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
Your loss of a child does not have a single thing to do with this woman and her plight. That you can connect the two in any way displays irrationality. Your problem has nothing to do with justice.
Yes he took her to seek help ... but why did he keep planting his seed in this wretch when he HAD to have known that she was losing her grip on reality and sanity? It's not a case of husband bashing. I'm a husband and I don't like to be bashed. It's seeking the answer to what IMHO is a very relevant question here.
It's one of those things which was tragic in the lead up, tragic in the result, and remains tragic while everyone who ever was touched by what happened lives.
Well, I'll just echo the statements of so many, someday he'll have to answer for his actions.
And that only proves you'll say anything to defend this child killer.
And one has to wonder why.
Ain't no winners here.
Those are Rusty's words.
I had a similar experience postpartum. Many women do, but we don't do what she did.
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 repeat, he is not playing with a 52-card deck either.
I guess I'm just surprised at his support to Andrea.
Nice personal story. We all have FEELINGS, even horrible ones. What separates good people from evil ones is ACTING on them. A lot of murders are commited because someone is feeling terrible angst. Should we open the prisons and let them all out?
She was/is more than PPD. I've heard everything from bi-polar to schizoaffective. Plotting and planning aren't signs of sanity. Even the most paranoid schizophrenic can build a cathedral.
amen!
Yeah really. I would think at the very least he would just remove himself from the situation. If he wanted to say something then just issue a press release from his lawyers.
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