Replies

Feb. 1, 2006, 11:08AM
Bond set for Andrea Yates

By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Bond was set at $200,000 today in the case of Andrea Pia Yates, the mother accused of drowning her five children, but she must remain at a state mental hospital until her second trial begins.

Yates, 41, has admitted drowning her five children in a bathtub in her Clear Lake-area home in 2001. She is scheduled for retrial March 20 on capital murder charges stemming from the deaths of three of the children.

State District Judge Belinda Hill agreed to the bond, as long as Yates is voluntarily committed to Rusk State Hospital, where her attorney has wanted her placed.

Yates was found guilty in her first trial in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison, but the state's First Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in January last year and sent the case back to district court, saying erroneous testimony by a prosecution witness could have prejudiced jurors.

In November, the Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest court for criminal cases, let that decision stand.

At her first trial, Yates pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors sought the death penalty and she was not allowed a bond. The jury found her guilty but said that mitigating circumstances — her mental state — precluded her execution and she was sentenced to life in prison.

Now, prosecutors can't seek the death penalty against her again because a jury in the first trial said she did not deserve it. Since she can't be executed, she can be granted a bond.

Yates was jailed at the Texas Department of Corrections Skyview unit, a psychiatric facility, until her conviction was overturned and she was moved to the Harris County jail in January. She is in the jail's psychiatric unit.

The First Court of Appeals ruled that Hill had erred in the first trial when she refused to declare a mistrial based on mistaken testimony from the state's expert witness, psychiatrist Park Dietz..

Dietz testified that one episode of the "Law & Order" TV series depicted a mother prosecuted for drowning her children who was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

A consultant to the series, Dietz said the episode aired shortly before Yates killed her children. Prosecutors told jurors that Yates watched the program regularly.

After Yates was convicted but before jurors decided her sentence, it was discovered that no such episode was ever produced. Dietz insisted that he had made an honest mistake and jurors were told of his mistake before deliberating about Yates' sentence.

Yet, the appeals court ruled that Dietz' error may have swayed jurors and tossed out the conviction.

Soon after her husband, Russell Yates, left for NASA where he worked as an engineer, Yates called Houston police to their home near Clear Lake June 20, 2001. Officers found the children dead in the house.

Yates told them she had drowned all five of her children in a bathtub. She had put the bodies of John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and Mary, 6 months, on a bed and covered them with a sheet, police said. She left Noah, 7, in the tub.

She had put the bodies of John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and Mary, 6 months, on a bed and covered them with a sheet, police said. She left Noah, 7, in the tub

Yeah she left the 7 year old in the tub alright. After he came in the house,walked into the bedroom calling for his brothers and seeing his siblings covered on that bed, saw them dead and then realizing what was happening, his mother chased him throughout the house and had to drag the 7 year old into the tub and hold him down to his death. I'll absolutely bet she didn't have the energy left to move him to the bed like her other children. I'll never forget reading about the bruising on his arms and shoulders from hitting the sides of the tub, that's just so disgusting.Why she is allowed to draw breath today is beyond me.