Four years after Andrea Yates faced the death penalty for the drowning deaths of her children, a second jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity. In Yates’ first capital murder trial in 2002, jurors convicted her of murder and recommended a sentence of life in prison. That conviction was overturned on appeal last year after it was shown that the state’s psychiatric witness presented false testimony. In the second trial, jurors deliberated for 13 hours before finding that Yates did not know her crime was wrong because of her long history of mental illness.
Yates had a history of psychiatric hospitalizations and two suicide attempts before she drowned her children in 2001. She was later diagnosed with postpartum depression with psychotic features and schizophrenia. During their deliberations, jurors viewed a videotaped evaluation of Yates by Dr. Philip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist. He found that Yates did not know that killing her children was wrong because she was trying to save them from hell. Resnick, who interviewed Yates shortly after the 2001 murders, stated she was delusional and believed her children would grow up to be criminals because she had ruined them. The jurors also viewed a videotaped evaluation conducted by Dr. Park Dietz, a state’s witness who testified during Yates’ first trial. Dietz concluded that Yates was not psychotic when she drowned her children, and he went on to testify that an episode of “Law & Order” depicted a woman who was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children. It was later determined that no such episode of “Law & Order” existed, and Dietz’s misleading testimony led an appeals court to overturn the conviction. The judge barred attorneys in this most recent trial from mentioning that issue.
Yates will likely be transfered from Harris County Jail to Vernon State Hospital, a maximum-security mental health facility in North Texas.
(Associated Press, July 27, 2006 and Houston Chronicle, July 27, 2006). See Mental Illness. DPIC note: In Yates’ first trial, her jury was “death-qualified” since the prosecution was seeking the death penatly. Studies have shown that such juries are more likely to convict and to favor the state’s presentation of the case. See DPIC’s report, “Blind Justice.” In her second trial, death was not being sought, so the jury did not have to consist of only those who could impose a death sentence.
Innocence
Nov 20, 2024
