Verdict Reached in Andrea Yates Case (UPDATE: Not Guilty by reason of insanity)

KPRC Channel 2 ^

[retrokitten]

Right.

(that made me chuckle, but I feel weird putting a "lol" on this thread)

[Wyatt's Torch]

"This woman was (& still is) so severely disabled by psychosis, there is no way on God's earth she had any way of understanding what she was doing."

Question - if she had no understanding of what she was doing, why did she call the police?

[maineman]

Very sad

[over3Owithabrain]

The drug she was on pushed her into killing her children. I wish Rusty Yates would sue the big pharma company. These drugs are awful...lots of out of court settlements conditioned that NO one talks about these drugs making folks killers.

Sources please?

[ClancyJ]

And if he or other husbands had gone the next step forward and had her/their wives institutionalized, the same husband-bashers here on FR would be speculating about how cruel and evil he is/they are for getting the inconvenient wife out of the way, and how he obviously must be having an affair. And then wander over to whine on the threads about how men these days are putting off and avoiding marriage.

Hate to admit it, but you are right.

That and our constitution prevent our society doing anything BEFORE the tragedy. Crazy people and sexual child molesters have constitutional rights.

[Tired of Taxes]

I have relatives with "mental illness", including one who's schizophrenic.

"Innocent by insanity" shouldn't even be an option. If you committed the crime, you're guilty. "Guilty but insane" I can understand, but you still should lock them away for life with no chance of release.

This woman could be released later. :-0

[Aquinasfan]

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."

There's no doubt in my mind that some demonic spirit was present at the time, since this kind of evil is well outside the order of natural evils. I hope that doesn't make me "insane."

The fact that Yates was behaving irrationally doesn't preclude the possibility that she was behaving with malice. Evil is irrational by nature, but not all irrational acts are evil, such as a person's mistaken belief that he is the King of England.

Apparently, the jury believed that her acts fell into this latter category (irrational but not evil), but this seems to me to be impossible, since a mother's natural disposition is to care for her children. An evil force outside of the normal course of nature is a necessary to cause such a profoundly evil and disordered act.

Regardless of the jury decision, I'll be happy as long as she is confined to prison for life. I skimmed the article, and didn't see any reference to her sentence.

[Politicalmom]

You don't KNOW that she "truly believed" anything, and I don't care WHAT she "truly believed", she KNEW it was wrong, she planned it, then she called the cops.

[pj_627]

"She was/is more than PPD"


Psychotic Post Partum Depression. I researched it a bit when this tragedy first came to our attention. I was MOST interested, based on my personal, scary experience. I wanted to understand. My experience was 23 years ago, long before I had the resources of the internet at my disposal. I might mention that I have three children. I suffered not a whisper of PPD with my daughter or my younger son, just with my middle child. A bewildering illness.

What I experienced was considered "severe", but NOWHERE the magnitude of what she suffered with. Combine this extreme PPD with other mental illness, and anyone tuned into her SHOULD have heard the ticking of the time bomb, waiting to explode.

Of course she, herself, is responsible for what happened. Five beautiful, precious lives were senselessly lost. I should never have happened. My personal desire would be for lifetime incarceration for her. She took five lives, afterall. I just want her imprisoned where she can actually get mental health care.

I will be watching the news for the rest of my life, hoping NOT to read a blurb on some back page that she has been released as "cured". Mental illness as severe as I have read she suffers from, is usually a lifetime thing.

pattyjo

[spectre]

Yes...and she WAS being treated and all a person has to do is pull up a Larry King Live transcript where he talks to Rusty to prove it.

sw

[discostu]

Gradual changes are harder to spot, it's the old turn the heat up on the frog slowly thing. Think of it like aging, slowly but surely you get more aches and pains and less physically capable but until something big happens you don't really notice. The problem with insanity compared to aging is part of going nuts inhibits your ability to notice at all, your entire concept of the world filters through your brain, if there's something wrong with your brain how can you know your filtered view is way off.

[Diddle E. Squat]

You are suprised that a guy who had all his children murdered by his wife just a few years ago is still acting a bit strange?

I dunno, I'd be more creeped out if someone who had gone through that still isn't showing signs of it affecting them. For goodness sake, he's lost everything he had and everything to live for.

[shrinkermd]

Yes, you have described the issue of "abandonment" by a physician quite well. In Minnesota, and I presume in Texas, your responsibility to the patient does not depend on being paid. This is especially true if this occurs in the middle of treatment.

This is a civil suit waiting to happen. Most likely, depending on the doctor's records it will be solved before trial. The presenting issue will be whether the doctor took state of the art steps to insure his patient had the necessary care and whether the family and the patient were aware of these and cooperated to the same

Further, a hospital can make a reasonable effort to find a different place for a non-paying patient, but, again, they are not off the hook either.

I must say most physicians and hospital personnel are unaware of their true, legal and moral responsibility; hence, they are often sued for dereliction of duty or "abandonment" depending on state statutes.

[codercpc]

I don't think this is right, but it is real. It is caused by hormones, and is a documented chemical imbalance. I am saying that this woman should have never been left alone with the children. She should have been kept in the hospital, or constantly supervised. I just think every once in a while there is that "special" case that defies all logic, and all of our laws.

She should be punished, I just don't know how as a society we deal with the these cases. I don't have the answers, I just think that this truly was a woman who was sick, and shouldn't be treated the same as Susan Smith.

[tessalu]

The main part of the Andrea Yates story is that people do do go doctors and pay them for working on cases that they just do not understand. People are misdiagnosed and their illnesses are misunderstood.

Shall we blame Andrea Yates for being sick, or shall we blame doctors who did not serve their patient well?

Shall we blame a husband for not understanding the depth of the mental illness of of his wife?

Shall we blame society for closing the mental hospitals and making mental health care not readily available to all, giving the mentally ill a pill, and expecting them no longer to be sick, yet leaving them in the very same enviroment?

[ClancyJ]

Again Rusty just said he was so proud of the jury for their verdict, it was a tremendous victory

Yeah, absolves him of blame, doesn't it.

Have we ever heard him blame himself for any part of this? Did he bemoan the fact that he ignored the doctors' views? I never heard of it.

The guy is a weirdo. Any normal father would be totally destroyed that he did not see the signs and protect his children, but we don't see any of that remorse in Ol' Rusty.

[Tired of Taxes]

I'll be happy as long as she is confined to prison for life. I skimmed the article, and didn't see any reference to her sentence.

Post #79 has more info. She could possibly be released at some point:

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.

[drungus]

I wonder when the first case, using insanity as a defense, occurred??

According to this at least since 1581 or so.

[Cinnamon Girl]

I believe it is insane to murder people and cut up their bodies into pieces, which is what the islamic terrorists do all the time. Maybe they should just be institutionalized and have counseling.

[deport]

Interesting, but I read that to mean the court has the final say so as to when she is elgible to be released upon a finding of mental competency at some later date and not by some board hearing.. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.