I’m sorry the child died. But, I don’t know that I agree with this ruling.
With the information given in the article, I’m fine with this. He could have taken the baby with him to “run errands” rather than leave him with a psychotic mother who thought the baby was the Antichrist. It’s not like she killed the baby in the middle of the night while the father was sleeping — I don’t think he would have been convicted if it had been something like that, really completely out of his control.
Rusty Yates certainly should have been locked up too — he’d been warned not to let his wife have any more babies, since her post-partum psychosis had been worsening with each one. So he promptly got her pregnant again anyway AND insisted she “homeschool” all the children while he went off to work every day (just imagine what sort of “schooling” that must have been).
But really, the state ought to be locking these women up in mental hospitals if they’re so mentally ill that they can’t be left alone with their children. When a mother is carving “666” into her scalp and rambling about how her children might be better off dying before they were old enough to be accountable because that way they’d wouldn’t have to go to hell (Andrea Yates), or claiming their one year old baby is the Antichrist, they’re past the point of being able to function as free citizens. For their own safety and that of their children and husbands, they should be taken out of society.