Andrea Yates Faces Retrial - 5 Years After Drowning Her 5 Children
It was in the news Monday that Andrea Yates retrial of her 2001 murder case would begin this week with jury selection scheduled to have started yesterday. According to the news article:
Andrea Yates often struggles with deep depression or hallucinations in the weeks around June 20, the date when she drowned her five children in their bathtub in 2001. During that period this year, Yates will be in court for her second murder trial.First of all, she should get depressed around this time of year - she killed all 5 of her children! I don't get why the news even made this statement other than to try to get the public to maybe feel pity for this woman. I feel no pity for her and hope she gets life in a prison psychiatric ward for what she did. The first jury, which convicted her in 2002, rejected the death penalty so it cannot be part of sentencing for Yates' retrial unless new evidence is entered into the case against her. I agree with not giving her the death penalty. This is one of those cases that the guilty person should have to live with what they did for the rest of their life, in a prison environment.
I also have an issue with the following excerpt
from the article on CNN:
In 2004, for example, Yates was hospitalized in July after starving herself for up to six weeks, losing about 30 pounds, according to the University of Texas Medical Branch Hospitals' discharge records. She believed she saw "babies yelling for help," the records show.Parnham is Yates' defense attorney, George Parnham. I don't understand why they should be allowed to enter evidence of her insanity to prove their case when the evidence has been provided after the crime has been committed. I also do not understand why her defense would try to use this to help her as I see it as more of a harm than a help. Yates claimed postpartum psychosis as the cause of her actions when she plead not guilty due to reason of insanity during her first trial. The new jury will be allowed to hear about the psychotic episodes Yates has had since her 2002 conviction, which was overturned. I would think jurors would associate such episodes as due to her guilt for killing her children."We've got four years of mental health records to show she's still severely mentally ill," Parnham said.
"Everything I've seen has reaffirmed that she was sane at the time she killed her kids," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. "What's at the crux of this case is: You can be mentally ill and know right from wrong and be held criminally responsible."Oh, check out why the first conviction was overturned:
Yates' conviction was overturned last year by the state's 1st Court of Appeals, which said a prosecution witness' erroneous testimony could have influenced the jury's decision.That sucks, yet it is pretty coincindental that the prosection used a person who consults for a legal-themes TV show and then an episode of that show, that did not even exist, was brought up as part of their argument.That witness, Dr. Park Dietz, a psychiatrist who has been a consultant for the "Law & Order" television series, testified that one episode that aired before the Yates children were killed depicted a woman who drowned her children in a bathtub and was acquitted by reason of insanity. Yates frequently watched the series, according to other testimony, and a prosecutor -- not Dietz -- suggested her actions were inspired by that episode.
After the jury found Yates guilty, attorneys in the case learned no such episode existed.
Now this is kind of sad:
In preparation for the retrial, prosecutors have reviewed box loads of evidence."That's what's kept me going," Williford said, pointing to one of the state's exhibits, a large board holding pictures of the youngsters: 6-month-old Mary in a baby carrier; 2-year-old Luke holding his baby sister; 3-year-old Paul wearing pajamas and a fireman's hat; 5-year-old John leaning against a tree; and 7-year-old Noah grinning from ear to ear.
Sad, sad story............go home and give your kids a hug and please get help if you ever have a thought of hurting a child.
For other blog coverage and comments on this, click on some of the following links:
Argville.com
islandpacket.com
Topix.net
tammybruce.com
bioethics.net