Posted on 02/24/2006 4:36:58 AM PST by kyperman
Andrea Yates once advised a fellow inmate that she could escape prosecution by pretending to be mentally ill and persuading a psychiatrist she suffered from serious disorders, according to court documents filed Thursday by prosecutors.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Postpartum abortion, it's the new trend. There was 21 yr. old woman on BOR last night who had two babies mysteriously die, the first baby's body has never been found.
Ya'll leave her alone. Her children died.
The BS field of psychiatry still uses electro convulsive shock therapy for treatment of depression, even on pregnant women. I think Yates would be a perfect cnadidate for it, just turn up the dial the whole way.
And Lyle and Eric Menendez are orphans, too.
************
Good point. I think she was mentally ill at the time of the murders. I also think she should be in jail for a long time.
Both Andrea Yates and her husband should have been put to death IMMEDIATELY. In 1875 they would have been tried within hours and hung! People in those days knew how to take the garbage out!
If that were the case I wouldn't have any problem with an insanity verdict in cases like this. Actually a psychiatrist who testified she was "insane" can later find that she is "cured" and ready to be released. The only real solution is the "guilty but insane" verdict. In that case you spend whatever time you need in the asylum and the rest of your life in prison.
Well I guess she was wrong, eh?
The big failing of the prosecution, and the reason the verdict got thrown out, was using a complete fraud of a psychiatrist who lied on the witness stand. He had made his living testifying for the prosecution. There is now some reason to believe that the prosecutors coached him on the lies he told. Now the taxpayers will be saddled with the additional cost of a new trial and/or whatever other legal maneuvers ensue. The people responsible for this fiasco should be held accountable but that's not likely.
IIRC, that sort of arrangement is or has been done in some jurisdictions. The thought process relating to sentencing looks into the reasons for the sentence - deterrance (might deter an insane person), punihsment (is it truely "punishment" if the insane person can't tell right from wrong?), revenge of society, etc. The defense side of the argument will say that it's unfair to hold a cured person, whose criminal act was taken without knowing it was wrong, beyond the time it takes to establish "cured."
I have a general problem with that, based I think on the ability (and motive) for an actor to fool the doctors. Temporary insanity is another insidious defense.
At any rate, permitting an insanity defense shows a soft side of criminal justice - the challenge is to restrict the defense to those who merit it.
Yeah, plus her ex-husband is getting married next month.
You'll love this though; instead of gifts they are requesting donations to the Texas Mental Health Association. Motto = Love endures forever!
You just can't make this stuff up!
If they are so mentally ill that they kill five people, they need to be not alive to be mentally ill to kill more people. IMO
"The big failing of the prosecution, and the reason the verdict got thrown out, was using a complete fraud of a psychiatrist who lied on the witness stand."
Exactly, there was never a doubt she did the act. Had the prosecution stuck to only the facts, this woman would not even be allowed a second trial.
Her husband ought to be locked up with her.
The theory of the insanity defense is that somebody is not responsible if they could not understand that what they were doing was wrong. Think of Maggie Simpson shooting Mr. Burns. She was not prosecuted because she didn't know what she was doing or if it was wrong (or did she...?).
But that does not apply in this case. She clearly knew what she did was wrong at the time she did it. She could be climbing the walls and baying at the moon in prison, but that is irrelevant. Her actions at the time demonstrated that she knew what she was doing was wrong. She just did it anyway.
But, failing that, she ought to be locked up, right?
Yates is a poster child er, uh creep for the return of vigilante justice.
Her mental illness did not fit the criteria for knowing right from wrong. She fully admitted to the crimes, admitted knowing she was committing an illegal and morally wrong act. Her mental illness, debatable IMO, is irrelevant in the legal sense.
Take David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) I have no doubts that he was and remians mentally ill. He was, from all accounts, unable to stop himself from committing murder, yet he too knew it was wrong. As evidenced by the fact he attempted to hide his crimes and escape the police. Mirror that with Ed Gein who did his crimes in the open, even told others he'd dug up graves (people didn't believe him) and never tried to hid his crimes since his home was filled with pieces and parts of his victims and those who's graves he dug up.
It is easily debatable that Gein didn't know what he was doing was wrong. That is the problem with the insanity defense. Most people believe, wrongly I may add, that anyone who would commit horrific crimes must be insane. In most cases they are but not insane in a legal sense.
I believe a termporary insanity defense much easier than insane beyond the knowledge of right and wrong.
If I walked into my home and found my husband in bed with another woman, I could easily snap, grab a gun and murder both of them...ie temporary insanity brought on by the circumstances a person finds themselves in.
I do not believe the insanity defense in most cases simply because very few "insane" pleas involve a person who didn't know, or act as though their crimes were wrong or illegal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.