Posted on 07/26/2006 9:35:01 AM PDT by cajunman
HOUSTON -- Jurors reached a verdict in Andrea Yates' murder retrial Wednesday morning. The jury's decision will be announced at about 11:25 a.m. KPRC and Click2Houston will air the verdict live.
After deliberating nearly 11 hours, jurors returned for a third day Wednesday to determine if she was legally insane when she drowned her five children in the bathtub.
Before court ended Tuesday, the jury of six men and six women asked to review the state's definition of insanity: that someone, because of a severe mental illness, does not know a crime he is committing is wrong.
State District Judge Belinda Hill said jurors, who were sequestered for the second night, , could see the definition Wednesday morning.
Jurors have already deliberated longer than the nearly four hours it took a first jury, which convicted her in 2002. That conviction was overturned on appeal last year.
Yates, 42, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity. She is charged in only three of the deaths, which is common in cases involving multiple slayings.
As court was to end Tuesday, jurors asked for one more hour to deliberate. But then the panel immediately passed another note rescinding that request. Hill quoted the note, which read, "We need some sleep," prompting laughs from those in the courtroom.
The jury earlier asked to review the videotape of Yates' July 2001 evaluation by Dr. Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist who testified for the defense that she did not know killing the children was wrong because she was trying to save them from hell.
Resnick told jurors that Yates was delusional and believed 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah would grow up to be criminals because she had ruined them.
Jurors later asked to review Yates' November 2001 videotaped evaluation by Dr. Park Dietz, the state's expert witness whose testimony led an appeals court to overturn Yates' 2002 capital murder conviction last year.
Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist, testified in her first trial that an episode of the television series "Law & Order" depicted a woman who was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children. But no such episode existed. The judge barred attorneys in this trial from mentioning that issue.
On Tuesday, after jurors asked for the trial transcript involving defense attorney George Parnham's questioning of Dietz about the definition of obsessions, the judge brought the jury back into the courtroom.
The court reporter then read the brief transcript, in which Dietz said Yates "believed that Satan was at least present. She felt or sensed the presence." Dietz had testified that Yates' thoughts about harming her children were an obsession and a symptom of severe depression -- not psychosis.
Earlier Tuesday, jurors reviewed the slide presentation of the state's key expert witness, Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist who evaluated Yates in May. He testified that she did not kill her children to save them from hell as she claims, but because she was overwhelmed and felt inadequate as a mother.
Welner told jurors that although Yates was psychotic on the day of the June 2001 drownings, he found 60 examples of how she knew it was wrong to kill them.
If Yates is found innocent 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 by law, jurors are not allowed to be told that.
Yates will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of capital murder.
A capital murder conviction in Texas carries either life in prison or the death penalty. Prosecutors could not seek death this time because the first trial's jurors sentenced her to life in prison, and authorities found no new evidence
Fox reported that once her doctors say she can be released, she merely has to apply to a judge to be free again. I expect within five years she will be walking among us again.
Just this one. It only applies to people who have sanity problems, as Andrea did.
Stop stressing yourself, eh? You can't comprehend the reason behind something like this so quit trying.
She won't be free. This is Texas... she can look forward to a lifetime of generic anti-psychotic drugs and sub-par mental health treatment.
Agreed.
Could you please FReepmail me, too?
This is a travesty and I am ashamed that a Texas jury did this.
That woman was sane enough to kill her children while her husband was at work. She was sane enough to fill the tub with water. Sane enough to pull one child into the bathroom at a time and CLOSE THE DOOR so the others wouldn't be able to defend. She was sane enough to call the police and her husband afterward saying "I've done something awful". she's not insane. disgusting.
There is a school of thought that says all humans are good. Evil must occur in a state of insanity. I think the replies on this thread speaks volumes.
If it were up to me she'd be relieved of life. I understands the technique cures mental illness as the process runs its course.
1. I think this woman was and is about as insane as one can get. As long as she never sees the light of a free day again, I'm not all that outraged by this verdict. My only concern is that she may, at some point, see the light of a free day again.
2. Some have said there needs to be a means of finding someone "guilty but insane." I actually agree with that. However, there is no means of doing that under current law in any state that I'm aware of. If this spurs a change, super, I'll be there campaigning for it. But this was the only option for ajudicating her insane, which again I think she is, that the jury had.
3. I see that some folks here understand the fact that her husband doesn't have completely clean hands in the overall situation. From what I've seen of him, I've never thought he was playing with a 52-card deck either. Living with someone for that long, he had to have known that something wasn't right, but he remained on this mission to be fruitful and multiply. From his reaction in the courtroom, I wouldn't be surprised that if this poor wretch ever does get out of the mental ward, he didn't try to plant his seed in her again.
It is a horrible situation anyway you look at it, but this was the best most just solution to it.
Absolutely. No matter what kind of blood lust is going on in here, she was a sick woman and needs treatment. It's not like she's ever going to walk free, anyway.
Nope. Hinckley never got out until decades later. His mental state was irrelevant. Politics counts for a lot in cases this high-profile and there's too much politics in this one. She'll be there forever. The other thing is, I doubt she will ever be well anyway. She just needs justice. Today she got it.
"Guilty by reason of insanity"
There is no such concept in Texas law. This is why it was not an option for the jury.
So far, efforts to get the Texas legislature to add this kind of verdict have failed.
She murdered her children.
But her kids didn't get it.
Thanks for the unexpected laugh ;^D
Post Abortion Syndrome. Let's just hope she gets locked up for at least the same period of time as John Hinkley Jr.
Saying the same thing on Court TV...she can go to school, go shopping...etc....she'll be out in a few years I'm betting..
I agree with both of you. And, there is a lot of blood lust on the Free Republic forums.
If she were sane she would kill herself. She'll be on suicide watch for the rest of her life. She will be a self-loathing and loathed-by-all monster for the rest of her life, pumped so full of drugs that she probably does not even know who she is. Don't hate her. Just shudder at the grace and mercy of God who could impose a such a living hell on everyone who deserves it, yet does not.
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