Andrea Yates will be in jail for new trial

[SoulTrainOz]

Clear Lake mom knew drowning her children was wrong, expert says

By PEGGY O'HARE and DALE LEZON, Houston Chronicle

Andrea Yates recently told a psychiatrist she understands why the drownings of her five children in 2001 prompted anger and outrage against her, according to a video segment viewed by jurors Monday.

During a 14-hour interview in May, Yates recalled for forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner - prosecutors' new mental health expert - how she felt on the day of her arrest when she heard a talk radio host threaten to put a bullet between her eyes.

Yates had fully expected to go to jail after killing her children, and she heard the venom directed at her over the airwaves as a Houston police officer drove her downtown in his squad car. But up until that moment, she told Welner, she had not considered that she might be executed for her crime.

"He was angry, and he wanted justice," Yates said during the videotaped interview at Rusk State Hospital. Asked if she understood why the talk show host was upset, Yates said, "Yes ... (because of) what had happened - five children."

That video segment was one of several viewed by jurors Monday during Yates' capital murder retrial as Welner explained why he believes the mother of five knew drowning her children in the bathtub of her Clear Lake home was wrong. Yates' lawyers have argued she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity because her mental illness kept her from knowing right from
wrong.

Welner is the second mental health expert that prosecutors have called to testify. His testimony was preceded by that of forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, who also concluded Yates knew her actions were wrong.

Erroneous testimony
Yates, 42, is being retried for three of her children's deaths on June 20, 2001, because an appeals court threw out her capital murder conviction last year.

The appeals court's decision was based on Dietz's erroneous testimony during Yates' first trial four years ago, which suggested she may have derived the idea of drowning her children from the TV show Law & Order. The episode Dietz described - depicting a mother who was acquitted after drowning her children and pleading insanity - was later found not to exist.

If Yates is convicted again of capital murder, she will automatically be sentenced to life in prison, the only punishment option available since jurors rejected a death sentence during her first trial in 2002. If she is found not guilty by reason of insanity, she will be sent to a state mental hospital and will remain under the jurisdiction of the court, although the law does not allow jurors to be told that before they reach a verdict.

Welner, chairman of The Forensic Panel, a New York consulting outfit touting itself as the first peer-reviewed forensic expert practice in the country, was on the witness stand nearly all day explaining the conclusions outlined in his report to prosecutors. He has not yet undergone cross-examination by Yates' attorneys.

Yates chose not to share her homicidal thoughts with any of the people close to her, then called police so they would discover her children's bodies before her husband and mother-in-law did, Welner said. And she was unwilling to face her husband when he angrily confronted her after the drownings, he added.

Calculated organization
Yates also ignored or declined multiple treatment opportunities and medical advice before the drownings and demonstrated a calculated organization in carrying out the crime, Welner said. He said severe mental illness doesn't preclude someone from having responsibility for criminal behavior.

Although thoughts of harming her children had plagued Yates intermittently since the birth of her first child in 1994, she kept her homicidal thoughts from her husband, mother, friends, doctors, pastor and the pastor's wife with whom she corresponded, Welner said.

Her best friend, Debbie Holmes, a nurse, had been supportive during Yates' bouts with mental illness, but Yates also did not confide her violent impulses to her. "The relationship with Debbie Holmes was such that (Yates) could speak with her about anything," Welner told the jury Monday.

He said Yates was aware that the people she could have confided in would have prevented her from killing her children or removed them from her care.

Yates acted normally until her husband left for work on the day of the drownings. After her children were dead, she called police, moments before her mother-in-law, Dora Yates, was expected to arrive to help her with the children.

"She did not want Dora to come to the house because she did not want to let her in and see what she had done," Welner said, adding this also demonstrated "she knew her actions were wrong."

Likewise, Yates was unwilling to face her husband or hear his reaction to the children's deaths, jurors learned.

"Russell Yates was summoned home, and when he confronted her, she deliberately ignored him and turned away from him so they wouldn't have any contact. That is consistent with shame," Welner testified.

Source : Houston Chronicle

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4053481..html

[SoulTrainOz]

herself

2nd murder trial opens

Andrea Yates drowned her 5 children in their bathtub because she was overwhelmed and felt inadequate as a mother, not because of any altruistic or religious motive, a forensic psychiatrist testified Tuesday in her murder trial.

"In my professional opinion, Andrea Yates drowned her children to help herself, not to help her children," Dr. Michael Welner told jurors.

He said Yates had become detached from 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah and showed no remorse.

No symbols were found at the scene that would suggest a religious motive, and when Yates initially told police she killed the children, she didn't say that she sent them to heaven or was trying to save them from hell, as she later told a jail psychiatrist.

Yates was convicted of capital murder in 2002, but the conviction was overturned by an appeals court that said some erroneous testimony may have influenced jurors. Her retrial traces much of the same ground as the original.

If convicted, Yates will be sentenced to life in prison. If the jury
instead sides with her plea of innocent by reason of insanity, she could be committed to a state hospital.

Her attorneys say she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and meets Texas' definition of insanity: that because of a severe mental illness a person does not know while committing a crime that it is wrong.

However, Welner testified Monday he found 60 examples in his examination of how Yates knew drowning the children was wrong. She filled the tub after her husband left, he said, and removed the bath mat so that the youngsters would have no traction to try and escape.

"Her behavior demonstrates self-discipline, self-control and efficiency in carrying out the drownings of her five children," Welner said as he testified for the prosecution in its rebuttal phase at Yates' second murder trial.

In an excerpt of Welner's videotaped interview with Yates played for jurors, he asked why she had been more determined on that day, June 20, 2001.

"I had made up my mind that I would to it. I just thought it had to be done," she said, adding that it was because of "just the prospect of them growing up to be unrighteous."

When Welner asked what made that day different from other days, she finally answered after a long pause: "I had just I didn't want them to go to hell."

(source: Associated Press)

[SoulTrainOz]

Pychiatrist says Yates thought drownings were right

By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press

HOUSTON -- Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the bathtub because she thought she had ruined them so much that one would grow up to be a serial killer and another would grow up to be a mute gay prostitute, a forensic psychiatrist testified today.

Dr. Phillip Resnick, who evaluated Yates about three weeks after the June 2001 drownings, said she knew her actions were illegal but didn't know they were wrong because she was trying to save the children from going to hell.

"If she did not intervene and take their lives while they were still
innocent, they would end up in hell," he said, testifying as a defense rebuttal witness. "Mrs. Yates knew what she was doing was right for her children."

Yates, 42, is being retried because an appeals court overturned her 2002 capital murder conviction on the grounds that some erroneous testimony may have influenced jurors. Yates, charged in only three of the children's deaths, has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.

If convicted, she will be sentenced to life in prison. If found not guilty by reason of insanity, she will be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released - although jurors are not allowed to know that.

Her attorneys say she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and meets Texas' definition of insanity: that a severe mental illness prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing it is wrong.

On Tuesday, jurors saw a 14-minute videotape of Resnick's July 14, 2001, interview with Yates in jail. She answered questions about the drownings after listing her children's names and ages: Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and Mary, 6 months.

"They just did a lot of silly stuff and didn't obey. When Rusty's mom would visit, they wouldn't treat her well, call her names," she said, adding that they were not developing correctly and were unrighteous. "They didn't do things God likes."

When asked how she felt about the children, she said, "I didn't hate my children." When Resnick asked if she loved them, she responded, "Yes. Not in the right way, though."

Yates did not show remorse then because she was too psychotic and still thought that killing the children was in their best interest, he said.

But when he evaluated her four months later, she had been taking anti-psychotic medication and realized she had "needlessly taken her children's lives ... so it was a very different picture," said Resnick, who began testifying in the defense's rebuttal phase after the state rested its case Tuesday. Resnick, a psychiatry professor at Case Western Reserve University medical school in Cleveland.

Source : Associated Press

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4057682.html

[SoulTrainOz]

Closing arguments to begin in Yates trial

Testimony ends, jury deliberations will start Monday

By PEGGY O'HARE and DALE LEZON, Houston Chronicle

Andrea Yates' capital murder retrial reached a critical juncture Thursday as attorneys on both sides concluded presenting their evidence after more than three weeks of testimony.

All eyes now turn to closing arguments, set to begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday.

Each side will be granted two hours for prosecutors and defense attorneys to give their views on the high-profile case that has pitted mental illness against parental responsibilities - a case that has evoked as much sympathy and compassion for the accused as it has anger and the desire for accountability.

Afterward, the jury will begin deliberating whether Yates is guilty of capital murder or should be found not guilty by reason of insanity for drowning her children in a bathtub at the family's Clear Lake home. Jurors will be sequestered overnight if they do not reach a verdict Monday.

Their verdict will determine whether Yates, 42, spends the rest of her life in the Texas prison system or goes to a state hospital, where she would remain for an undetermined amount of time, subject to periodic reviews by the court.

The looming decision has once again drawn national attention to the former nurse and housewife, who killed her children - Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary - while she was home alone with them June 20, 2001.

Yates had a history of suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations before the drownings and later was diagnosed with major depression with psychotic features and schizophrenia.

Her retrial - which included 16 days of testimony and featured some new revelations, such as her jailhouse letters and alleged conversations with cellmates - was spurred by an appeals court's decision to throw out her capital murder conviction last year.

Once again, the trial's outcome depends on who the jury believes, said Gerald Treece, a dean and constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law.

Doctors came to differing opinions on whether Yates was insane when she killed her children or knew that her actions were wrong.

"You have competing experts who take positions totally contrary to each other. The real question is, which expert is the jury going to believe?" Treece said.

The only Yates family member to watch all of the testimony - former husband Russell Yates' aunt, the Rev. Fairy Caroland - said she was "cautiously optimistic" the jury will find Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity.

"I'm still very much wanting her to be hospitalized," Caroland told
reporters after testimony ended Thursday.

Like Yates' trial four years ago, much of the testimony focused on the findings and opinions of psychiatrists and psychologists who treated Yates before and after the drownings, as well as renowned medical figures hired to serve as expert witnesses for the defense or prosecution.

Forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz - whose erroneous testimony in Yates' first trial prompted her conviction to be thrown out - returned to the witness stand and fared well, Treece said.

Dietz's erroneous testimony in the first trial - used to suggest Yates got the idea for the drownings and her defense from an episode of the TV program Law & Order - prompted the 1st Texas Court of Appeals to send the case back to Hill's court last year.

"I was ready to see Park Dietz get pretty well torn apart - (but) he's a very good witness. He's very smart," Treece said.

After the jury was dismissed Thursday, Hill denied a defense request that jurors be told the consequences of their verdicts before beginning deliberations.

Prosecutors said the law prohibits the court from telling jurors what could happen to a defendant before they decide whether that person is guilty.

Hill said she will rule later on another defense request prohibiting jurors from considering or discussing consequences of their verdict while they deliberate.

Source : Houston Chronicle

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4062113.html

[SoulTrainOz]

Different tactics, similar tale

Jurors will have the same choices as last time when deliberations start Monday afternoon

By PEGGY O'HARE, Houston Chronicle

For the most part, Andrea Yates' retrial for her children's drowning deaths followed much the same course as her first trial in 2002.

Jurors, who will begin deliberating Monday whether Yates is guilty of capital murder or not guilty by reason of insanity, listened to nearly four weeks of testimony concerning what happened before and after she killed her five children in a bathtub at the family's Clear Lake home five years ago.

Mental illness was again a predominant theme of the trial, since Yates had struggled with that since 1999, surviving two suicide attempts and several psychiatric hospitalizations. The 15 people chosen to sit on the jury - 12 regular jurors and three alternates - heard more about postpartum depression, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, delusions and auditory hallucinations than they will probably ever hear again in their
lifetimes.

They viewed Yates' medical records, listened to her doctors, heard her best friend and her former mother-in-law describe how she unraveled in the weeks before the drownings and heard about the good life she led as a young woman - graduating as valedictorian of her class at Milby High School in 1982 and working as a nurse at M.D. Anderson Hospital before becoming a mother.

They were exposed to the awful aftermath: crime scene photographs and videos of her five children's bodies after Yates drowned them - ages 7, 5, 3, 2 and 6 months - on June 20, 2001. Jurors also viewed portions of Yates' videotaped interviews with various doctors in the months following the deaths and earlier this year.

But the new trial differed in some marked ways from the preceding affair in 2002.

Perhaps most notably, jurors this time cannot consider the death penalty since the jury in Yates' first trial rejected that option.

If convicted again, Yates will automatically be sentenced to life in prison - the same punishment she received last time.

Ex-husband didn't testify
The jurors in state District Judge Belinda Hill's courtroom during the past few weeks also did not hear from Yates' former husband and the children's father, Russell Yates, although he had been sworn in as a witness and showed up at the courthouse frequently during the trial.

Likewise, this jury did not hear from Yates' mother or other family members - but did watch testimony offered by her best friend, Debbie Holmes, and Yates' former mother-in-law, Dora Yates, who described the accused woman's deteriorating mental state in the weeks before the drownings.

Jurors also heard from a forensic psychiatrist who just joined the case late last year and watched video segments from a 14-hour interview he conducted with Yates in May. That new expert witness, Dr. Michael Welner, testifying for the prosecution, said he believes Yates knew the drownings were wrong and alleged the children's deaths were motivated by her selfish needs.

Prosecutors presented unflattering testimony from one of Yates' former cellmates, who said Yates told her about chasing the oldest child through the house and becoming angry with him during an intense struggle before overpowering and killing him.

Yates briefly showed emotion during these latest proceedings, breaking into sobs twice, unlike the first trial, when she showed no emotion at all.

How those factors affect the jury, if at all, remains to be seen.

Attorneys on both sides turned in solid performances, said South Texas College of Law dean and constitutional law professor Gerald Treece.

"Nobody can rightfully say who's ahead or behind. I can say both sides did a very good job presenting their case," Treece said.

Yates' new trial was prompted by an appeals court's decision to throw out her capital murder conviction last year based on erroneous testimony offered by the prosecutors' mental health expert, forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, during the first trial in 2002.

Dietz testified again this time, explaining in detail why he believes Yates knew drowning her children was wrong. His and Welner's views were countered by three mental health experts hired by the defense, who said Yates believed drowning her children was the right thing to do and in their best interests
because she wanted to send their souls to heaven.

'A tactical decision'
Treece said he was surprised the judge didn't allow Yates' attorneys to further pursue and question the inconsistencies between Dietz's findings on Yates and Deanna Laney, a North Texas mother who bludgeoned her three children with rocks, killing two of them. Dietz concluded Laney was insane, but found Yates was not.

Calling Russell Yates to testify would have been a risk for both sides, Treece said. The bereaved father could have provided powerful testimony about his children, but also knew so much about his former wife's mental illness - including doctors' advice that she stop having children because of postpartum depression - that it's impossible to say if he would have swayed the jury one way or the other.

"I think both sides just made a tactical decision that the benefit was just not as great as the detriment of his testimony," Treece said.

Closing arguments will begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center. Each side will have two hours to present its final views on the case. Deliberations will begin that afternoon.

Source : Houston Chronicle

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4064429.html

[SoulTrainOz]

Yates jury should hear of false testimony in first trial

Otherwise, there's bound to be yet a third court drama

By DAVID BERG, Houston Chronicle

IN a decision that almost certainly will result in a reversal should Andrea Yates be convicted again, Judge Belinda Hill has barred any mention of Dr. Park Dietz's famously false testimony that led to Yates' conviction in 2002 for the drowning deaths of three of the five children she killed, and to the reversal of that conviction in 2004. Judge Hill's decision is incomprehensible, especially given the history of the case.

Drawing on his rather rich imagination, Dietz testified in the first trial that on one episode of Law & Order, a mother drowned her children and was later acquitted by reason of insanity. The prosecution took it from there, undermining the credibility and competence of a defense mental health expert, Dr. Lucy Puryear, by forcing her to admit that she didn't know that Yates watched Law & Order "a lot," and had she known about that episode, she
would have questioned her about it. During closing argument, the prosecution argued that Yates, far from failing to understand the difference between right and wrong, the test of insanity in Texas, realized after watching the show that there was "a way out." The prosecution got their conviction.

The problem was that Dietz made it up: There never was such an episode of Law & Order, something that the defense learned after the conviction was returned, but before the sentencing phase of the trial. Despite the fact that Dietz was forced to admit the testimony was false, and the overwhelming evidence of her insanity from five other mental health experts and lay witnesses - despite the fact that any d**n fool but the prosecutors and
Dietz would admit that the woman was crazy as a loon - Judge Hill denied the motion for new trial. She did, however, inform the jury about Dietz's false testimony before they considered punishment. Even then, after learning they'd capitalized on false testimony, prosecutors continued to seek the death penalty. The jurors, however, saw it differently, spared her life, which resulted in a life sentence, the only other choice the law allows under the circumstances.

There are few courts in this land as pro-prosecution as Texas' 1st Court of Appeals, and few judges as conservative as the panel that reversed Andrea Yates' conviction, citing Dietz's false testimony, the prosecution's use of it and its potential impact on the jury's guilty verdict. In fairly short order, the case was returned to the lower court, Yates' case was set for retrial and Judge Hill ruled against any mention of Dietz's false testimony.
Thus unburdened, the prosecution once again offered the testimony of its star witness, Dietz.

Ask any lawyer: It is a bedrock of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence that every witness who takes the stand may be shown to have bias or prejudice toward the party he is testifying against. The reason is obvious: The trier-of-fact, whether judge or jury, is entitled to that information in order to determine whether the witness is honest or not.

By any standard, the defense should have been able to undermine Dietz's current testimony - that Yates knew right from wrong, the legal test of insanity, primarily because Satan, and not God, told her to kill her sons. Unshackled, most trial lawyers would have left Dietz's testimony like shards of broken glass on the courtroom floor. Instead, Judge Hill protected the doctor, handcuffed the defense and shielded the jury from the truth.

Another legal maxim holds that appellate courts seldom reverse convictions solely because of a mistaken evidentiary ruling. Not so this time. That Dietz was allowed to testify cleansed of his unforgivable distortion, deprived Yates of critical impeachment, and thus, a fair trial, arguably the most important right enjoyed by any citizen. If the jury doesn't "cure the error," finding her not guilty by reason of insanity, and rejecting Dietz's curious "the devil made me do it" theory, some other court will, reversing
the conviction and sending the case back for trial once again.

And Andrea Yates will be right back in Judge Hill's court, fighting to be sent to a mental institution for the remainder of her life, and not to jail - where enlightened societies send only sane people who have done terrible things.

Source : Houston Chronicle, Viewpoints (Berg is a trial lawyer and the author of "The Trial Lawyer: What It Takes To Win" (ABA 2003))

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4064517.html

[SoulTrainOz]

Yates' future: hospital or prison

They look alike, but how she will spend days hinges on jury's verdict

By TERRI LANGFORD, Houston Chronicle

If Andrea Yates is convicted of capital murder in the drownings of her children, it is likely she will return to a state psychiatric prison unit like the one in East Texas where she was sent after her first trial in the 2002 murders.

However, if she is found not guilty by reason of insanity, she could be committed by a judge to the same state psychiatric hospital where she had been staying since an appeals court granted her a second trial, which is set for closing arguments Monday after testimony concluded last week.

What's the difference? From the outside, little.

The Skyview Unit prison, where Yates stayed until January, and Rusk State Hospital, where she was until her new trial, sit about a half-mile apart in tiny Rusk, about 165 miles north of Houston.

But inside, the differences are quite evident.

In a state prison, an inmate is photographed, fingerprinted and issued a copy of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's offender handbook and a prison uniform. The prisoner is interviewed and evaluated to determine the best prison placement. If there are psychiatric issues, as is the case with
Yates, then placement at a psychiatric prison unit is likely.

At Skyview, Yates lived alone in a 10-foot by 12-foot white cell with two narrow windows and a solid metal door with a small window. She was allowed certain personal items, books, religious items, photos and products purchased at the commissary.

Her days at Skyview began at 4 a.m. with breakfast served in her cell. Lunch was served at 10:30 a.m. and dinner at 4 p.m.

"At a psychiatric (prison) facility, inmates are not going to have the same freedom of movement that general population inmates have at other facilities," said Michelle Lyons, TDCJ spokeswoman. "It's just the nature of their treatment."

Occupational therapy
Throughout the day, Yates could participate in certain occupational therapy such as gardening, cooking, sewing and crafts. Individual and group psychiatric therapy sessions are held throughout the day. Recreational opportunities include watching television in a day room with other inmates or playing games such as checkers or chess.

"No cards," Lyons said, explaining that aside from gambling, certain prison gang members use them to order specific violent actions against other inmates.

Depending on an inmate's status, some are allowed outside to play basketball.

There are no educational classes at Skyview. "That unit is focused on mental health," Lyons said.

Mail, after it is checked for contraband by prison officials, is brought to Skyview inmates' cells. Contraband includes tobacco, pornography, any type of drug, weapons or any item that could be used to make a weapon, Lyons said.

If Yates became healthy enough, she would be transferred to a regular prison.

However, if Yates were committed to a state hospital, she would remain there until a psychiatrist determined she was healthy enough to be released. A judge would have to approve that recommendation.

At Rusk, about 95 percent of patients are placed there by a judge's commitment order.

"We have a single mission: to get someone healthy enough to not be in this hospital," said Ted Debbs, superintendent of Rusk State Hospital, one of 10 the state operates to treat the mentally ill.

"On average it takes about 32 days for a person to be discharged back to their homes," he said. Each year, Rusk admits about 2,200 patients.

Psychiatric assessment
Currently, 13 of Rusk State Hospital's 306 patients are there because they were found not guilty by reason of insanity, Debbs said. Although the hospital's goal is never to house patients forever, at least one of those 13 has been there for 10 years.

Once a patient comes into a state hospital, doctors and staff assess the patient's psychiatric condition, determine whether there are mobility problems and take a medical history.

"They try to get as complete a picture of the individual as they can," Debbs said.

Patients are assigned a "treatment team" comprising a psychiatrist and nursing staff. This team continues to monitor the patient's progress to determine what treatment is best.

The patient is then assigned to a ward. There are six rooms to a ward. Each room has four patients.

Ward appointments
Patients can't bring anything harmful into their room. They are allowed to wear their own clothing. There are two community bathrooms per ward. Each patient is assigned a wardrobe, which includes drawers and a hanging closet, and a bed.

"We actually try to allow people to modify their environment," Debbs said. But personal items are limited because of space constraints.

Like a prison, a state hospital is a locked environment.

Days at a state hospital begin about 7 a.m. Patients wake up, get dressed and by 7:30 a.m. begin eating in 30-minute shifts.

Lunch is at noon, and dinner at 5:30 p.m.

Between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m, patients attend different kinds of classes, each about 30 to 45 minutes long.

"Things as rudimentary as how to shop, socialization classes, how to interact better, medication management," Debbs said. "There's a lot of relearning that goes along with a psychiatric illness."

Some patients have jobs around the hospital. "Help in the kitchen with cleaning up, dishes, around the grounds, doing some of the basic lawn work, all of this with supervision of our staff," Debbs said.

Patients can earn privileges that include walking around the facility's grounds unescorted.

Throughout the day, medication is dispensed to patients. Patients are allowed to purchase soft drinks and snacks from the hospital's canteen.

Some have their own money or money they earn from a "client worker" job.

Some are allowed to go with staff into the community to a store, such as Wal-Mart.

In the evening, patients are allowed to work out on exercise equipment, or play ping-pong or board games.

The recreation center has a television, but the hospital tries to organize activities that involve human interaction. There are bingo tournaments and sometimes a dance or movie.

Bedtime is about 9:30 p.m.

Source : Houston Chronicle

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