**Andrea Yates Sentence**Live Thread**Ruling @ 2:45 ET**

3-15-02

[Oldeconomybuyer]

LIVE Thread, Add Comments...

[xJones]

I'm surprised. I thought the Texas jury would hand down a death sentence.

In Texas, the jury would have to find that she constitutes a future danger to others around her. She wouldn't be a danger unless she had more kids and with 40 years definite and no conjugal visits allowed, that's highly unlikely. The jury's verdict was predictable, given the Texas requirements for the death penalty.

[Clemenza]

You may have a point if Mrs. Yates had schitzophrenia (sp) or dementia, but "depression" is a joke as an excuse. I have been treated for depression many times over the years and even thought of "offing" myself. Nevertheless, it is NOT AN EXCUSE FOR HOMICIDE!!! I agree that her family were MORONS for not getting treatment, but Mrs. Yates is STILL A MURDERER.

God help this country if we ever give anyone a pass for "post partem" depression.

[a_witness]

I'm a supporter of the death penalty, but I think Life is the best sentence for this case.

If you can't execute a white woman for murdering her five children what's the point of pretending there is a death penalty ?

You are not being kinder, gentler, more just, or more humane by keeping her in prison for life ? Simply execute or release her. I tire of this hypocrisy.

She should be executed.

[let freedom sing]

Tender mercies, Texico has a heart. I believe both sides are satisfied with the penalty verdict-- the summation by the prosecutors failed to go for the jugular, in seeking death for Andrea. Hooray nor NAMI!!!!

[TxBec]

that's a point I tried to make the other day.. if I had something like this weighing on my memory, I'd rather die than spend the rest of my life remembering..

[BibChr]

No matter how much you-all rationalize, this is not justice. Justice is equity, if it is anything. You take $50, you must restore at least that value. You take a life, you must restore at least that value. Getting three hots and a cot at taxpayer expense isn't justice, it's a travesty.

BADLY DONE, Texas.

Dan

[Calvin Locke]

There have been many instances of late, were the male guards were having sex with the female inmates.

She'll get knocked up, then transferred to a better facility. For the child[ren] you know.

Besides, what makes you think that a sperm smuggling ring can't/doesn't exist? I remember the old Limbaugh TV show
reporting that a turkey baster was the used...well, you get the idea.

Ever see the pirate video "Speck's Pecs"? Not only was he doing cocaine on camera, it clearly showed the effects of female hormone injections.

[DJ88]

"she won't be in the general population."

Why not? They found her GUILTY..not insane. Why would she be separated from the general population? If I were a citizen of TX, I would not stand for her to be separated from the rest of the prison population for 40+ years.

Another question: is it 40 years PLUS 40 years because she was found guilty on two counts? That would be 80 years, right?

[agrace]

Her husband might have some problems of his own. An hour ago on ABC Radio news they mentioned that once this trial is wrapped up, the prosecution is looking into the possibility of charging Russell with child endangerment or something similar. Hopefully so.

[HamiltonJay]

I completely agree, her husband should be prosecuted, the blood of his children is all over his hands.... This guy is scum IMHO.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

12:04 PST (AP) -- Yates' husband, Russell, had no reaction in the courtroom. His brother, Randy Yates, nodded affirmatively. Andrea Yates' sister, sitting across the courtroom, wiped tears from her eyes.

As Andrea Yates was led from the courtroom by officers, she looked back toward her mother and siblings.

The sentence brought a swift end to a case that began last June 20, when a wet and bedraggled Yates called police to her home and showed them the five bodies of her children, age 6 months to 7 years. She had called them into the bathroom and drowned them one by one.

At trial, Yates' lawyers and her husband argued that she suffered from severe postpartum depression and that she had no choice but to kill her children to save them from the clutches of Satan.

Prosecutors acknowledged she was mentally ill, but that she could tell right from wrong and was thus not legally insane at the time of the killings.

The case stirred new debate over the legal standard for mental illness and whether postpartum depression is properly recognized and taken seriously. Women's groups had harshly criticized prosecutors for pushing for the death penalty.

[isom35]

you mean , she's might die before she dies? that makes my head hurt :)

[TxBec]

my brother is a former correctional officer.. from what he's told me, she is in for a rough time from the other inmates. I can almost guarantee she'll be in solitary. child molesters/killers are on the lowest rung of the inmate later.

[GuillermoX]

That's half the fun. It's hilarious when some dolt misinterprets what I say. "YOU F&^#*&%, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOUR IN AMERICA", etc.

[DJ88]

But you know what? Look what happened to olewhatshisname ....Jeffrey Dahmer? You don't think these gals in the TX jails are gonna treat her very well, do you? She might die a more HORRIBLE death than we could ever imagine right there in prison.

[dougherty]

I thought the Texas jury would hand down a death sentence. If it was a Texan father who killed the kids, you better believe that's the verdict. There's a double standard even in Texas.

You better believe there is a double standard even here in Texas. If the roles were reversed the father would be heading to Death Row, and the mother would have all the sympathy in the world. In reality, we have the murdering mother getting life and sympathy and the father being demonized. Life is just not fair, even in Texas.

[stands2reason]

She's run out of children to kill... Voila....does not constitute a danger.

Yes; unfortunately, she completed her mission.

[Slyfox]

I'm just curious about something. We have in this country doctor's whose job it is to make sure babies are not born alive. They are legally santioned to kill. Some doctors have been known to stick freshly born infants in a bucket of water to drown them. And then we have this crazy mother who drowns her five children and somehow what she did is more grievous than a doctor who drowns a baby that had the audacity to not die during the abortion? I guess I can understand now why the NOW gang is rooting for Andrea. The only difference is that the doctors who perform abortions are not insane.

[Theodore R.]

It's still special treatment to a WOMAN. A man would have received the death penalty in such a situation. Texans just can't implement "equal justice under law." Texans are partial to certain lawbreakers at the expense of others. Logically, one could argue that no one should be executed if this quintuple murder did not warrant execution. Why does she get a pass when no mercy was extended to Karla F. Tucker a few years back? It could be that jurors were "abortion rights" advocates and saw this as the LATEST TERM ABORTIONS ever. I am unimpressed with Texas "justice." Texas justice lacks consistency.

[Lunatic Fringe]

I am very disappointed in this sentence. But it is supported by the law.

Under Texas law, the juries have to decide two questions, both unanimously, before they can pass death sentences. The first is whether the defendant would be a danger to society in the future. If the jurors aren't unanimous in saying he or she would, then the defendant would be given an automatic life prison term.