http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/02/02/yates.re...d.ap/index.html
Andrea Yates released from jail
Mom accused of drowning kids to await retrial in mental hospital
Thursday, February 2, 2006; Posted: 1:00 p.m. EST (18:00 GMT)
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Andrea Yates left jail early Thursday for a state mental hospital where she will await her second capital murder trial for the drowning deaths of her young children.
Yates' attorney posted her $200,000 bond, releasing her from incarceration for the first time since the five children were drowned in the family bathtub in June 2001.
State District Judge Belinda Hill set the bond Wednesday.
Yates, 41, didn't speak as she left the jail. She carried a brown paper sack and wore jeans and a blue-and-white striped shirt as she entered a car with her attorney and a private investigator for the drive to the mental hospital.
Her attorney, George Parnham, said he would answer questions after returning Yates to East Texas, where she previously spent more than three years at a prison psychiatric unit.
The judge said she couldn't order Yates to commit herself to the Rusk State Hospital, but said she set the bond based on Yates remaining there until her March 20 trial. Once the trial begins, Yates will return to the Harris County Jail. The trial is expected to last four to six weeks.
Yates faces capital murder charges for drowning three of the children and has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
A jury rejected her original insanity defense in 2002 and sentenced her to life in prison for the drowning of 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John and 6-month-old Mary. Prosecutors presented evidence about the drownings of Paul, 3, and Luke, 2, but Yates was not charged in their deaths.
An appeals court last year overturned the convictions based on testimony by the state's expert witness about a nonexistent episode on television's "Law & Order" series. The expert, Park Dietz, said a show about a woman with postpartum depression who drowned her children had aired shortly before the Yates children were drowned.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Full Version: Andrea Yates released from prison
Not guilty.
Sin City to thread
built in excuse, ladies. Drown away!
I hope someone shoots this bitch.
lol. did you really think it would take me long?
I hope someone shoots this bitch.
lol. did you really think it would take me long?
Yates, 42, will now be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released. An earlier jury had found her guilty of murder, but the verdict was overturned on appeal.
The defense never disputed that Yates drowned her five children one by one in the bathtub of their Houston-area home. But they said she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and, in a delusional state, believed Satan was inside her and was trying to save them from hell.
Yates stared wide-eyed in court Wednesday as the verdict was read. She then bowed her head and wept quietly.
The children's father said the jury had reached the right conclusion.
"The jury looked past what happened and looked at why it happened," Rusty Yates told reporters outside the courthouse. "Prosecutors had the truth of the first day and stopped there. Yes, she was psychotic. That's the whole truth."
Rusty Yates divorced Andrea Yates after the children's June 2001 deaths and recently remarried. He said they are still "friends" and reminisce about the children.
The jury, split evenly men to women, deliberated for about 12 hours over three days before reaching its verdict. On Wednesday, the jurors listened again to the state definition of insanity and asked to see pictures of the five young children: baby Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah.
Prosecutors had maintained that Yates failed to meet the state's definition of insanity: that a severe mental illness prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing that it is wrong.
The jury had not been told that if they found her insane that Yates would be committed to a mental institution for treatment. If found guilty of murder she would have faced life in prison.
"I'm very disappointed," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. "For five years, we've tried to seek justice for these children."
In her first trial, Yates was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. An appeals court overturned the conviction last year because erroneous testimony about a "Law & Order" television episode that didn't exist could have influenced the jury.
Defense attorneys presented much of the same evidence as in the first trial, including half a dozen psychiatrists who testified that Yates was so psychotic that she didn't know her actions were wrong. They said that in her delusional mind, she thought killing the youngsters was right.
Some testified about her two hospitalizations after suicide attempts in 1999, not long after her fourth child was born. At the time, the family lived in a converted bus. Dr. Eileen Starbranch, a psychiatrist, again testified about how she warned Yates and her husband not to have more children because her postpartum psychosis would probably return.
Yates' stayed in a mental hospital for about two weeks in April and 10 days in May 2001. Psychiatrists testified that she was catatonic and wouldn't eat and that her postpartum condition from Mary's birth in November worsened after her father died in March.
Yates did not testify. But a few state and defense psychiatrists who evaluated Yates played some videotaped segments for jurors.
During a July 2001 jail interview, Yates told psychiatrist Lucy Puryear that her children had not been progressing normally because she was a bad mother, and that she killed them because "in their innocence, they would go to heaven."
The state's key witness was Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Yates for two days in May. He testified that Yates killed the youngsters because she felt overwhelmed and inadequate as a mother, not for altruistic reasons.
Welner said that although Yates may have been psychotic on the day of the murders, it wasn't until the next day in jail that she talked about Satan, wanting to be executed and saving her kids from hell. He said the hallucination may have been triggered by the stresses of being naked in a cell on suicide watch and realizing what she had done.
Welner said Yates knew her actions were wrong and showed it in multiple ways: waiting until her husband left for work to kill them, covering the bodies with a sheet and calling 911 soon after the crime.
Prosecutors also brought back a key witness from the first trial, Dr. Park Dietz, the forensic psychiatrist whose testimony led to her conviction being overturned. The judge barred attorneys in this trial from mentioning the earlier testimony problem.
Dietz again testified that Yates knew killing her children was wrong because she knew it was a sin.
7/26/2006 14:19 EDT
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
The defense never disputed that Yates drowned her five children one by one in the bathtub of their Houston-area home. But they said she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and, in a delusional state, believed Satan was inside her and was trying to save them from hell.
Yates stared wide-eyed in court Wednesday as the verdict was read. She then bowed her head and wept quietly.
The children's father said the jury had reached the right conclusion.
"The jury looked past what happened and looked at why it happened," Rusty Yates told reporters outside the courthouse. "Prosecutors had the truth of the first day and stopped there. Yes, she was psychotic. That's the whole truth."
Rusty Yates divorced Andrea Yates after the children's June 2001 deaths and recently remarried. He said they are still "friends" and reminisce about the children.
The jury, split evenly men to women, deliberated for about 12 hours over three days before reaching its verdict. On Wednesday, the jurors listened again to the state definition of insanity and asked to see pictures of the five young children: baby Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah.
Prosecutors had maintained that Yates failed to meet the state's definition of insanity: that a severe mental illness prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing that it is wrong.
The jury had not been told that if they found her insane that Yates would be committed to a mental institution for treatment. If found guilty of murder she would have faced life in prison.
"I'm very disappointed," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. "For five years, we've tried to seek justice for these children."
In her first trial, Yates was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. An appeals court overturned the conviction last year because erroneous testimony about a "Law & Order" television episode that didn't exist could have influenced the jury.
Defense attorneys presented much of the same evidence as in the first trial, including half a dozen psychiatrists who testified that Yates was so psychotic that she didn't know her actions were wrong. They said that in her delusional mind, she thought killing the youngsters was right.
Some testified about her two hospitalizations after suicide attempts in 1999, not long after her fourth child was born. At the time, the family lived in a converted bus. Dr. Eileen Starbranch, a psychiatrist, again testified about how she warned Yates and her husband not to have more children because her postpartum psychosis would probably return.
Yates' stayed in a mental hospital for about two weeks in April and 10 days in May 2001. Psychiatrists testified that she was catatonic and wouldn't eat and that her postpartum condition from Mary's birth in November worsened after her father died in March.
Yates did not testify. But a few state and defense psychiatrists who evaluated Yates played some videotaped segments for jurors.
During a July 2001 jail interview, Yates told psychiatrist Lucy Puryear that her children had not been progressing normally because she was a bad mother, and that she killed them because "in their innocence, they would go to heaven."
The state's key witness was Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Yates for two days in May. He testified that Yates killed the youngsters because she felt overwhelmed and inadequate as a mother, not for altruistic reasons.
Welner said that although Yates may have been psychotic on the day of the murders, it wasn't until the next day in jail that she talked about Satan, wanting to be executed and saving her kids from hell. He said the hallucination may have been triggered by the stresses of being naked in a cell on suicide watch and realizing what she had done.
Welner said Yates knew her actions were wrong and showed it in multiple ways: waiting until her husband left for work to kill them, covering the bodies with a sheet and calling 911 soon after the crime.
Prosecutors also brought back a key witness from the first trial, Dr. Park Dietz, the forensic psychiatrist whose testimony led to her conviction being overturned. The judge barred attorneys in this trial from mentioning the earlier testimony problem.
Dietz again testified that Yates knew killing her children was wrong because she knew it was a sin.
7/26/2006 14:19 EDT
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
QUOTE(sin city @ Jul 26 2006, 03:32 PM) [snapback]144427[/snapback]
built in excuse, ladies. Drown away!
I hope someone shoots this bitch.
lol. did you really think it would take me long?
Fuck that! Drown the bitch!
almost drown her 4 times then revive her
on the fifth drown her
once for each of the lives she snuffed out
on the fifth drown her
once for each of the lives she snuffed out
WTF? "An appeals court last year overturned the convictions based on testimony by the state's expert witness about a nonexistent episode on television's "Law & Order" series. The expert, Park Dietz, said a show about a woman with postpartum depression who drowned her children had aired shortly before the Yates children were drowned."
I had no idea about this was until a few minutes ago. A women I was talking to a few hours ago at a baseball game mentioned this news as a conversation topic. All I could do is emptily nod my head. I swear that this is one of those stories that is totally contained to TV news. Since I don't own a TV and get all my news from newspapers, magazines and newspaper Web sites, I easily managed to consume a high quantity of news on a daily basis and yet never encountered this story. Has it been in the news lately, or did it just spring back to life suddenly? I remember it vaguely from way back when.
QUOTE(Tom @ Jul 26 2006, 03:36 PM) [snapback]144443[/snapback]
almost drown her 4 times then revive her
on the fifth drown her
once for each of the lives she snuffed out
on the fifth drown her
once for each of the lives she snuffed out
ignorance is bliss.
QUOTE(Little Jess @ Jul 26 2006, 04:33 PM) [snapback]144428[/snapback]
Yates, 42, will now be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released.
why should she ever be released
Oh, I'm crazy so I can't help killing my 5 kids.
Oh, I'm better now can I go home?
QUOTE(Jordan @ Jul 27 2006, 12:42 PM) [snapback]145923[/snapback]
QUOTE(Little Jess @ Jul 26 2006, 04:33 PM) [snapback]144428[/snapback]
Yates, 42, will now be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released.
why should she ever be released
Oh, I'm crazy so I can't help killing my 5 kids.
Oh, I'm better now can I go home?
hell, she had postpartum psychosis in 2001. How the hell long can that last. I'm sure she's good to go right now.
QUOTE(alternachick @ Feb 2 2006, 02:43 PM) [snapback]9969[/snapback]
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/02/02/yates.re...d.ap/index.html
....
An appeals court last year overturned the convictions based on testimony by the state's expert witness about a nonexistent episode on television's "Law & Order" series. The expert, Park Dietz, said a show about a woman with postpartum depression who drowned her children had aired shortly before the Yates children were drowned.
Interesting,
because I secretly dream about that fabled day when I can get up in front of court room and argue, "Your Honor, let's take a look at People v. Rogers, in which ADA Jack McCoy..."
F her! So if believe she's satan i should get to kill her and get off too.
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