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
If she's as nutty as he says she was, she's incapable of making good decisions - especially judging by the fact she killed her kids.
Until all the details of the impregnation are released
What? What details do you need? Together, they had another baby. I'm not sure where you're getting from my post that he is more responsible for his children's death. If you want to get technical, he didn't hold their heads under water and kill them. But he sure knew his wife was crazy. Why would any husband, who cared for his wife and kids, not do what the doctors advise?
Once upon a time these folks were burned at the stake. While I don't propose bringing back witch tests, is a nice cool needle in the arm asking too much?
I can understand the pain and suffering... and the sympathy. I have a relative diagnosed as schizophrenic.
But I also grew up in a town where the state hospital was located, the "outpatients" lived among us, and some of them were violent. :-0 There was one guy who attacked his mother violently and was released again to live in our vicinity.
The way I see it, once someone who is mentally ill has committed murder, that person should be locked up forever. That person should never be released. If that person is truly "sick" and unable to control his or her actions, then we're doing both that person and society some good with a lifetime sentence in a mental hospital.
Also, with so many people being diagnosed with "mental disorders" these days, one day everyone will be able to plead insanity.
"People look at the fact that she systematically murdered 5 children and can't imagine that a mother could do that to her own children unless she was insane."
I would hope those same people wouldn't be able to imagine that a FATHER could do that to HIS own children unless he was insane, as well.
But I'm thinking, not...........
That jury needs to be committed.
"Really doesn't matter what we do to her, upon her death, she's headed straight for the hell realms. No 49 days in the bardo......"
Actually our Lord Jesus can and does forgive crimes such as these and worse. I pray that justice is served here on this earth, but that Andrea will come to our Lord and Savior and find forgiveness in His sacrifice. We all deserve hell, every single one of us, including you and me. By Grace alone are any of us saved.
Exactly. I wonder what some people on this thread think about a sane person having sex with an insane person?
I hadn't seen that information before. Thanks for posting it. A change of meds can be a critical time for any person dealing with any illness (think of a change in heart meds, for example). I don't think the meds necessarily contributed although they could have. Those types of meds - even just higher doses take a few days/weeks to achieve the desired effect and for the person to "readjust" to the changes as well. I'll bet she was still in a downward spiral at that point, and the meds didn't have a chance to work. So many questions and possibilities as for why her illness progressed and manifested as it did. Most of those questions will probably never be answered definitively, IMHO.
Don't get wrong. I am not making excuses for her at all. I think they should BOTH be in jail.
I guess you have links to back up your assertions?....
No treatment?....
What did the erroneous testimony from trial one have to do with her condition?...
What did the prosecutor have to do with her killing her children?...
Rusty was never convicted of anything and thus not guilty just like the self admitted killer....
Now where are you links to your assertions?...
Did the husband kill those kids?
Did the doctors kill those kids?
Did society kill those kids?
Andrea Yates, and only Andrea Yates killed those kids. She is responsible, no one else is.
With details of the impregnation, I mean-
Failure of birth control?
Use of birth control?
No birth control?
There are plenty of things that we do not know about how this pregnancy occured. I assume that the Dr. you are referring to is the psychiatrist who advised them not to have children. From all of my experience with shrinks, I wouldn't listen to or trust them either.
Your statement that "technically" the father did not kill his children implicates the father as the guilty party in this crime. That, while he did not physically hold the kids under the water, he was the force that drove his wife to this act.
Frankly, I don't care if she is insane or not, she killed her kids in a merciless and cold-blooded fashion. She should die. And in all honestly, there is more mercy in a painless death than in years in a mental hospital.
With details of the impregnation, I mean-
Failure of birth control?
Use of birth control?
No birth control?
There are plenty of things that we do not know about how this pregnancy occured. I assume that the Dr. you are referring to is the psychiatrist who advised them not to have children. From all of my experience with shrinks, I wouldn't listen to or trust them either.
Your statement that "technically" the father did not kill his children implicates the father as the guilty party in this crime. That, while he did not physically hold the kids under the water, he was the force that drove his wife to this act.
Frankly, I don't care if she is insane or not, she killed her kids in a merciless and cold-blooded fashion. She should die. And in all honestly, there is more mercy in a painless death than in years in a mental hospital.
Only one insane was the jury to find the evil one "not guilty".
Disgusting verdict by a most disgusting evil person.
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