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 know what you are saying. I have compassion for those who are mentally ill, but that compassion comes to a screeching halt when the law is broken and/or murder is committed. People have become just too cowardly to take a stand against what they know to be wrong. And the result is that people like the Yates person? get to murder their children and anyone else just as long as they tell the dirt-face attorney they were insane at the time. And if they don't tell the attorney that, well by golly, the attorney WILL tell them...
I don't believe she should ever be released but if she isn't insane, who is? As for the husband, no matter how good or bad he was, he didn't kill his kids. She did. This was a woman with a college education and a career. No one made her have kids and stay home.
If she sought treatment and was refused it, then I agree, she probably does not deserve blame.
I don't think this woman can be rehabilitated. As I said, the only problem I have with this verdict is that maybe someday, she'll convince somebody that she has been and breathe free air again.
Isn't it chilling how he can just talk so matter of factly about the whole thing? It's so bizarre. His voice never cracks and his demeanor never changes.
Correct. I made some suggestions about this in Reply 226
Don't be silly.
Oh yeah, I totally agree. He's the one who talked her into selling their house and moving into a bus that used to belong to the preacher they followed.
Even Ozzie Osborn didn't want to be around him when they were on the same talk show. He accused him of 'enjoying being famous off the deaths of his own kids'.
IMHO, Rusty ought not to have any more children, but there's no legal way to prevent it, because he's not been convicted of any earthly crime ... although I think he'll have a few things to answer to his Maker for down the road.
Did he not take her numerous times to get extended mental health treatment and counseling before she committed murder?
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.
Sheesh.
Rusty is being interviewed right now and said he was very proud of the jury.
That's very eloquent.
What was I thinking? I must be insane. But who can I blame?
I'm not - you sound like a estrogen overloaded harpy looking to excuse murder. You blamed everyone but Andrea in post 226. Now that is silly - and sick.
Thanks for sharing pattyjo. I too somewhat understand due to some scary personal experiences -- depression and mental illness can be so devastating. I agree with your post, as well. I'm glad she is in the hospital getting the help she obviously needs, and I am confident God will sort it all out in the end...
- LR
That's pretty bad.
Exactly and I am guilty of that myself. Even as I typed my above response and this one, I am thinking, "I don't want to sound to harsh as I understand mental illness, etc...".
But you are right, DRS, people, even me at times, have become to cowardly to stand up against what is wrong. She could have prevented herself from having any more children by using birth control, there were many things she could have done to help herself and her family.
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