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Post by marion on Jun 17, 2006 4:01:47 GMT -5
Yates will be in jail for new drowning deaths trial
By PEGGY O'HARE Houston Chronicle June 16, 2006
Andrea Yates will not be allowed to remain free on bail during her new capital murder trial, which begins later this month, a judge ruled this morning. Yates' bail will be revoked on Monday and she must report to the Harris County Jail by 6 p.m., state District Judge Belinda Hill said. Yates, who has been confined at Rusk State Hospital while awaiting her second trial for the June 2001 drownings of her children, was not in court for the ruling.
Attorneys for both sides had agreed earlier this year that Yates' bail would be revoked and she would be housed in the County Jail's Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority unit during her new trial, which begins June 26. But defense attorney George Parnham asked the judge today to reconsider, saying the Neuropsychiatric Center at Ben Taub General Hospital had agreed to accept Yates as a patient.
Noting that Tuesday will be the fifth anniversary of the children's deaths, Parnham told Hill that Yates' mental state typically deteriorates around that time. He presented medical records showing that Yates stopped eating and lost 30 pounds in summer 2004.
"Each year, records will reflect, it is more or less a tough time for her,'' Parnham told the judge.
But prosecutor Joe Owmby said the County Jail's mental health unit has two psychiatrists and can provide Yates with quality care and medication.
Owmby also countered that Yates' period of self-imposed starvation in 2004 was really more the result of her husband's revelation that ``he wished to get on with his life, divorce her and marry someone else.''
Russell Yates followed through with those intentions, marrying another woman three months ago.
Hill denied Parnham's request without comment.
After the hearing, Owmby said Yates should not receive special treatment by being allowed to stay somewhere other than the jail during her trial.
"The treating physicians at the jail are competent professionals and do a good job,'' he said.
Yates, 41, has once again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to capital murder charges. She drowned her five children, ranging in age from 6 months to 7 years, in the bathtub at the family's Clear Lake- area home on June 20, 2001.
Although Yates was convicted in 2002 of capital murder for three of the drownings, an appeals court ordered a new trial because of mistaken testimony from a forensic psychiatrist.
Yates will be on antipsychotic medication during her new trial, but won't be as heavily medicated as she was during the first trial, Parnham said.
"The legal issue is one of competency: Can we get her through this while being legally competent? I think we can ... She's not the same person she was in 2001,'' Parnham said after the hearing.
Also in today's hearing, Hill granted Parnham's request that prosecutors turn over any tests used by their new mental health expert, Dr. Michael Welner, during an 11-hour evaluation of Yates last month - or any other tests Welner relied on in concluding whether Yates knew right from wrong at the time of the drownings.
Prosecutors said they have not yet received the findings of Welner's exams.
At prosecutors' request, Hill also agreed to prohibit any mention during the trial that Yates' capital murder conviction was reversed on appeal. She also forbade any reference to the erroneous testimony of forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz during the first trial.
Jury selection for the new trial will begin Thursday.
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Post by SoulTrainOz on Jun 18, 2006 2:52:58 GMT -5
Andrea Yates often struggles with deep depression or hallucinations around June 20, the day in 2001 when she drowned her 5 children in the bathtub. This year, Yates will be in court at her second murder trial around the anniversary.
In July 2004 Yates was hospitalized after starving herself for up to 6 weeks, losing about 30 pounds, according to the University of Texas Medical Branch Hospitals' discharge records. She believed she saw "babies yelling for help," the records showed.
Jurors in the retrial who will be selected beginning Thursday, will hear largely the same evidence as in the first trial, but also will hear about her psychotic episodes since her 2002 conviction that was later overturned on appeal, defense attorney George Parnham said.
"We've got four years of mental health records to show she's still severely mentally ill," Parnham said.
He maintains that severe postpartum psychosis prevented her from knowing that drowning her children, ages 6 months to 7 years, was wrong.
But prosecutors still insist that Yates does not meet Texas' legal definition of insanity: not knowing at the time that one's actions are wrong. Prosecutors plan to present the same evidence of how Yates killed the children after her husband left for work and before her mother-in-law arrived to help, and how Yates called 911 to report the crime.
"Everything I've seen has reaffirmed that she was sane at the time she killed her kids," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. "What's at the crux of this case is: You can be mentally ill and know right from wrong and be held criminally responsible."
Yates once again is pleading innocent by reason of insanity, and if convicted could be imprisoned for life. Because the 1st jury rejected the death penalty and decided on a life sentence, prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty again without presenting new evidence.
Last week, more than 20 individuals and groups - including Postpartum Support International, North American Society for Psychosocial Obstetrics and Gynecology, Texas Mental Health Consumers and New Jersey's former first lady Mary Jo Codey - asked the court to limit expert testimony to those familiar with postpartum psychosis.
The brief, which would affect some prosecution witnesses, says only those with significant experience treating the rare disorder should testify about whether Yates knew her actions were wrong.
The judge isn't required to consider the brief filed by New York attorneys. Opening statements start June 26, and the trial is expected to last through the end of July.
Last year the 1st Court of Appeals in Houston overturned her conviction, saying a prosecution witness' erroneous testimony could have influenced the jury's decision.
Dr. Park Dietz, a psychiatrist who has been a consultant for the "Law & Order" television series, told jurors that one episode depicting a woman who drowned her children in a bathtub - and was acquitted by reason of insanity - aired before the Yates children were killed.
Yates frequently watched the show, according to other testimony, and a prosecutor - not Dietz - suggested that she got the idea from the episode.
After the jury found Yates guilty, attorneys in the case learned no such episode existed.
Although Parnham argued to halt the retrial, saying that testimony constituted prosecutorial misconduct and would result in double jeopardy if Yates were tried again, an appeals court upheld the judge's ruling that there was no misconduct because the error was unintentional.
For a year-and-a-half prosecutors have reviewed boxloads of evidence while preparing once again for the trial.
"That's what's kept me going," Williford said, pointing to one of the state's exhibits, a large board containing family pictures of the youngsters: 6-month-old Mary in a baby carrier; 2-year-old Luke holding his baby sister; 3-year-old Paul wearing pajamas and a fireman's hat; 5-year-old John leaning against a tree; and 7-year-old Noah grinning from ear to ear.
"It's very emotionally draining and difficult to go through this again: reviewing the evidence, looking at the autopsy photos. It's hard as a human being; it's harder as a mother," Williford said. "It's not any easier looking through those pictures five years later."
Prosecutors will call Dietz to testify again, along with other witnesses from the first trial, Williford said. She said the witness list was still being prepared and declined to say what the state may do differently this time.
"Basically, our case in chief will be the same," she said.
Parnham said he planned to call 40 to 50 witnesses, including the same doctors who previously testified about Yates' mental condition. as well as more about her stays at a psychiatric hospital shortly before the 2001 drownings,
Andrea's then-husband, Russell Yates, testified for the defense in her 1st trial. Parnham said he planned to call Rusty Yates again but would approach him in a "different" way. He declined to elaborate.
Rusty Yates, who did not return calls seeking comment, has said he continues to stand by Andrea, who he divorced last year.
In March Rusty Yates married Laura Arnold, an attractive, blond fellow NASA worker who is divorced with two children. Their wedding, at the same church where the funeral for the Yates youngsters was held, was two days before the originally scheduled start of Andrea's 2nd trial.
Andrea Yates, who has been in a state psychiatric hospital since her release on $200,000 bond earlier this year, will be in the county jail during the trial, a judge ruled Friday.
(source: Associated Press)
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Post by SoulTrainOz on Jun 26, 2006 20:38:53 GMT -5
Yates Retrial to Test Mental Illness Views
Since Andrea Yates first stood trial on charges of drowning 3 of her 5 children, the facts of the case haven't changed. What her defense teams hopes has changed is the public's view of mentally ill defendants.
Since Yates' 2002 conviction, which was overturned on appeal, several other Texas mothers have killed their children and been found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Those verdicts -- as well as community outreach and education efforts about mental illness -- are encouraging to Yates' attorneys and advocates, who say her severe postpartum psychosis prevented her from knowing her action was wrong.
"More people know it's a brain disorder and not just something you can snap out of," said Betsy Schwartz, director of the Mental Health Association of Greater Houston. "We can only hope the jury will have a keen awareness of the chemistry and physiology of what was going on in Andrea Yates' brain when this happened."
Yates' retrial was to begin Monday with opening statements. As in her first trial, she has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. If the jury agrees, she could be committed to a state hospital, with periodic hearings to determine whether she should be released. A guilty verdict would mean life in prison.
A prosecutor in the case said the jury must consider only the evidence presented in this case -- not get caught up in public sentiment or try to send a message about mental health issues.
"This is not cookie-cutter justice," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. "I believe in the insanity defense, in which someone can commit a crime and not be held criminally responsible. I do not see that in this case based on the evidence."
Prosecutors say they will again call Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist who testified that Yates knew her actions were wrong. Dietz, also a consultant to the "Law & Order" television series, told jurors that one episode depicting a woman who drowned her kids in a bathtub -- and was acquitted by reason of insanity -- aired before the Yates children died.
Attorneys learned after Yates was convicted -- but before jurors sentenced her to life in prison -- that no such episode existed. That mistake caused an appeals court in Houston last year to overturn Yates' conviction.
Prosecutors say Yates planned the murders during the small window of time when she'd be home alone with the youngsters on June 20, 2001, after her husband went to work and before her mother-in-law arrived. Then she called her husband and 911 and later confessed, prosecutors say.
Other Texas youngsters' deaths at the hands of their mothers have drawn comparisons to the Yates case.
On the day before Mother's Day in 2003, Deanna Laney bashed her 3 sons' heads with rocks, killing the 8- and 6-year-olds and severely injuring the 14-month-old. The woman from the Tyler area said she believed God ordered her to kill her children, and she was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Lisa Ann Diaz drowned her 3- and 5-year-old daughters in September 2003 in the bathtub of their Plano home. Diaz, tried only in the older child's death, was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
In 2004, Dena Schlosser cut off her 10-month-old daughter's arms in the family's Plano apartment, then called 911 while a church hymn played in the background. She, too, was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Determining whether those verdicts indicate a trend is difficult because the cases were not identical or in the same county, said Fred Moss, an associate law professor at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law in Dallas.
"This part of the country in particular is very retributive in their notions of justice and think somebody has to pay for a death," Moss said.
As in her 1st trial, Yates is being tried only in the deaths of 6-month-old Mary, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah. She was not charged in the deaths of 2-year-old Luke and 3-year-old Paul, which is not uncommon in a case involving multiple slayings.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
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Post by SoulTrainOz on Jun 26, 2006 20:42:47 GMT -5
Jury to decide if mental illness was a factor in kids' drownings
More than 4 years after Andrea Yates was convicted of capital murder for drowning 3 of her children in a bathtub, a new jury will begin wrestling with the issue of mental illness today as the former Clear Lake mother again goes on trial.
The jurors' verdict will determine whether Yates, 41, is sentenced to life in prison or spends an undetermined period of time in a mental hospital for an act that still provokes rage and sympathy from around the world.
Had they lived, the 5 Yates children - Noah, John, Paul, Luke and Mary - would range from 5 to 11 years old today.
Yates' 2nd capital murder trial probably will last through July, attorneys predict. Her first trial resulted in a guilty verdict in March 2002, but an appeals court threw out her conviction because of erroneous testimony from a forensic psychiatrist who was the prosecution's mental health expert.
Harris County prosecutors will again seek to prove that Yates knew right from wrong when she drowned her five children on June 20, 2001. Defense attorneys will try to convince the jury that she was insane, meaning she suffered from such severe mental illness on that day that she didn't know her conduct was wrong.
The new trial promises to reopen one of Houston's deepest wounds. It also is expected to reignite a long-simmering debate between those who believe Yates should be severely punished and the mental health advocates who urge treatment and compassion.
For those closest to the case - relatives, friends, police officers and attorneys who came face-to-face with the horrible results - the trial promises another emotionally exhausting ordeal.
"It's not any easier than it was 5 years ago," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said recently. "Looking at those pictures and going through the evidence, it's just very painful."
Yates' attorneys agreed.
"People have no idea. ... A case like this is a real wear and tear on you and your family," defense attorney Wendell Odom said. "You just have to toughen up and do it again."
Yates returned to Houston last week and was booked into the county jail's Mental Health and Mental Retardation unit. She had been confined at Rusk State Hospital since being released on bail earlier this year in anticipation of her new trial.
She previously has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and major depressive disorder, with psychotic features.
"Going through this process again, regardless of where she stays ... this has got to be a horrific 30 days for her," defense attorney George Parnham said last week.
Yates appeared much improved during pretrial hearings earlier this year, chatting amiably, smiling, hugging family members and holding hands with her paralegal. But at that time, she didn't have to face the terrible photographs and evidence related to her children's deaths.
She appeared far more somber during jury selection last week, staring blankly at the table in front of her.
Prosecutors expect to review much of the same evidence this time, and could introduce new matters, such as Yates' jailhouse mail and conversations with other inmates.
They also are expected to reveal the findings of a new mental health expert, Dr. Michael Welner, who evaluated Yates last month.
Defense attorneys, meanwhile, expect to offer new evidence of mental breakdowns that they say Yates has suffered since her first trial. They say those included psychotic delusions and a self-imposed period of starvation she experienced 2 years ago, around the time her husband, Russell Yates, told her he wanted to end their marriage.
Russell Yates, who remarried earlier this year, has been subpoenaed again to testify, as have his mother and brother. Andrea Yates' mother and siblings also have been summoned to appear, along with her close friends Deborah and Robert Holmes.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
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Post by marion on Jun 27, 2006 4:41:06 GMT -5
Defense: Yates killed kids to save them
Insanity defense raised at murder retrial for Houston housewife
By Lisa Sweetingham CourtTV Tuesday, June 27, 2006 Posted: 0131 GMT (0931 HKT)
Andrea Yates is on trial for a second time for the June 2001 drowning deaths of her children.
HOUSTON, Texas (CourtTV) -- Shortly after Andrea Yates methodically drowned her five children in the bathtub, she told an investigator that she did it because she was such a bad mother she had doomed her young to eternal d**nation.
The only way to save them, she said, was to kill them.
Yates' attorneys are now trying to save the former nurse and Texas housewife from a life in prison. (Watch opening arguments -- 1:50)
For a second time to a new jury, they are putting forth a case that Yates is not guilty of murdering her children because she was insane on June 20, 2001, the day she drowned them.
"There was no question she was psychotic, not depressed, but absolutely psychotic," defense attorney George Parnham told jurors Monday during his opening statement. Yates had a history of mental illness, Parnham said.
Records show Yates had twice attempted suicide, was diagnosed with recurrent postpartum depression, and had been hospitalized several times for psychiatric care.
When first asked by detectives why she killed her children, Parnham told jurors Yates was unable to "connect the dots" and she had no answer.
But she was put on medication for 24 hours, Parnham said, and she began to tell a doctor -- who is expected to testify for the defense -- the reasons for her unspeakable actions.
Mark of the beast
"She talks about a prophecy," Parnham said.
"These children of hers needed to die in order to be saved," he added, "because Andrea Yates was such a bad mother that she was causing these children to deteriorate and be doomed to the fires of eternal d**nation."
Parnham said that Yates believed she had the sign of the devil, 666, burned on her scalp, and she begged therapists to look at her head. What they found, Parnham said, was not the sign of the beast, but scabbing from where Yates had tried to pick away the numbers she thought were there.
Defense experts are expected to testify that "knowing that something is illegal does not mean that you know something is wrong," Parham said.
But prosecutors say Yates understood what she was doing when she pinned each child to the bottom of the tub until they were dead. She knew what she was doing when she laid their lifeless bodies side by side in the bed she shared with her husband and called 911.
"It was wrong," Assistant District Attorney Kaylynn Williford said during opening statements.
Yates knew right from wrong that morning, prosecutors say, and therefore, by Texas law, should not be found legally insane.
Yates calm in court
Yates, 41, sat quietly at the defense table staring at her hands as Williford described how she called her children one by one into the bathroom to kill them.
She started with Paul, 3, then Luke, 2, John, 5, Mary, 6 months, and ended with Noah, 7. She later told investigators the boy asked, "What's wrong with Mary?" when he saw his baby sister floating face-down in water tainted by urine and feces.
Williford told jurors that all the children showed bruises and signs that they had struggled, even the infant girl.
Yates' ex-husband Russell "Rusty" Yates appeared in court Monday with his mother.
Andrea Yates' own mother was also in court, but sat at the other end of the row and did not speak to her former son-in law. As witnesses for the defense, they were ordered by the judge to leave the courtroom and will not be allowed back until they testify.
Rusty Yates, a NASA engineer, told Courttvnews.com that he remarried earlier this year but says he still speaks with his wife and is very supportive of her defense.
Andrea Yates was found guilty on March 12, 2002, of the capital murder of three of her five children by a jury that deliberated just under four hours. Prosecutors did not bring charges for the deaths of Paul and Luke. (Full coverage)
Conviction overturned
But Yates' conviction was overturned by an appeals court because a prosecution witness, forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, testified about an episode of "Law and Order" in which a woman is acquitted of drowning her children by reason of insanity.
Prosecutors suggested to the first jury that the episode gave Yates the idea of how to get away with murder. After the verdict was reached, attorneys discovered that no such episode existed.
Her conviction was overturned in January 2005. Jurors in Yates' first trial rejected the death penalty, saving her from a potential death sentence in the second trial.
If she is found guilty, she faces life in prison. If jurors find her not guilty by reason of insanity, Yates will be sent to a psychiatric hospital and her case will be monitored by the court, which will determine when she could be released.
Jurors also listened Monday to Yates' 911 phone call, placed minutes after she drowned her last child. During the brief recorded conversation, Yates sounds calm, asks for an officer to come to the house, and tells the dispatcher that, no, her husband is not home.
But Yates' breathing is heavy, and she sounds disoriented when the operator repeatedly asks her why she needs police. "I just need them to be here," Yates finally replies. "You sure you're alone?" the operator asks. "No, my kids are here," Yates replies.
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Post by marion on Jun 27, 2006 16:56:32 GMT -5
Yates sobs, jurors teary at sight of kids' bodies
Crime scene video tape shows boy, 7, floating in bathtub
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 Posted: 1908 GMT (0308 HKT)
Andrea Yates is on trial for a second time for the June 2001 drowning deaths of her children.
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Andrea Yates sobbed as prosecutors played a crime-scene videotape in court Tuesday showing her 7-year-old son floating dead in a bathtub and the bodies of her four younger children laid out on a bed.
The video also showed toys in the yard and a baby swing hanging from a tree outside the suburban home on June 20, 2001, the day Yates killed her five children. She watched that part intently, but looked down as the camera moved inside.
In the bathroom, it showed 7-year-old Noah floating face-down. Yates looked up briefly and began to cry. At least five jurors also wiped their eyes before state District Judge Belinda Hill called for a midmorning break.
The murder trial is Yates' second in the drowning of her children. Her 2002 conviction was overturned last year because of erroneous testimony.
As in her first trial, Yates has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. If the jury agrees, she could be committed to a state hospital, with periodic hearings to determine whether she should be released. A guilty verdict would mean life in prison.
The defense says Yates suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and did not know that drowning the children was wrong.
Prosecutors say her actions belie those claims, saying Yates waited until after her husband, Rusty, had gone to work and before her mother-in-law arrived to help out before she drowned Noah, 5-year-old John, 3-year-old Paul, 2-year-old Luke and 6-month-old Mary.
Both sides are expected to call most of the same witnesses as in the first trial.
On Monday, police Officer David Knapp, the first to arrive at the house, testified that when he asked Yates why she called 911, she said: "I just killed my kids."
He said he followed Yates inside the house and saw two sets of wet footprints on the tile living room floor, indicating one of the children had escaped the bathtub before she caught him again.
Yates was expressionless but made eye contact, answered questions and followed officers' instructions, even reading and signing a consent-to-search form, several officers testified. She even told an officer where to find clean glasses for drinking water and keys to unlock doors, according to testimony.
"She seemed normal to me," Sgt. David Svahn said.
But under cross-examination, some officers said Yates had a flat demeanor indicative of mental illness and that her reaction was unlike that of other mothers who just lost their children.
Yates is being tried only in the deaths of Mary, John and Noah, a common practice in cases of multiple slayings.
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Post by marion on Jun 30, 2006 4:38:16 GMT -5
Attorneys focus today on Yates' mental state
Defense will try to convince jury she was insane when she killed children
By PEGGY O'HARE and DALE LEZON, Houston Chronicle June 29, 2006
As prosecutors rested their case Wednesday against Andrea Yates after presenting virtually the same evidence used during her first trial four years ago, defense attorneys prepared to offer a jury proof of her mental state in the hours after she drowned her five children.
Yates' attorneys today will begin presenting what they say is "affirmative evidence" of her insanity on the day of her children's deaths.
They will begin with testimony from the doctors and medical staff who treated Yates at the Harris County Jail immediately after her arrival, then will summon her former mother-in-law to the courtroom. Those witnesses will be followed by the staff of a private psychiatric facility that treated Yates in the months before she killed her children.
The Clear Lake woman's former husband, Russell Yates - perhaps the most highly anticipated defense witness - is not expected to testify until next week, attorneys said.
Attorneys for the former homemaker and nurse will not focus on what happened to her children five years ago, but on why the tragedy occurred.
"The point is, no one in their sane mind would have done what she did, the way that she did it," defense attorney Wendell Odom said outside the Harris County Criminal Justice Center on Wednesday.
Prosecutors, however, contend Yates did not meet the legal definition of insanity and knew her actions were wrong when she drowned her children in the family bathtub on June 20, 2001.
As Yates' retrial entered its third day Wednesday, jurors learned how three of her children suffered before succumbing to slow deaths.
Judge scolds Russell Yates
The day was also memorable for what happened while the jury was away from the courtroom eating lunch - state District Judge Belinda Hill admonished Yates' ex-husband for granting an interview to Court TV earlier this week after he had been sworn in as a witness.
Prosecutors' final witness Wednesday was Harris County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Luis Sanchez, who testified that it took at least three minutes for each child to become unconscious and perhaps up to 10 minutes for each child to die after they were submerged in the water.
Three of the children - whose deaths form the basis of the capital murder charges against Yates - suffered bruises to their heads and bodies from being held forcefully under the water, Sanchez told the jury.
"We're not talking about seconds - we're talking about minutes," Sanchez said of the children's deaths. "It was a slow death. It was not quick."
The highest number of contusions were found on the body of 7-year-old Noah Yates - the child who fought the hardest to live as his mother forced him into the bathtub after chasing him through the house. As many as 15 recent injuries were found on the boy's body, ranging from his head to his arms to his legs, Sanchez said.
The bruises could have been caused by blows or someone squeezing him hard enough to crush his tissue and rupture his vessels, Sanchez said.
Photos also showed Noah's hands raised above his head, his fists clenched, after police officers had removed him from 9 inches of murky water in the bathtub. The water was dirty because the victims had urinated, defecated and vomited while their mother drowned them.
Noah's body was unusually rigid, indicating he had exerted extreme muscle activity before he died.
"The entire body was stiff, almost like a board," Sanchez said. "That was a significant finding ... I couldn't break that rigidity."
Five-year-old John Yates also had bruises consistent with "grabbing" marks, while his 6-month-old sister, Mary, had a deep contusion on the back of her neck, Sanchez said. Those children's bodies were found on a bed in a nearby bedroom.
All three of the children's deaths were attributed to asphyxia by drowning and ruled homicides, Sanchez said. Autopsies found each of their brains were significantly heavy and so full of fluid that they swelled "almost to the size of an adult brain," he said.
Jurors did not hear as much detail about the drownings of Yates' other two children, 3-year-old Paul and 2-year-old Luke, because their deaths did not result in charges against her.
Emotions under control
Before jurors viewed graphic photos of Noah, John and Mary, Hill recommended spectators in the audience who feared losing control of their emotions should leave the courtroom. No one left. Likewise, none of the jurors showed any strong emotional reaction to the photos.
Yates, who turns 42 on Sunday, looked down while the photos were displayed and kept her hands folded in her lap. She remained quiet, unlike Tuesday, when she sobbed as jurors watched a crime-scene video of the children's bodies.
Yates is standing trial again because an appeals court threw out her capital murder conviction last year based on a forensic psychiatrist's erroneous testimony.
After the jury was excused for lunch Wednesday, Hill summoned the woman's former husband and the children's father, Russell Yates, to her bench and ordered him to stop granting interviews to the media while he is waiting to testify.
Russell Yates spoke with Court TV on Monday, but told Hill he didn't realize that interview violated the court's rules. Hill warned she could hold him in contempt if he persists in talking to the media before he is excused from his duties as a witness.
Testimony resumes at 9:30 a.m. today in a courtroom on the 20th floor at 1201 Franklin.
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Post by marion on Jul 2, 2006 5:05:58 GMT -5
Yates was delusional, doctor says
Psychiatrist testifies accused mom said killing children would fulfill 'prophecy'
By PEGGY O'HARE and DALE LEZON Houston Chronicle June 30, 2006, 10:14AM
Andrea Yates said her children had to die and she should be executed in order to fulfill a "prophecy," said a psychiatrist who evaluated her at the Harris County Jail less than 24 hours after the Clear Lake mother drowned her five children in a tub.
Yates also reported hearing growling noises and seeing satanic images of "teddy bears and ducks" on the walls of her Harris County Jail cell, said Dr. Melissa Ferguson, who was the jail's medical director of psychiatric services when Yates first arrived there in June 2001.
But Yates had suffered delusions for weeks, possibly even months, before she killed her children — ages 7, 5, 3, 2 and 6 months — on June 20, 2001, Ferguson told a Harris County jury Thursday. Yates also believed she was receiving messages from children's cartoons and at least two popular movies before the drownings occurred, Ferguson said.
Ferguson was the first witness called by the defense Thursday as Yates' attorneys set out to prove that the mother of five was insane when she killed them five years ago and could not have known her actions were wrong.
Prosecutors contend while Yates may have been mentally ill at the time of the drownings, she did not meet the legal definition of insanity and is criminally responsible for her children's deaths.
A new jury in state District Judge Belinda Hill's court must decide the truth as Yates stands trial a second time on charges of capital murder. Their verdict will determine if Yates spends the rest of her life in prison or goes to a mental hospital for an undetermined period.
Thought children doomed
Yates' retrial, which began earlier this week, was prompted by an appeals court's decision to throw out her capital murder conviction last year based on erroneous testimony from another psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, during her first trial four years ago.
Yates had been placed under a suicide watch and was naked in her jail cell when Ferguson met her the day after the drownings. Yates spoke of her delusions and quoted Scripture during a three- to four-hour mental health evaluation later that morning.
She believed she had caused her children to "stumble" and said they were doomed to perish in hell unless she killed them, Ferguson said. Such delusions occurring during postpartum depression with psychotic features are typically centered around children in the home, Ferguson said.
Even less than 24 hours after the drownings, Yates didn't believe she was mentally ill, the psychiatrist said.
"I would say she had no insight at all," Ferguson testified. "When I told Mrs. Yates she was depressed and psychotic and her mind was playing tricks on her, she didn't believe it.
"She didn't believe she needed the medication ... . She felt the voices were real. She felt the delusions were the truth."
'Like a wail'
Yates showed little emotion during the first part of the evaluation but became extremely agitated when Ferguson asked how she felt about her children.
"She told me they were precious. I remember that very clearly. At that point, she got very emotional," Ferguson said. "It was almost like a wail. It was very, very loud. She was shaking and tremulous and moving around in her seat."
Yates also referred to herself as "stupid, stupid, stupid." When Ferguson asked what she meant, Yates said she realized too late that she didn't have to kill all of the children but could have fulfilled the "prophecy" by drowning only her youngest child, 6-month-old Mary. She told the psychiatrist her husband did not want a daughter but another son so he could have "a basketball team."
Yates also said George W. Bush should execute her and told the medical team evaluating her, "I am Satan." She believed the media had put a camera inside a light fixture in her jail cell so they could watch her around the clock, Ferguson said.
Eight or nine days after the drownings, Yates was still delusional and psychotic, Ferguson said. Her condition had deteriorated so badly that she neglected her own hygiene, failing to ask for more toilet paper when she ran out.
Quoted Scripture
A former caseworker with the county jail's Mental Health and Mental Retardation Unit who also watched the medical evaluation that day said Yates believed her delusions.
"Something I noticed about her during the assessment was how well she quoted Scripture and how delusional she was — how convincingly she explained things she believed," said Corey Washington, who worked in the jail's MHMR unit then. " ... how she made certain Scriptures part of her daily life, how it upset her and confused her."
During cross-examination by prosecutors, Washington said he recalled Yates revealing that one of her older sons was not toilet-trained. He also recalled Yates saying her children were sometimes "bad."
Expected to testify
Yates' attorneys will call more medical personnel to testify today about her mental condition before and immediately after her children's deaths. Those expected to testify next week include her best friend, Deborah Holmes; Holmes' husband, Robert; and Yates' former husband, Russell Yates.
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Post by marion on Jul 2, 2006 5:06:34 GMT -5
Expert: Yates needs lifelong medication
Jury is told she wasn't faking her symptoms in 2001, she remains mentally ill
By PEGGY O'HARE and DALE LEZON, Houston Chronicle July 1, 2006
While Andrea Yates' mental state has improved while she has been in jails and hospitals, she is not cured and will require treatment for the rest of her life, a psychiatrist told jurors Friday.
Dr. Debra Osterman, a staff psychiatrist at the Harris County Jail who has treated Yates occasionally for five years, said Yates was not faking her symptoms when she was brought to the jail in 2001, and she remains mentally ill.
Osterman's testimony came on the fifth day of Yates' capital murder trial after jurors heard a former jail nurse recall that he first met Yates as she mumbled to herself and tried to scratch away what she believed was a mark Satan had placed on her head.
State District Judge Belinda Hill gave jurors a four-day break at the end of Friday's testimony, telling them to return Wednesday morning.
Defense attorneys hope to convince the jury that Yates, who will turn 42 on Sunday, was insane when she drowned her five children in the bathtub of the family's Clear Lake-area home on June 20, 2001.
Prosecutors contend that she knew right from wrong and should be found guilty of capital murder.
Yates will automatically be sentenced to life in prison if she is convicted. If the jury finds her not guilty by reason of insanity, she will be sent to a mental hospital and remain under the supervision of Hill's court, likely for the rest of her life.
No matter what the jury decides, both sides agree Yates will not walk out of the courthouse a free woman.
Osterman, who began treating Yates 12 days after the drownings, said she eventually diagnosed the former homemaker and nurse with a type of bipolar disorder, or manic depression. Yates also has been diagnosed with postpartum depression with psychotic features and schizophrenia.
Yates fully believed her delusions were real and was convinced that drowning her children was the right thing to do at the time, Osterman said.
"My recollection is, she thought Satan was inside of her," Osterman told the jury. "She thought she was a bad mother and had irrevocably harmed the children - and in order to save them, she had to kill them."
As another psychiatrist indicated Thursday, Osterman said Yates did not believe she was mentally ill or needed psychiatric medication after her arrest.
As she responded to medication and her psychosis began to dissipate, she could no longer recall why she had believed her children had to die, Osterman said. She said Yates also did not recall some of the bizarre statements she made during her early evaluations.
Yates' hallucinations gradually diminished, and she remarked two months after the drownings that she was "coming out of a cloud," Osterman said. At that point, Yates said she didn't understand the delusions that led her to kill her children.
During cross-examination by prosecutors, Osterman agreed that a psychotic person, despite the illness, could be capable of choosing a time to kill without interruption.
She also acknowledged that a psychotic person could hide evidence of a crime.
Yates drowned her children during a one-hour period when she was left alone with them, after her husband had left for work and before her mother-in-law arrived at the house.
A family member, speaking outside the courthouse Friday, agreed that Yates will never be cured or totally recall the drownings.
"She'll never, ever have a normal memory of that day - never, ever," said the Rev. Fairy Caroland, an aunt of Yates' ex-husband, Russell.
Caroland, a Georgia resident who has been attending the trial, said Yates has suffered at least three psychotic breaks since going to prison.
"She's never going to be well," Caroland said. "It's kind of like alcoholism and drug addiction. ... It can't be cured, but you can control it."
She added that she does not believe Yates can get the medical treatment she needs in prison.
Jurors also learned that Yates was staring at the wall and mumbling when a nurse at the county jail's Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority unit first saw her the morning after the drownings.
John Bayless, now a nurse in the Cypress-Fairbanks school district, testified that Yates' lips were moving rapidly, but he couldn't discern what she was saying.
"I pronounced her name. She paid no attention. She didn't even know I was there," Bayless said. "I used her full name. I used a louder voice. She then turned her head slowly toward me, looked at me and then turned her head back to the wall and resumed her conversation."
Bayless said Yates was picking at her scalp and told him that Satan had put a mark on her head.
Assistant District Attorney Joe Owmby noted that Bayless had not mentioned some of those details in Yates' first trial four years ago.
"Often, on progress notes, you don't write down everything you see," Bayless replied.
Yates was convicted in that trial and sentenced to life in prison, but an appeals court ordered a new trial because of erroneous testimony by the prosecution's mental health expert.
Defense attorneys expect to call Yates' former mother-in-law, Dora Yates, to testify Wednesday, along with other doctors and nurses familiar with Yates' mental health history.
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Post by marion on Jul 2, 2006 5:36:59 GMT -5
Mental illness should be treated, not punished
Too many still consider it a failure of character, not a biological disorder
KAY MCSPADDEN, Charlotte Observer July 1, 2006
Even as U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce were holding hearings on mental health this week, Andrea Yates was standing trial again in Texas.
Yates was convicted four years ago of drowning her children in a bathtub. Her defense attorneys argued that she was not guilty because she suffered from postpartum psychosis, a rare complication of childbirth that affects one or two women in 1,000. Yates had five children, attempted suicide twice, and was hospitalized several times in psychiatric units. She was delusional and paranoid, believing that characters on the TV could see her, that invisible cameras in the ceiling were monitoring her, and that her children were doomed to Hell because she could not raise them properly. When she was treated with anti-psychotic medications, she improved dramatically. When she stopped taking them, she killed her children.
Yet the prosecution argued for the death penalty and scoffed at the insanity plea.
"I believe in the insanity defense, in which someone can commit a crime and not be held criminally responsible. I do not see that in this case," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said.
Public better educated?
During the trial the jury heard testimony from Yates' doctors and from her family, who had watched her deterioration over the years, but they also heard testimony from Dr. Park Dietz, a psychiatrist who said that an episode of "Law and Order," a show Yates often watched, had depicted a case where a mother drowned her children and was acquitted by reason of insanity. Prosecutors suggested that Yates believed that she could also escape punishment after getting the idea from the show. However, no such show ever aired, and an appeals court in Houston last year overturned the conviction.Prosecutors and defense lawyers are using the same strategies they used in the first trial. By Texas law, Yates can be found guilty if she knew that what she did was wrong, and prosecutors argue that she planned the murders and carried them out willfully. The defense hopes that in the four years since the original conviction, the public has become better educated about the nature of mental illness and will recognize that Andrea Yates needs treatment in a psychiatric facility, not life in prison.
After the jury convicted Yates of murder in 2002, at least three other Texas juries in similar high-profile murder cases found mothers who had killed or seriously injured their children not guilty by reason of insanity. Mental health advocates and groups such as Postpartum Support International are hopeful that the publicity generated by these cases will lead to improvements in mental health care.
Screenings, research needed
Already there is some evidence of increased interest. In April, New Jersey's governor Jon Corzine signed into law a bill requiring postpartum screenings for perinatal mood disorders, and Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and thingy Durbin of Illinois recently proposed federal legislation for similar screenings.
Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a scheduled witness at the hearing called by Rep. Myrick, wrote this week in the Washington Post about mental health improvements needed in this country.
"Like the tens of millions of Americans who suffer from mental illness, I hope the hearings have the kind of influence that they should," Jamison, who suffers from bipolar disorder, wrote. "Scientists have made extraordinary advances in understanding the brain and its disorders. We know far more about the genetics, neurobiology, and psychology of depression and bipolar illness than we did just five years ago. But research funding needs to keep pace with the promise of the field."
I would argue that educating the public is as important as research. Too many people fail to understand that our minds are not disembodied entities but are the cognitive activity of our brains. Brains that are diseased or damaged produce minds that are dysfunctional.
Ill people blamed for symptoms
We would never take a nearsighted person's glasses away and tell him to "try harder" to see, nor would we tell someone with a broken back that he could walk if he really applied himself -- yet we hold people with mental illnesses to a different standard of conduct, blaming them for being willful or calculating when they exhibit the symptoms of their disease.
I do it despite knowing better -- which reflects badly on my own willfulness. When my 17-year-old son recently missed three doses of the medication he takes to control his obsessive-compulsive disorder, I became alarmed with his swift descent into depression and then impatient when he couldn't just snap out of it.
As a classroom teacher, how many times have I spoken harshly to a student whose attention-deficit disorder made him appear lazy or restless? Or dismissed an anxious student with a stupid platitude?
As we expand our understanding of how the brain works -- and sometimes doesn't work -- we will treat mental illnesses the same way we treat other disorders, as defects of the body and not failures of character. Until then, we will continue to believe -- wrongly -- that mental illness is a cause for shame and punishment.
Kay McSpadden
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Source : Charlotte Observer (Observer columnist Kay McSpadden is a high school English teacher in York, S.C.)
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Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 9, 2006 6:24:37 GMT -5
By DALE LEZON, Houston Chronicle Andrea Pia Yates anxiously paced around the house with her infant daughter on her hip, paying little attention to her four sons, on the day before she drowned all five children in a bathtub, her former mother-in-law testified today. Dora Yates, mother of Russell Yates, who was Andrea Yates' husband at the time, said Andrea Yates' mental health was fragile in the weeks leading up to the killings five years ago. "She seemed distracted from the children, except with Mary," Dora Yates testified, referring to the 6-month-old daughter. "She held her on her hip. She'd walk in circles through the house. I thought it was pacing." Dora Yates testified that Andrea Yates suffered from post-partum depression after Mary's birth, resulting in two stays in mental hospitals. Testimony in Yates' second capital murder trial resumed after a five-day break for the July Fourth holiday and because of a jurors' illness Wednesday. Dora Yates testified for the defense, which is attempting to show that Andrea Yates, 42, was insane when she killed the children. Prosecutors contend she knew right from wrong and therefore is guilty of murder. Yates was convicted at her first capital murder trial in 2002, and jurors sentenced her to life in prison. An appeals court ordered a new trial because of erroneous testimony by the prosecution's mental health expert. The previous jury's decision to sentence her to life made her ineligible for the death penalty this time. Dora Yates said she came to Houston from her Tennessee home to help her daughter-in-law care for the children after Mary was born. She stayed at a hotel near the Yates' Clear Lake-area home, visiting the home each morning to help Andrea Yates clean the house and feed the children after her husband went to work. The killings on June 20, 2001, occurred between the time Russell Yates left for work and Dora Yates came to the house, she said. Source : Houston Chronicle www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4028688.html
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Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 9, 2006 22:12:10 GMT -5
By PEGGY O'HARE and DALE LEZON, Houston Chronicle At a psychiatric hospital just months before she drowned her five children, Andrea Yates could not feed herself and was forced to hold her infant daughter at her husband's insistence, a nurse told a Harris County jury Friday. Though she did not testify at Yates' first capital murder trial four years ago, nurse Sherry Steinocher appeared at the Clear Lake housewife's retrial so jurors could hear her account - which is among the scant "new" information to surface since an appeals court threw out Yates' conviction last year. Steinocher and one of her former co-workers at the Devereux Texas Treatment Network care facility in League City testified for the first time Friday about Yates' mental state in the weeks before the drownings, as defense attorneys sought to show jurors how the mother of five spiraled downward before killing her children on June 20, 2001. Their testimony revealed Yates never expressed any homicidal thoughts about her children during her two stays at Devereux in April 2001 and May 2001, but may have been overwhelmed by her parental responsibilities at home. During her stays at Devereux, Yates expressed a need to return home so she could tend to her children, but could not make eye contact with them when they came to visit her at the hospital, jurors learned. During one family visit, Yates appeared stiff and unresponsive when her then-husband, Russell Yates, announced it was "time" for her to hold their infant daughter, said Steinocher, a former Devereux employee now working in the Alvin school district. Steinocher described cupping the unresponsive mother's hands and moving them so bystanders could place the baby in her arms. Despite the staff's concerns, Russell Yates insisted his wife would not drop the baby, Steinocher said. "She was sitting with her hands in her lap. She wouldn't respond to the baby ... (There was) nothing, no look (on her face). She never gave the baby any eye contact. There was nothing," Steinocher said Friday. Bystanders propped up a baby bottle with hopes of interesting Yates in feeding her daughter, but "we just gave up because we couldn't get Mrs. Yates to respond," Steinocher said. Steinocher remained calm during her testimony, but broke into tears when asked how she had been affected by the slayings of Yates' five children - Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary - following their mother's release from Devereux. Steinocher was not allowed to answer the question after prosecutors objected to its relevance, but Yates' attorney, George Parnham, later told reporters that Steinocher suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the children's deaths. Steinocher also revealed Devereux administrators held staff meetings in the days following the Yates' children's deaths. While Steinocher was not allowed to tell the jury any details about those meetings, Parnham later confirmed that Devereux staffers were told they had better keep quiet about the Yates case. Steinocher, in fact, was in such emotional turmoil that she begged defense attorneys not to subpoena her for Yates' new trial, Parnham said. The nurse just met with Yates' attorneys for the first time three weeks ago. She recalled that Yates was on "suicide watch" while at Devereux and rarely spoke, even when asked specific questions. "Mrs. Yates was afraid to eat. She clenched her teeth so hard that her jaws would pop. She had a look of terror in her eyes as the fork or sthingy came toward her," Steinocher said. Another former Devereux employee testifying for the first time Friday - licensed clinical social worker Barbara Roberts - said she concluded Yates could not care for her children by herself. "I didn't believe she was able to function and take care of all those needs on her own. She needed some kind of help," Roberts told the jury. Roberts described Yates as "the sickest person I've ever seen in a mental hospital," but said the severely depressed woman would not discuss her thoughts. "She did say, 'My mind is so full of things.' She also said she had to go home to be a mother to her children," said Roberts, who met with Yates on two occasions. "She couldn't give me any specifics about what these (thoughts) were. I didn't push it. ... No specifics ever came out," Roberts said. More medical experts will testify when Yates' trial resumes at 8 a.m. Monday. Defense attorneys have backed off on plans to call Russell Yates to the witness stand, noting they likely will not summon him until the rebuttal phase of their case. Source : Houston Chronicle www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4032430.html
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Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 14, 2006 21:57:56 GMT -5
Jurors watch her describe visions of stabbing her son By PEGGY O'HARE and DALE LEZON, Houston Chronicle Andrea Yates feared her children were turning away from her in the weeks before she drowned all five of them in a bathtub at the family's Clear Lake home, a psychiatrist testified Thursday. After returning home from a private mental hospital shortly before the slayings, Yates believed her mother-in-law was assuming too much of a role in caring for the children, said forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, whose erroneous testimony four years ago resulted in Yates getting a new trial. "She sees her children bonding with Dora," said Dietz, referring to Yates' mother-in-law, Dora Yates. "Instead of coming to her, they would go to Dora. That was difficult for her." Yates told another forensic psychiatrist two months ago that she never revealed her obsessive thoughts of harming her children to her husband or anyone else because she didn't want to lose them to foster care. "I didn't want them to be separated or put in a foster home. Sometimes you don't get a good foster home or foster family," Yates told Dr. Michael Welner during an evaluation at Rusk State Hospital in May. Jurors watched portions of Yates' videotaped interviews with Welner and Dietz on Thursday as Dietz explained why he believes Yates knew drowning her children was wrong. Yates is standing trial again for three of her children's deaths because an appeals court threw out her capital murder conviction last year, citing concerns that Dietz might have swayed the jury with incorrect testimony during Yates' first trial in 2002. Yates, 42, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity for drowning the children - Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary - at the family's home June 20, 2001, after her husband had left for work. Yates, who had a history of mental health troubles and suicide attempts, then called police. In the video excerpts viewed by jurors, Yates frequently cried while discussing her children's deaths during separate jailhouse interviews with the two psychiatrists. Speaking with a slight Texas drawl, her voice sometimes shaking with emotion, the former housewife told Welner how she had been deeply troubled by visions of stabbing her eldest son long before the drownings. "I had these visions of harming Noah," Yates said, describing one occasion in 1999, when the family lived in a converted Greyhound bus. "I felt like the walls were closing in." When her husband, Russell Yates, came home, she recalled, "I said I needed help. And I meant medical help. And he thought I meant help with the children." In another excerpt, Yates said she never disclosed her thoughts of harming the children because she feared Satan would force her to act on those impulses. Yates blamed her delusions and depression on Satan instead of a mental illness, Dietz said. "I think she's having genuine symptoms. ... I think it's because of her faith that she blames the symptoms on Satan instead of her illness. And that's part of the reason she's not getting the treatment she needs," Dietz told the jury. However, Yates suffered no hallucinations or delusions on the day of the drownings, Dietz said. Yates confirmed that she knew her husband, society and God would condemn her actions, and that she would be arrested and taken to jail, Dietz said. In one of the video excerpts, Yates said she called the police because "that's who you call when you've done something wrong." Asked if she thought her actions were illegal, she said, "Yes." She recalled that Noah "came up out of the water" and said something as she was drowning him. "He said, 'I'm so-' I don't know if it was, 'I'm sorry,' or what," she said. Yates' attorneys will begin their cross-examination of Dietz this morning. Source : Houston Chronicle www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4046115.html
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Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 17, 2006 22:18:25 GMT -5
Psychiatrist says mother thought deaths were better than lives of sin By DALE LEZON, Houston Chronicle Andrea Yates believed killing her children was sinful, but considered it the best thing she could do for them, a psychiatrist testified Friday. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist, said Yates quoted Scripture to him when she talked about the killings. "My children weren't righteous," she said. "They were going to stumble. Better for them to tie a millstone around their necks and they should perish than they should stumble." Dietz, whose erroneous testimony four years ago resulted in Yates' new trial, said the former Clear Lake-area housewife's religious beliefs indicate she knew the killings were wrong. She considered killing them a sin and believed her homicidal thoughts came from Satan, Dietz said. "Mrs. Yates, in assessing her obsession to harm the children, regarded that idea of harming the children was a sin," Dietz said. "That killing the children would be sinful is an indication that it would be wrong from her point of view." Yates, 42, is accused in the deaths of her five children, ages 7, 5, 3, 2 and 6 months, on June 20, 2001, at the family home near Clear Lake. 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. If convicted, she automatically will be sentenced to life in prison. She would be placed in a mental hospital and remain under the court's jurisdiction if she is found not guilty by reason of insanity. Yates was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison, but an appeals court threw out the conviction based on Dietz's testimony about an episode of the television drama Law & Order in which a mother is found not guilty by reason of insanity for killing her children. No such episode existed. Attorneys have said state District Judge Belinda Hill prohibited them from mentioning the phantom program, but they could refer to the previous trial as a "preceding" and question Dietz about his testimony to determine if he was testifying the same way in the new trial. Friday, when defense attorney George Parnham asked him about Yates' statements to him concerning the film Seven, Dietz said he remembered Yates had told him she had seen it, but he couldn't recall the plot specifically. Parnham said there are similarities between Yates' delusions and the actions of one of the film's characters. The character killed and then hoped to be executed. Mental health witnesses have testified that Yates believed she would be punished for killing her children and said Satan would be killed when the state executed her. Parnham also asked Dietz about his testimony in the 2004 capital murder trial of Deanna Laney, who was acquitted by reason of insanity. In Laney's trial, Dietz said that psychotic delusions made Laney unable to determine right from wrong during the killings - the legal standard in Texas' legal standard for insanity. Laney, who believed God chose her and Yates as witnesses after the end of the world, said she believed God had told her to kill her three children. Dietz testified that Laney believed she was right to kill her children because God would never order her to do wrong. Friday in Yates' trial, Hill told attorneys with the jury on break from the courtroom that she would not retry the Laney case, but allowed Parnham to ask Dietz questions about delusions based on religious faith. Parnham asked Dietz if people commanded by God to kill are insane. "Only if a person is of a faith that believes God is good and infallible." He said Yates told him in a interview in November 2001 that Satan was the origin of thoughts about harming her children. "Because Mrs. Yates said that the thoughts were bad, she knew it was wrong, and because of her faith she concluded they were from Satan," Dietz said. Dietz said Yates suffered from mental illness as far back as 1994 but had not been "floridly psychotic" - grossly psychotic - until she was at the Harris County Jail the day after the drownings and after her arrest. He said her symptoms most likely were signs of schizophrenia, he said. Source : Houston Chronicle www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4048463.html
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Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 18, 2006 5:16:45 GMT -5
We have 2nd chance to do right by Yates If she's sent back to prison rather than a mental hospital, does Texas really have an insanity defense? By JENNIFER S. BARD, Houston Chronicle AS Andrea Pia Yates is re-tried this week for the drowning of her five young children in Houston, Texas some question why it matters whether Yates is convicted of murder and sent to prison or found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a secure hospital facility. There are two main reasons why it is important to take this second chance to do the right thing by sending Ms.Andrea Yates to a hospital rather than to prison. First, by finding that despite her severe mental illness Ms. Yates is a criminal deserving of punishment, we as a society fail in our obligation to care for the weakest among us. Second, the care Ms.Yates would get in prison will be primarily oriented to making it easier to control her behavior in the general population. The goal of a hospital will be treat the very serious illness which led her to commit these horrible acts. When Ms. Yates' conviction was ove-turned because of lies told by the prosecution's psychiatrist, the state of Texas could have offered Ms. Yates the option to plead not guilty by reason of insanity and be involuntarily committed to a secure hospital. Instead, the state is retrying Ms. Yates and by doing so affirming their its belief that by law a mother who says God told her to kill her children is insane while a mother who felt she had to kill them to spare them from God's wrath is not. Unless we seek to curb the first behavior but encourage the latter, it makes no sense to base a determination of legal sanity on the particular format of an insane person's delusions. To say that Yates was suffering, and still suffers, from a severe mental illness that prevents her from knowing when she is committing illegal acts is not to say that she should be set free. Yates' medical history while in prison leaves no doubt that she is still very sick and must be confined. The question is whether she should be sent to prison as a criminal or involuntarily confined to a hospital. So here is the question: What's the difference? The answer is based on the distinction between punishment and treatment. Although the U.S. prison system has been so flooded with the mentally ill that in many large cities they are the largest providers of mental health services, in fact the resources available in prison are completely inadequate to meet the needs of people who, like Yates, have severe mental illness. The international organization Human Rights Watch recently described the lack of treatment for the mentally ill in the United States' prison system as a "crime against humanity." Despite the good intentions of medical professionals, resources are so scarce that treatment in prison is often limited to the bare minimum required to control behavior. This lack of care is morally and legally unacceptable for convicted criminals but it is even worse for people like Yates who lack the mental capacity to have committed the crime for which they are incarcerated. What Yates did was horrible. Anyone who looks at the photographs of those five children without imagining their fear and pain and without mourning their lost potential is without empathy. Yet we should be able to have empathy for the children and for their mother. Yates should be placed in a hospital, not a prison, because she is sick and because the murder of her children was a product of this sickness. There are such hospitals in Texas, and she was being held in one following the reversal of her conviction. The state of Texas can end this trial by offering Yates the opportunity to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Should the case proceed, the jury should find from the overwhelming weight of the evidence that Yates was suffering from severe mental illness that prevented her from knowing, in any reasonable sense of the word, that what she was doing was wrong. If Yates is again held criminally responsible, then I question whether Texas, or the many other states whose laws are exactly the same, really does have an insanity defense and whether we as a society have any right to think we have met the test of a just society: compassionate treatment of the sick and weakest among us. Yates' act in killing her children was horrific, but if we cannot recognize the effects of severe mental illness and confine her to a hospital where she can get treatment then this society's knowledge of right and wrong is no better than hers was. Source : Houston Chronicle, Viewpoints (Bard is an associate professor of law at Texas Tech University School of Law and director of the health law program and an associate professor (adjunct) at the Texas Tech University School of Medicine) www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4048805.html
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