Andrea Yates Observations: Houston to Brownwood

Editorial July 26, 2006, 7:47PM
Sane verdict
In the second trial of Andrea Yates, a Houston jury chooses reason over revenge

Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

If there is anything positive to be had from Andrea Yates' tragic drowning of her five children and the two trials that followed, it is this community's increased awareness of the ravages of mental illness, in particular severe postpartum depression.

The restrictive, outdated Texas statute under which Yates twice was tried requires juries to find defendants guilty if they knew the difference between right and wrong, even if they are mentally ill. The second jury's verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity reflects the jurors' reasonable conclusion that the psychotic delusions that led Yates to believe she was saving her children by killing them prevented her from making rational judgments.

Harris County prosecutors, who never contested the fact that the defendant was mentally ill, should have reached the same conclusion long ago, sparing the city the legal spectacle that consumed millions of tax dollars and hundreds of hours of court time. The father of the dead children, Rusty Yates, commented after the verdict was announced that, "The jury looked past what happened and looked at why it happened. Prosecutors had the truth of the first day and stopped there."

Yates was convicted of murder in her first trial, but an appellate court threw out the conviction. An expert witness for the prosecution, psychiatrist Park Dietz, had erroneously testified that Yates might have gotten the idea to drown her children by watching a Law and Order episode with that plot line. After the trial, prosecutors learned that no such episode existed. That didn't stop them from using Dietz as a witness in the second trial.

In another example of the need to revise the arbitrary Texas statute on insanity pleas, Dietz testified in a similar Texas case that the mother who killed her children was innocent by reason of insanity. Why did he consider Yates' case unique?

Yates will likely spend the rest of her life in a state mental hospital receiving medical treatment controlling her illness. Had she gotten it before the killings, they might have been averted.

Since she was only acquitted in the deaths of three of her children, Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal retains the option of trying her again. He should accept the jury's definitive judgment and allow Yates to be committed to Rusk Mental Hospital rather than face another trial on new charges. Her condition there will be reviewed by Judge Belinda Hill or another judge to make sure Yates poses no threat to the public.

Mental Health Association of Greater Houston Executive Director Betsy Schwartz hailed the Yates verdict as a landmark decision that will influence attitudes toward those suffering from mental illness. "It conveys the public understanding that mental illnesses are real and have very dramatic impacts on the human brain," Schwartz said.

To prevent a repeat of Yates' legal ordeal, Texas legislators should revise the statute concerning the culpability of the mentally ill. An unsuccessful effort in the last Legislature would have changed the standard for innocence by reason of insanity from whether defendants knew their actions were wrong to whether they could appreciate the wrongfulness of their actions. Another change would have allowed juries to know that defendants judged insane probably would be confined for the rest of their life in a secure mental hospital. Such knowledge is crucial in reaching a fair verdict.

Charged under an archaic law that barely recognizes the impact of mental illness, the Yates jury still found its way to reasoned justice that should end a painful chapter in Houston's history and allow a very sick woman the treatment she needs. The next jury to face such a decision should have better legal guideposts.

source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4074777.html

--------------------
Thursday July 27, 2006

Op Ed: Columnists

Insanity defense protects the perps, ignores the kids — Steve Nash - Brownwood Bulletin

Well, isn’t this just special: Rusty Yates and his ex-wife, Andrea, are “friends” and still reminisce about “the children,” the Associated Press reports.

Really? Say, do y’all reminisce about that morning in 2001 when Andrea drowned all five of them in the bathtub?

I’m sure this will come as a big surprise: I don’t agree with a Houston jury’s decision to acquit sweet little Andrea by reason of insanity in the drowning her children.

Her chief attorney, George Parnham, was quoted by the AP as saying the acquittal is a “watershed event in the treatment of mental illness."

You mean a watershed event in excuses, don’t you?

“So she had post-partum depression. Well, wah-wah-wah,” said someone who declined to be identified.

Amen. I am extremely skeptical that a person truly doesn’t know right from wrong when harming another person.

“Dagger to my heart,” Brown County Attorney Shane Britton said of the acquittal. “The sad thing is, she got away with murder.”

And from what I understand, no matter what the jury had found, she isn’t going free anytime soon, if ever. She will be sent after a commitment hearing Thursday to Vernon State Mental Hospital in north Texas, a maximum-security state facility encircled by a 17-foot-high fence dotted with guard towers, the AP reported.

She will go through rigorous rehabilitation that she would not see in prison, but in other respects her life will be much as it would be in a penitentiary, with limited movement and small amounts of free time; getting released, or transferred to a lower-security hospital, requires a complicated and comprehensive evaluation process. Experts say it can take decades before psychiatrists decide that a patient is healthy enough to be released, and even then a judge can reject those findings, according to the AP.

So in one sense, perhaps it’s all moot because nothing was going to happen to her anyway. No matter what the jury did, she was going to get a huge “pass” from the courts.

I wanted an opinion from an attorney who, I was fairly certain, would disagree with me. I found it in Fred Franklin, a former prosecutor and current defense attorney.

“I have no problem with the insanity defense,” Franklin said. Yates, he said, is either evil or insane, and probably insane. “She never had a motive that makes any sense,” Franklin said.

“The bottom line is, she doesn’t need to be turned loose. She needs to be locked up forever. You don’t punish people if they didn’t have the intent to harm somebody. But we need to be protected from her.”

Franklin said I’m being overly harsh in my assessment of Yates. “In every case there are different circumstances,” he said. “Punishment needs to be a consequence for the criminal intent. ... The justice system is not a cookie-cutter machine.

“ ... Your concept is, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth — strict liability. The law isn’t that black and white.”

Another thing about these insanity cases is that it’s all saving Andrea or saving Dena (Dena Schlosser, who cut off the arms of her 10-month-old daughter with a kitchen knife but was acquitted by reason of insanity.) Who’s speaking up for the children?

“It’s not about the children at that point,” Franklin said.

He said insanity cases are actually difficult for the defense to win. “Most jurors tend to want to reject insanity defense,” Franklin said. “People usually think it’s a trick ... psycho-babble ... a slick lawyer trick trying to get people off.

“They’re tough cases and you just have to trust the jurors to follow the law and trust the justice system to work.”

On the other hand, “It’s just pitiful that somebody can kill their children and get away with it,” said another person who declined to be identified. “It’s just sad.”

Steve Nash writes his column for the Brownwood Bulletin on Thursdays. He may be reached by e-mail at steve.nash@brownwoodbulletin.com.

source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2006/07/27/op_ed/columnists/opinion05.txt