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
I thought the definition of insane was not being able to tell right from wrong. The fact she called the police shows that she knew what she did was wrong. Case closed.
How can she consent to anything, she's "insane" remember
LOL! Good question. A person with a conscience would. The definition of insane is the ability to distinguish right from wrong. If she called the police, she knew what she did was wrong. Plenty of people have called the police after killing someone.
"But, there is blame for the husband who failed to protect those children - he surely knew she was insane."
I've always thought that, as well. He should spend life in prison for murder by depraved indifference. Doctors told THEM she should have no more children -- that she couldn't deal with it emotionally. Mr. Macho, intent on spreading his seed, insisted. If anyone shouldn't be procreating it's this pig. They're both guilty. So she goes to jail and he moves on with his pathetic life with a new woman in tow. Disgusting.
Please don't question my understanding of mental illness, I deal with it everyday.
Well, there you go. Perhaps had they listened to doctors orders her kids would still be alive.
That, while he did not physically hold the kids under the water, he was the force that drove his wife to this act.
Not the force A force. Do you really believe that he has no blame? And BTW, if my husband showed psychotic tendencies and the doctor told me no more kids - I'd be running to the nearest hospital for a snip. I wouldn't be messing with birth control - THAT is what a responsible adult does.
so can someone who is delusional, and hallucinating, make the decision to wait until their husband goes to work at 9:00 A.M., realizing that her mother in law is coming at 10:00 A.M., and systematically drown 5 children and then call the police? someone who is delusional and hallucinating cannot make a plan like that and then carry it out.
And again I ask, if she was hallucinating and delusional, what the hell was her husband doing having sex with her?
It is what it is, MURDER. She should be staring at striped sunlight instead of bouncing off rubber walls because she's mentally unstable. Charles Manson isn't serving life in a rubber room.
So is Charles Manson.
If she knew she did wrong and deserved to be punished, then yes.
Sad. I would bet they thought "She thinks she is mentally unstable, so, of course, that means she is sane. The really crazy ones never think they are crazy".
Glad you two sought out help.
I think that abortion fits into this category as well...a lack of natural affection for that which grows inside a woman...willing to put her self interests above that of her unborn child--definitely a lack of natural affection, IMHO.
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.