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
Oh, fine.... Excuse me for my observations using only common sense, and lack of clinical expertise.
The bottom line:a murderer has exonerated of 3 murders, done with willful intent, and no amount of analysis can change that fact.
The extent of psychosis or at whatever level, only confirms the fact that the woman was a sick-o, and deserves the punishment the law provides. If every psychotic murderer were allowed to use the insanity "victim" defense, then the hospitals would have no room for anyone else.
It cannot be denied that mental problems (from societal mal-adjustment to the extreme psychotic) are involved in EVERY murder, but that does not excuse nor remove the guilt from the behavior.
Agreed, I did see afterward that she was only charged with 3 of her children's death. Hmm, why is that?
I guess I'm not concerned with "facts" as in the lawyer sense, I'm concerned with "facts" in the real world sense, hence I have no understanding why she is charged with 3 murders rather than 5. I still say the woman was crazy and all the sane folks around her knew it and continued to allow her to care for children.
Well, you are dead wrong. I have read the posts and do agree that phychosis is a terrible, terrible thing, and we have five dead children that sort of prove that point...now don't we?
Sorry, I have no sympathy for Andrea..I do have sympthy for her FIVE murdered children.
sw
lame, lame, lame.
If anyone drowns their 5 childen they are OBVIOUSLY INSANE.
Its not an excuse or a reason for lesser punishment.
In a different media age, people who thought they would be given 72 virgins in heaven if only they blew themselves up in a church during a wedding would be considered INSANE.
Seems to me, we got to much expertin' goin' on here.....
Everyone, who spends enough money to buy the credentials, suddenly becomes an expert on a subject.
Common sense be damned; we can always rationalize away the behavior of lawbreakers by painting them as "victims" verified by some so-called expert, but we can't excuse their law-breaking....If we want to excuse it, then everyone has some short-coming that should be an excuse for their actions, and we should all just move along.
The "she couldn't help herself due to her condition" excuse in no way excuses her from the law. Now, that said, the insanity defense should be removed from every felony statute nationwide, and we will have NO REPEAT OFFENDERS, nor will we have the O.J. juries like the one here in the Yates trial, who want to make a social statement and disregard the murder victims because the law allows an "insane" person to murder with impunity (save only a few years in a hospital, awaiting a "qualified expert" to bless her as "sane" again..)
Andrea Yates did have a problem much more severe than mere depression. It is called psychosis.
You either have the capacity in you to murder someone or you don't. It's that simple.
No, it's not that simple. To claim that it is a matter of character illustrates your ignorance of what psychosis is. You might want to volunteer at your local state hospital and meet some people who are truly psychotic. I have watched my own brother--a compassionate and responsible husband and father--get lost in an acute episode of psychosis and seriously consider confronting strangers in the street with a hammer--not because he had violence "in him," but because he truly believed that they were coming to murder him and he needed to defend himself and his family. Psychosis is by definition not logical or coherent, and it is not a matter of character or personal responsibility. By definition, you lose your capacity to perceive the world accurately, and your reasoning does not make sense. To claim otherwise is nothing but ignorance of what psychosis really is and what it does to people.
There are serious problems with the field of mental health in this country. There are a lot of incompetent and politically motivated "mental health professionals" trying to reclassify every sort of bad behavior as a mental disorder in order to excuse the perpetrators. Road rage, sexual "addiction," and personality disorders are good examples. It is natural to be exasperated by people who hide behind mental health diagnoses to gain benefits and avoid responsibilities.
There has been a refreshing movement, under more conservative leadership, toward calling this nonsense what it is and demanding that people be accountable for their own behavior. But in our zealousness to hold people accountable, there is a real risk of throwing out reason and insisting that EVERYTHING is volitional and that there is no such thing as serious mental illness. Psychosis exists, and it can fundamentally change how a person perceives the world and how he or she responds. To treat it as a character disorder is medieval and ignorant.
There is a reason we have the insanity provision in the law. Any attorney experienced in these sorts of cases will tell you that it is an extremely high bar and difficult to meet. Very few cases get defended this way, and an even tinier percentage of those prevail. If we ever had a case with documentation of actual insanity, Andrea Yates's case is that one. A verdict of "guilty but insane" might have been a better option than the not guilty by insanity verdict, but at least it would have acknowledged the role frank psychosis played in this case.
Andrea Yates is NOT Susan Smith. Their motives and characters are not equivalent. I see the same strawman arguments over and over again, as though those trying to create some differentiation between Susan Smith and Andrea Yates are saying that the death of the children was not horrendous or that Yates should be walking the streets. What utter nonsense. But if we cannot make SOME distinction between a pure sociopath plotting evil and a person acting out of delusion and psychosis, we are returning to the medieval age in our conception of mental illness and justice.
your compassion for her is misplaced.
and I guarantee you, there are going to be copycat crimes here. somewhere, someplace, some mother who thinks her life would be "better" without her children, is looking at this case very carefully as a way out. and the use of the "I'm crazy" defense, and "my husband is bad" looks like the ticket to ride.
It's possible that her Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity verdict, relieved Rusty of his own responsibility...in his mind's eye...(Just my non professional opinion, which isn't worth a dime) :)
sw
" Andrea Yates's case is that one. A verdict of "guilty but insane" might have been a better option than the not guilty by insanity verdict, but at least it would have acknowledged the role frank psychosis played in this case. "
This probably summarizes how I feel...although it is very difficult to think of the logical steps she had to go through to carry out the murders.
And everytime I think of the horror her oldest child felt as the last to die...knowing full well what his beloved mommy just did to his siblings...this is what makes me think there should at least be a mandatory life sentence at the mental institution.
I can't help but think she needs both...treatment AND punishment.
No. Can't imagine why he should be blamed for anything. I'm sick and tired of listening to people wanting to blame the husband, blame the illness, blame the doctors and blame anything but this evil woman who should be put to death for this heinous crime.
"I'll never forget when this story first came over the radio. I was rocking and nursing our third, just a newborn at the time, while the older two were running around the house. I was beginning to panic. And, at that moment, the story aired. All I could do was imagine the horror those children went through, and think, Could anyone just snap like that and not know what she's doing? Could I snap too? The whole way the story was presented made me afraid of myself, and I think other new mothers had the same experience.
But, then more info came out. This woman had plotted and planned. She did the deed systematically one at a time. She knew exactly what she was doing. She's no more insane than any other killer who commits mass murder all in one day."
I remember talking to my therapist about this. Well, he told me something that I'll never forget: Andrea Yates (he had read her psych file) was a cold, unempathetic patient and lacked as was said, the ability to feel empathy.
Now he reassured me that I was a much warmer, empathetic and caring person than Andrea Yates. He's known me since I was nine. Now TOT, the mere fact that you feel the way you did, in my opinion, shows you are incredibly caring and am able to analyze yourself.
When people snap, they don't systematically plan for it beforehand.
I do realize you are giving your professional opinion, and that is appreciated, even if I don't want to agree with it...grins.
Take care, sw
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