Yates Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity

Associated Press
July 26, 2006

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Andrea Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity Wednesday in her second murder trial for the bathtub drownings of her young children.

Yates, 42, will now be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released. An earlier jury had found her guilty of murder, but the verdict was overturned on appeal.

The defense never disputed that Yates drowned her five children one by one in the bathtub of their Houston-area home. But they said she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and, in a delusional state, believed Satan was inside her and was trying to save them from hell. (Watch Andrea Yate's wide-eyed reaction to verdict -- 4:15)

Yates stared wide-eyed in court Wednesday as the verdict was read. She then bowed her head and wept quietly.

The children's father said the jury had reached the right conclusion.

"The jury looked past what happened and looked at why it happened," Rusty Yates told reporters outside the courthouse. "Prosecutors had the truth of the first day and stopped there. Yes, she was psychotic. That's the whole truth."

Rusty Yates divorced Andrea Yates after the children's June 2001 deaths and recently remarried. He said they are still "friends" and reminisce about the children.

The jury, split evenly men to women, deliberated for about 12 hours over three days before reaching its verdict. On Wednesday, the jurors listened again to the state definition of insanity and asked to see pictures of the five young children: baby Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah.

Prosecutors had maintained that Yates failed to meet the state's definition of insanity: that a severe mental illness prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing that it is wrong.

The jury had not been told that if they found her insane that Yates would be committed to a mental institution for treatment. If found guilty of murder she would have faced life in prison.

"I'm very disappointed," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. "For five years, we've tried to seek justice for these children."

In her first trial, Yates was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. An appeals court overturned the conviction last year because erroneous testimony about a "Law & Order" television episode that didn't exist could have influenced the jury.

Defense attorneys presented much of the same evidence as in the first trial, including half a dozen psychiatrists who testified that Yates was so psychotic that she didn't know her actions were wrong. They said that in her delusional mind, she thought killing the youngsters was right.

Some testified about her two hospitalizations after suicide attempts in 1999, not long after her fourth child was born. At the time, the family lived in a converted bus. Dr. Eileen Starbranch, a psychiatrist, again testified about how she warned Yates and her husband not to have more children because her postpartum psychosis would probably return.

Yates' stayed in a mental hospital for about two weeks in April and 10 days in May 2001. Psychiatrists testified that she was catatonic and wouldn't eat and that her postpartum condition from Mary's birth in November worsened after her father died in March.

Yates did not testify. But a few state and defense psychiatrists who evaluated Yates played some videotaped segments for jurors.

During a July 2001 jail interview, Yates told psychiatrist Lucy Puryear that her children had not been progressing normally because she was a bad mother, and that she killed them because "in their innocence, they would go to heaven."

The state's key witness was Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Yates for two days in May. He testified that Yates killed the youngsters because she felt overwhelmed and inadequate as a mother, not for altruistic reasons.

Welner said that although Yates may have been psychotic on the day of the murders, it wasn't until the next day in jail that she talked about Satan, wanting to be executed and saving her kids from hell. He said the hallucination may have been triggered by the stresses of being naked in a cell on suicide watch and realizing what she had done.

Welner said Yates knew her actions were wrong and showed it in multiple ways: waiting until her husband left for work to kill them, covering the bodies with a sheet and calling 911 soon after the crime.

Prosecutors also brought back a key witness from the first trial, Dr. Park Dietz, the forensic psychiatrist whose testimony led to her conviction being overturned. The judge barred attorneys in this trial from mentioning the earlier testimony problem.

Dietz again testified that Yates knew killing her children was wrong because she knew it was a sin.

Yates: Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity
Retrial set for March 20

Associated Press
January 9, 2006
 

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Andrea Yates pleaded innocent by reason of insanity in the drowning deaths of her children Monday as she made her first court appearance since her 2002 capital murder convictions were overturned.

State District Judge Belinda Hill set a March 20 trial date.

Yates, 41, will remain in the custody of the Harris County Sheriff's Department until she is retried for the deaths of three of her five children. Her attorney, George Parnham, had asked that Yates be sent to Rusk State Hospital until the new trial.

During her original trial, jurors rejected Yates' insanity defense and found her guilty for the 2001 deaths of three of the children drowned in the family bathtub: 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John and the youngest, 6-month-old Mary.

Evidence was presented about the drownings of the other two children -- Paul, 3, and Luke, 2 -- but Yates was not charged in their deaths.

Yates was sentenced to life in prison.

Her convictions were overturned last January by a state appeals court because of testimony by the state's expert witness, forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz. He testified that, shortly before Yates killed her five children, television's "Law and Order" series broadcast an episode about a woman with postpartum depression who drowned her children. No such episode ever existed.

                  Texas Court Clears Way for New Yates Trial

By the Associated Press
November 10, 2005

HOUSTON (AP) -- The state's highest criminal court on Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling that threw out Andrea Yates' murder convictions for drowning her children in a bathtub in 2001.

Harris County Assistant District Attorney Alan Curry said the case will be retried or a plea bargain considered. Jurors rejected Yates' insanity defense in 2002 and found her guilty of two capital murder charges for the deaths of three of her five children.

A lower court ruling in January had thrown out the convictions because of erroneous testimony that prosecutors used to suggest that Yates had gotten the idea for the killings from an episode of the television show ''Law & Order.'' The episode was found later not to exist.

Curry said if the case goes back to trial, he is confident Yates will be convicted again. She was sentenced to life in prison.

''Andrea Yates knew precisely what she was doing,'' Curry said. ''She knew that it was wrong.''

Yates' attorney, George Parnham, said that although he wants to avoid another trial for his client, he doubts he and prosecutors can reach a plea agreement that addresses Yates' mental health needs. Yates has been treated for years for severe depression and other disorders that require anti-psychotic drugs.

''We will examine all possibilities and hopefully arrive at a resolution that could prevent Andrea from going through the torment of being subjected to the evidence of this case. We all know how horrendous it was to hear this evidence,'' he said.

Russell Yates, who stood by his wife throughout the trial but later divorced her, said she never should have been tried for their children's deaths.

''I think everyone would lose again if they brought her back to trial,'' he said. ''Although, if she does go back to trial she could be found not guilty by reason of insanity.''

Russell Yates said he visits his former wife once a month in prison. He said she belongs in a state hospital, where ''the primary emphasis is on care and not security.''

The lower court, the First Court of Appeals in Houston, agreed with Yates' attorney that erroneous testimony from forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz could have swayed jurors who otherwise might have found Yates was insane.

Dietz, who consulted for ''Law & Order,'' testified that shortly before the killings occurred, an episode ran about a woman who drowned her children and was found innocent by reason of insanity. But it turned out that no such ''Law & Order'' episode existed.

On June 20, 2001, Yates drowned her five children one by one, then called police to her Houston home and showed them the bodies of Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary.

Yates, 41, pleaded insanity, and according to testimony at the trial, she was overwhelmed by motherhood, considered herself a bad mother, suffered postpartum depression, had attempted suicide and had been hospitalized for depression.

Five mental health experts testified she did not know right from wrong or that she thought drowning her children was right. Dietz was the only mental health expert to testify for the prosecution and the only one who testified she knew right from wrong.

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