Andrea yate12/15/2023 “It was clear that some people were swayed by their intense feelings about the sanctity of motherhood,” she said. Stotland, who had appeared on CNN to talk about postpartum psychosis during the first trial, spoke of some of the public anxieties, perceptions, and misperceptions aroused by the sensational killings. “It is a great relief to hear that justice has prevailed,” said APA Vice President Nada Stotland, M.D.“ It's heartbreaking that she was convicted in the first place.” The verdict from Yates's second trial was welcomed by mental health advocates, including APA leaders. A new trial was ordered on Janu(Psychiatric News, February 4, 2005). The trial court rejected Yates' petition for a mistrial, but this ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeals for the 1st District of Texas. Yates petitioned for a mistrial when a forensic psychiatrist, Park Dietz, M.D., who was an expert witness for the prosecution, informed prosecutors that he had given incorrect testimony. Under Texas law, the standard for a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity hinges on whether the defendant knew that his or her behavior was wrong. Although her attorney had argued in the first trial that Yates was legally insane at the time she drowned her children, she was found guilty. The now 42-year-old Yates had been sentenced to life in prison for drowning her five children in a bathtub in June 2001. Shortly after the July 26 verdict, Yates was transferred to Vernon State Hospital, a maximum-security state mental health facility in north Texas. AP Photo/POOL/KTRKĪndrea Yates, the Houston woman convicted in 2002 of killing her five children, was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a retrial after her original convictions were overturned earlier this year. In the opening statements of Yates's second murder trial, prosecutor Kaylynn Williford insisted that Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub because she thought she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished. Lawyers and the jury later learned no such episode existed.Andrea Yates is shown in this image made from a June 26 video. The jury rejected her defence andYates was sentencedto life in prison.īut her conviction was overturned on appeal when her lawyers argued that an expert state witness, psychiatrist Park Dietz, falsely claimed to have consulted an episode of the television show Law & Order that centred on a woman found not guilty by reason of insanity after drowning her children.ĭietz testified that Yates based her defence on what she saw on the episode. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. "For five years, we've tried to seek justice for these children."Īt her first murder trial in 2002, Yates confessed to drowning her five children: Mary, six months Luke, 2 Paul, 3 John, 5 Noah, 7.Psychiatrists testifiedshe suffered from schizophrenia and postpartum depression. "I'm very disappointed," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. They saidthat she believed she was saving her children from hell by drowning them. Yates's lawyers argued she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis. Under Texas law, a person may be found insane if, because of a severe mental illness, he or she does not understand the crime is wrong. If Yates had been convicted, she would have faced life in prison. She will have periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released. Yates will be committed to a state mental hospital. "Prosecutors had the truth the first day and stopped there. "The jury looked past what happened and looked at why it happened,"he told reporters outside the courthouse. Rusty Yates, the accused's ex-husband and the children's father, said the jury had reached the right decision. She has not yet been tried in the deaths of the other two. Jurors on Wednesday reached a verdict ofnot guiltyby reason of insanity in the retrial of a Houston mother accused of drowning her five children in 2001 in a bathtub in her Texas home.Īndrea Yates, 42, pleaded innocent by reason of insanity in the deaths of three of her children.
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