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The Harris County District Attorney announced today that his office plans no more prosecutions in the drowning deaths of Andrea Pia Yates' five children last year. "After a careful review of the facts, and the applicable law, it is the position of this office that there is insufficient evidence to pursue charges against any other individuals in connection with the June 2001 drownings of Noah, John, Paul, Luke and Mary Yates," DA Chuck Rosenthal said. "As in all cases, we remain open to the possibility that additional evidence may surface that would change this decision. There is no statute of...

HOUSTON -- Russell Yates bears no criminal responsibility for the drowning deaths of his five children at the hands of his wife, the district attorney said Friday. Shortly after Andrea Yates was convicted in March, District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said his office was looking into whether her husband had any culpability. Russell Yates was at work at the time of the killings a year ago, but prosecutors have questioned why he left his wife alone with the children, given her history of mental illness, including depression and attempts at suicide. "We have no prosecutable case against anyone else at this...

Yates' lawyer seeking appeal 04/03/2002 By JEFF McSHAN / 11 News (Houston) HOUSTON - Andrea Yates was convicted last month of drowning her children. Now she's in an East Texas prison serving a life sentence. But the fight over what her attorney calls an injustice is only in the beginning stage. Also Online Crime's magnitude, finger pointing fueling talk, legal experts say KHOU-11's Jeff McShan reports Yates' attorney George Parnham plans to file an appeal Wednesday seeking a new trial for his client. It's been a little over two weeks since Yates was sentenced to life in prison, but...

Nation: Andrea Yates' lawyer blasts Texas insanity law By PAM EASTON, Associated Press HOUSTON (March 28, 2002 8:16 p.m. EST) - The attorney for convicted child killer Andrea Yates wants to change Texas insanity law to assist other mentally ill defendants and give his client something to live for. "It would be extremely difficult but I think we can use Andrea's case like the Hinckley case was used," attorney George Parnham said Thursday after talking with law students at Texas Southern University about the failure of Yates' insanity defense and his reasons for an appeal. Insanity statutes were stiffened by...

It was a busy week for Rusty Yates. While his wife, Andrea, was being sentenced to life in prison for drowning their five children, Yates defended her in an interview on the “Today” show in New York. That night he was in Los Angeles, doing the same with Larry King of CNN. Wednesday was Oprah’s turn in Chicago. But as he crisscrossed the nation, simmering questions about his own accountability have boiled over. Andrea’s mother and siblings told reporters that Rusty, a controlling husband who often downplayed his wife’s mental illness and shut them out, bears some responsibility for the...

<p>Once you've seen and listened to Rusty Yates on TV's talk shows, it's not hard to see why so many women want to lynch him. This column was going to comment on the social and psychiatric issues raised by the Yates case and guilty verdict. But the case itself--with its arguments over psychosis and major depression--seems intellectually austere compared with trying to explain the psychopathologies of American television. For me the Yates story landed on another planet Monday evening when, while surfing the cable waves, what should roll in but Larry King interviewing Rusty Yates. Isn't he supposed to be in mourning, or something similar?</p>

<p>Once you've seen and listened to Rusty Yates on TV's talk shows, it's not hard to see why so many women want to lynch him. This column was going to comment on the social and psychiatric issues raised by the Yates case and guilty verdict. But the case itself--with its arguments over psychosis and major depression--seems intellectually austere compared with trying to explain the psychopathologies of American television. For me the Yates story landed on another planet Monday evening when, while surfing the cable waves, what should roll in but Larry King interviewing Rusty Yates. Isn't he supposed to be in mourning, or something similar?</p>

The jury has returned its verdict: Andrea Yates isn't insane. She's legally responsible, knowing right from wrong, and she'll spend the next forty years in prison. So why did she kill her five children? The case is intricate and convoluted. But apparently one major factor behind her homicidal behavior was a severely distorted worldview. Perhaps the legal profession should add a new category: "guilty by reason of worldview." One striking fact distinguishes this case from most murders: Mrs. Yates claims she thought she was doing her victims a favor! What worldview programmed her to "help" her children in such a...

Deborah Holmes says she urged her friend Andrea Yates' husband to take his wife to see a doctor. (ABCNEWS.com) ‘I Could Just Kick Him’ Andrea Yates’ Best Friend Says She Begged Russell to Get Help for His Wife March 20 — Throughout her depression and the battles with her demons, Andrea Yates had a best friend. Deborah Holmes, Yates' friend of 16 years, said she wanted to force the troubled Houston woman into treatment without Russell Yates' permission. "I don't know that he really believed that she was mentally ill, but that she was just weak," Holmes told ABCNEWS'...

<p>By all accounts Kenneth Feinberg is a man blessed with large reserves of calm and confidence. Heaven knows the man appointed special master of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund can use all the inner calm and security at his disposal. Mr. Feinberg, who has to decide the amount of the awards to be paid out to the families and victims had an impossible task to begin with--one made the more difficult by the anger and disappointed expectations of the victim families.</p>

WASHINGTON, March 18 (UPI) -- On Wednesday, a Houston jury voted unanimously to convict Andrea Yates of murder and Monday she was formally sentenced to life in prison. After less then four hours, the panel of eight women and four men concluded Yates understood what she was doing when she held her five children -- one by one -- under water in the family bathtub until they were dead. The enormity of her crime caused a cynical nation to shudder. Though infanticide may now be routine, a multiple murder of children by the mother will still stir the nation. Part...

Cynthia Hunt speaks exclusively with Andrea Yates' family Andrea Yates' mother talks to the media for the first time since the trial began. Images from the case By Cynthia HuntABC13 Eyewitness News(3/17/02) — For the first time, we hear from Andrea Yates' family in the wake of her conviction and life sentence for the drowning deaths of her five little children last June. What you're saying "She poses no threat to society and has been able to communicate with the doctors, lawyers, etc. since they put her back on it (medication). I only wish Dr. Mohammed Saeed was on...

HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Local & State March 18, 2002, 6:49AM Jurors say they believed Yates knew right from wrong By LISA TEACHEY Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle SEE IT NOW Video: Yates trial post-sentencing defense news conference Yates post-sentencing prosecution news conference Yates sentencing highlights Yates defense attorney Wendell Odom in sentencing phase Yates defense attorney George Parnham in sentencing phase Prosecuting attorney Kaylynn Williford in sentencing phase Prosecuting attorney Joe Owmby in sentencing phase Family, friends plead for Andrea Yates' life Watch excerpts of opening arguments in Andrea Yates trial and hear portions of her 9-1-1 call. Russell Yates' June...

IN DEFENSE OF RUSSELL YATES: A reader sends this: Have you ever considered what it must have been like to live with a crazy woman for six years? A totally crazed person? Dishes thrown, dirty house, clean house, missing appointments, lying, not paying bills, fits of total hysteria, hallucinations, hearing voices, etc., etc., etc.? FOR SIX YEARS?????? The husband is probably disoriented at the very least, and perhaps suffering from depression or worse himself. I grew up in a house with a rip roaring alcholic mom. There was no reality. Never. She'd pull a knife, make wild accusations, scream and...

Relatives say long prison term for a sick woman isn't right Husband blames medical experts for failing to treat wife and protect family 03/16/2002 By ANNE MARIE KILDAY / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News HOUSTON - Andrea Yates' family sat on separate sides of the courtroom during her four-week trial Mrs. Yates' mother and sibblings behind the defense table, husband Russell and his mother across the room. They kept their distance after a jury recommended life in prison on Friday, but they agreed on one thing in separate statements to the public: Mrs. Yates also was a...

HOUSTON –– A jury took just less than an hour Friday to decide that Andrea Yates should get life in prison, and not the death penalty, for drowning her children in the bathtub.

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March 14, 2002, 5:05PM Associated Press Russell Yates enters the Harris County Courthouse today for the sentencing phase of the capital murder trial of his wife Andrea Pia Yates. Andrea Yates was found guilty Tuesday in the June, 2001, drowning deaths of three of their five children and faces either life in prison or the death penalty. Andrea Yates' mother pleads with jury for daughter's life Trial's punishment phase under way By CAROL CHRISTIANCopyright 2002 Houston Chronicle An undisclosed witness is expected to be the last to testify Friday before jurors begin deliberating the fate of convicted capital murderer...

Andrea Yates--Not a Women's Issue Explaining the modern Medea is beyond the powers of feminism and psychiatry. by David Skinner 03/14/2002 12:00:00 AM ON JUNE 20, 2001, Andrea Pia Yates killed her five young children and set off a wildly huge news story. As the whole English-speaking world surely knows by now, Mrs. Yates and her defenders claimed she had murdered her children during a psychotic episode of postpartum depression. On Tuesday a Texas jury rejected her plea of innocent by reason of insanity, convicting her of murder and capping several months of loud public debate. Until then, one could...

March 14, 2002, 1:25AM Yates' defense to plead for life Trial's punishment phase starts today By LISA TEACHEY Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Convicted murderer Andrea Pia Yates' lawyers are expected to return to court today to plead with jurors to spare her life. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the woman who drowned her five children. The trial's punishment phase is expected to last only a few days -- in stark contrast to the grueling 3 1/2 weeks of medical testimony the jury heard before deciding the Clear Lake mother was guilty of capital murder rather than legally insane....