The folks over at Independent Sources are upset that Andrea Yates is getting a new trial.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has refused to reconsider a lower court decision that overturned the capital murder convictions of Andrea Yates.
A prosecutor said the case of the Houston woman — who drowned her five children in a bathtub — will be retried, or a plea bargain will be considered.
The Houston homemaker had been sentenced to life in prison for the deaths of three of her five children.
… A three-judge appeals court in Texas sided with a defense claim that Yates had been convicted three years ago partly on the false testimony of a prosecution expert witness. The state’s First Court of Appeals struck down the convictions earlier this year, saying erroneous testimony by prosecution expert Dr. Park Dietz may have swayed the jury against her.
Dietz testified about a “Law & Order” episode in which a woman was acquitted by reason of insanity for drowning her children. No such episode exists.
Dietz said he became confused after prosecutors told him there was a “Law and Order” episode with that plot. Dietz — who’s also a consultant to the “Law & Order” producers, said he wrote that information down in his notes.
I almost hesitate to comment on this one, because I’m almost certain to wander out of my depth on the legal issues involved. But I can’t help commenting. I invite any legal minds who happen to be reading this to jump in I stray too far off the mark.
I wasn’t yet a parent when the Yates’ story hit the news, but it horrified me nonetheless. Now that I am a parent, stories of kids being abuse or killed by parents sicken me. With the Yates’ case — given the nature of the crime — it would be very easy to let my feelings about this specific case blind me to certain realities and necessities in our legal and criminal justice systems. It’s easier to let our emotions about a particular crime get in the way of ensuring that people aren’t convicted — let alone executed — without getting a fair trial. It’s easier to suggest anyone who thinks Yates deserves a fair trial and a vigorous defense just doesn’t care very much about her kids or their own.
There are some mighty happy lawyers today who worked very hard for a new trial. I wonder if they have kids.
Continue down that road and we return to the days of “a fair trial and a fine hanging,” when people meted out frontier-style justice and asked questions later about whether the right person ended up at the end of the rope.That’s what’s at the bottom of of the slope we start skidding down when we decide legal matter based on our personal feelings.
That, to me is the great danger here. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Innocence Project, it’s that our criminal justice system is far from perfect. Sometimes innocent people are wrongfully convicted because of things ranging from false testimony to poor representation. Right now our system — while by no means perfect — allows itself numerous chances to correct some of its errors (though by no means all) and those convicted numerous chances to prove those errors.
That’s the way the system works. And because someone like Andrea Yates can get a new trial, that means that an innocent or wrongfully convicted person has a shot at getting one two. Take that shot away from Yates, and it’s easier to take it away from the rest. That might be fine by you if you’re sitting in the comfort of your own home or office reading this, but if you’re the next person wrongfully convicted, it’s probably not going to be as fine when if that shot is taken away from you so that someone like Andrea Yates doesn’t get it.
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Of course what you write is true, and I too subscribe to the belief that our system only works if everyone gets a fair trial–even child killers. I get it.
However, as a person, I cannot be but disappointed when a killer of five children–a fact that no one disputes–has their case overturned on a technicality. Andrea needs to spend the rest of her life in prison. If she truly did not know that it is wrong to kill her five kids (one by one by her own hands), is this a person that can ever regain footing in our society? If she did know it was wrong (and let’s be serious how does one not know it’s worng?), then the facts speak for themselves. Either way, she was (in my non-legal opinion) not wrongly convicted of killing them with only of her frame of mind in dispute–which let’s face it we will never know regardless of the appeal, new testimony or new episodes of "Law & Order," etc.
You are right that I am upset, but I am also a realist and nothing in our post should have lead you to believe that we wanted "frontier justice" or a fine hanging. I understand that when it comes to free speech, it only works if henious organizations like the KKK are also given the right to march. However, that right doesn’t mean I won’t be down there at the march throwing eggs at them and doing everything I can to stop them.
Likewise, I understand that our system gives child killers like Yates (a point that is NOT in dispute) a second chance if an error was made in their trial, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be blogging about it. We all have our biases, mine is child killers and molesters–for that I’m guilty as charged.
For what it’s worth, I think Yates was pretty clearly mentally unstable at the time of the murders, to the point of maybe even being insane. I don’t think she’s ever gonna be mentally healthy at this point.
So while I don’t think she belongs in prison, I don’t think she belongs out among the public either. I think she’s more of a danger to herself than anyone else at this point, and should be permanently placed in a mental health facility, where she can get the help she needs and be protected from herself. Whether this is legally possible, I have no idea.
I wouldn’t mind, however, seeing her ex-husband in a cell. If you ask me, he’s guilty of criminal neglect in this case.
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For what it’s worth, I think Yates was pretty clearly mentally unstable at the time of the murders, to the point of maybe even being insane. I don’t think she’s ever gonna be mentally healthy at this point.
This is what I remember, as well. She had a long history of serious depression and she had recently stopped taking her meds.
I don’t want to excuse what she did, by any means, but I was troubled by the monstrous way she was presented. Does that make sense? It seemed to go beyond a parent killing a child; it seemed gendered. She was a personification of evil in the way that, say, the guy who beat a three-year-old to death last year in my county never became.
My daughter was 10 when this happened. It scared her so much that she had nightmares about Andrea Yates coming in her bedroom and killing her. So it isn’t the just the media making a monster out of Ms. Yates.
What bothered me was how could she not know what she was doing? Or that it was wrong? I have a passing knowledge of mental illness, but I just don’t get it.
Yes, I believe she is insane and should get all the help she can, but I don’t believe she is legally insane.
The Andrea Yates case and trial affected me as no other case ever has. I have three children and I suffered from horrible post partum depression. I had visions of killing my oldest child by throwing him off a bannister, and it scared me to death. I got help and was prepared for each child after that. Thankfully, it never happened again – but after Andrea Yates, I thought, "There but for the grace of God go I." I don’t think there is any doubt she was psychotic. She doesn’t belong in prison – she belongs in a mental health facility. No power on earth can punish her more than she is already being punished – who can live with the knowledge that they murdered their own children, and ever be happy again?