either side, want Andrea to be in prison? Is it of any public benefit for Andrea to be in prison? Is she a danger to anyone? It’s amazing to me. I’m so proud of the jury for seeing past that.”
The prosecutor, Joe Owmby, said he was “extremely disappointed” by the verdict because the police and some mental health experts were convincedthat Ms. Yates knew that what she did was wrong.
They believed that, he told reporters, “because she knew it was a sin, because she knew it was legally wrong, because she knew society would disapprove of her actions.”
But he said Harris County prosecutors would probably not bring further charges against Ms. Yates, partly because of a growing public sentiment in the past five years that seemed to support her insanity plea. He said it was summed up recently by a writer in an opinion piece in a local newspaper who said, “why don’t we just let her go.”
Mental health experts who testified in the trials told jurors that Ms. Yates had a long history of mental illness, that she had been in and out of mental institutions for years and that she had attempted suicide several times.
One of her psychiatrists, Dr. Eileen Starbranch, who told the court that she ranked Ms. Yates “among the five sickest patients she had ever seen,” warned the Yateses in 1999 that Ms. Yates could suffer another psychotic episode if she had more children. Ms. Yates went on to have a fifth child after that warning.
On the morning of June 20, 2001, Mrs. Yates filled a bathtub with water, police and court records show, and drowned her five children in the family’s bathtub one by one. She told police that Satan was inside her and that she was trying to save them from hell.
Ms. Yates, whose lawyers said she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis when she drowned her five children, ages 6 months to 7 years, will likely spend the rest of her life in a state mental institution, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine if she should be released.
Prosecutors had maintained that Ms. Yates, who is 42, failed to meet the state’s definition of insanity, because they said she was able to distinguish right from wrong.
When the verdicts were read today, Ms. Yates appeared stunned, and then her eyes misted over, while one of her lawyers, George Parnham, wiped away tears. Later, he called the verdict a “watershed event in the treatment of mental illness.”
In 2002, a jury rejected Mrs. Yates’s insanity defense, found her guilty of capital murder, and sentenced her to life in prison for the drowning of three of her children. She has not been tried in the deaths of the other two.
Last year, an appeals court overturned the conviction after finding that a prosecution witness provided false testimony during her trial.
Today, her former husband, Rusty Yates, who has sat through most of the retrial, said he was glad the jury accepted the insanity plea instead of sending Ms. Yates to prison. He talked about how the prosecution showed pictures of the couple’s five children before their deaths to the jury, hoping to convince them prison was the best resolution for Ms. Yate’s actions.
“Did they think our children want Andrea to be in prison?” he asked reporters outside the courtroom. “Did they think that we, her family on either side, want Andrea to be in prison? Is it of any public benefit for Andrea to be in prison? Is she a danger to anyone? It’s amazing to me. I’m so proud of the jury for seeing past that.”
The prosecutor, Joe Owmby, said he was “extremely disappointed” by the verdict because the police and some mental health experts were convincedthat Ms. Yates knew that what she did was wrong.
They believed that, he told reporters, “because she knew it was a sin, because she knew it was legally wrong, because she knew society would disapprove of her actions.”
But he said Harris County prosecutors would probably not bring further charges against Ms. Yates, partly because of a growing public sentiment in the past five years that seemed to support her insanity plea. He said it was summed up recently by a writer in an opinion piece in a local newspaper who said, “why don’t we just let her go.”
Mental health experts who testified in the trials told jurors that Ms. Yates had a long history of mental illness, that she had been in and out of mental institutions for years and that she had attempted suicide several times.
One of her psychiatrists, Dr. Eileen Starbranch, who told the court that she ranked Ms. Yates “among the five sickest patients she had ever seen,” warned the Yateses in 1999 that Ms. Yates could suffer another psychotic episode if she had more children. Ms. Yates went on to have a fifth child after that warning.
On the morning of June 20, 2001, Mrs. Yates filled a bathtub with water, police and court records show, and drowned her five children in the family’s bathtub one by one. She told police that Satan was inside her and that she was trying to save them from hell.
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