Drowning Kids is OK (Yates' murder conviction overturned)
 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/06/children.drowned/

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(CNN) -- A Texas appeals court in Houston Thursday reversed the capital murder convictions of Andrea Yates, the woman who drowned her five children in a bathtub, citing the false testimony of a prosecution witness.

According to a report from The Associated Press, Yates' lawyers argued last month before a three-judge panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston that psychiatrist Park Dietz was wrong when he said he consulted on an episode of the TV show "Law and Order" involving a woman found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children.

After Yates was convicted, attorneys in the case and jurors learned no such episode existed, the AP reported.

Jurors in 2002 sentenced Yates to life in prison in the 2001 deaths of three of her children. She was not tried in the deaths of the other two.

Yates told authorities that Satan told her to kill the children. Despite a documented history of mental illness, a jury rejected her plea of innocent by reason of insanity and convicted her of murder in 2002. She was sentenced to life in prison but will be eligible for parole in 40 years.

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I hope they give her the death penalty when they try her again.


RUgreek

Hold on now, they are not saying that Yates has now been acquitted of the murder charges. The case has been remanded back to the trial court for a new trial. She will be re-tried WITHOUT the faulty testimony of the expert witness. All this means is that the prosecution will have to use other forms of testimony and proof.

However, the prosecution can no longer seek the death penalty. Texas law.

Chances are, they will retry her and reaffirm the life sentence she already received.

I believe that (even though this woman is crazy as a jaybird) her having to live the rest of her life carrying around the hell that must rage in her head is a just punishment. Plus, in lucid moments she realizes what she did to her own children. As a mom, I don't think I can imagine too many things as horrifying as that.

And for the record, I am very much pro-death penalty.

I have always felt bad for her. She didn't get the medical and psychiatric help that she desperately needed. No mother in her right mind murders all of her children. I am not saying that she shouldn't be punished, but I don't think that the death penalty is warranted here. I really think that she should be studied in order to learn how to prevent this from happening again.


Also, I agree with KillarneyRose except for the pro-death penalty part. I have mixed feelings so I am undecided about the death penalty.

Re: Drowning Kids is OK (Yates' murder conviction overturned)
 

That's what you get for using a TV show in your case...
(Although I thought I remembered an episode where a woman drowned her children...)

There's a special circle in Hell reserved for people like her.

Its called the law, jackass.

Texas appeals courts didnt issue shit saying that it was ok to drown kids. They did say that if on appeal, you can prove that the prosecutions key witness TESTALIED, and BS'd on the stand then you probably deserve a new trial.

You'd be hella up in arms if you were on trial for something and someone lied like that. We all would be.

But thanks for the inflamatory speech Nancy Grace. :rolleyes:

Take a step back, deep breath, and relax. Let us keep this discussion civil people.

This just shows haw crappy her lawyers must have been, to not catch this during the trial. IMO, there is no harm in re-trying, but we have to have some kind of finality in our judicial system, you cannot bring everything back to court over false statements. It is up to the defense to catch those during the trial. Her lawyers dropped the ball, big time.

There are some lawyers on here... Rudey, aren't you a lawyer? I know there are more. Shouldn't they have caught this during the trial? What is the deal here?

This just shows how dumb it is to underestimate people's Law and Order dedication. There are people who know every plotline and every episode by heart and will call you on it if you screw up. If you don't believe me, visit Television Without Pity.

This is a stunning comment - re-read this. Think about it for a minute.









nah, a little more . . .













OK. So hopefully by now you realize that the entire point of the US Court system (which is probably the most elegant system in the history of mankind, seriously) is designed specifically to try to avoid 'knowing the outcome' of a trial. What you've just claimed is insane - not to mention dangerous, particularly to the groups traditionally over-represented with regard to crime and jailing. That's why this woman was given a new trial - because a serious mistake was made in the first trial, she is entitled to a new one, because every American citizen is guaranteed a fair trial.

Even ones that kill their children.

Hopefully you never need to rely on that guarantee, but if you do, you'll be quite glad it's there.

While I cannot even begin to understand what she did...she has to have the new trial. A key witness lied, and that's that; in the interests of fairness and the judicial process, they have to give her a new trial.

No, no and no.

Her "lawyers dropping the ball" means nothing here.

"Bringing everything back" without any kind of "finality" is part of the U.S. Court System. If we had the kind of "finality" that you speak of, we'd be convicting the wrong people left and right.

And actually, under U.S. law, it's possible to bring things back to court for a new trial under such things as "false statements."

Nope. I think Bruinaphi, a DU from Texas, and perhaps one or two more people on here who practice law so they might know your answer.

-Rudey

Dude, what are the odds of someone knowing a witness is lying during the trial? Slim and his good friend none, and none just left town. Lawyers are great and all, but not psychic.

I'm kind of shocked and appalled by some of the comments on this thread.

See also: KSigRC's post. Page 1. Post 13.

But see this.

Now that's internet hot!!

...your Broncos aren't though....bwahah

They're going to beat Indianapolis.

Oh man, even I can't say that without laughing for a second and then crying.

At least they get a chance to try!

My Chiefs can't even say that much, 7-9 bastages...

Go Patriots!

:(

I hate you and Matthew for turning me into a fan of a team that sucks.

Don't feel too bad...I'm a Dolphins fan. :(

What lawyers?

-Rudey

No. But I hear that there are quite a few arbitrators roaming GC on the Events forum.

-Rudey

Um hi, you should be a Bears fan.

Oh wait, that wouldn't change your situation at all, would it?

I'm a lawyer and I've only recently seen 2 or 3 episodes of Law and Order because of this. It's great that everyone loves the show, but real law is not what you see on TV. The only thing intelligent I learned from this thread is that she won't be re-tried with the death penalty, which is a shame to me.

RUgreek

Russell Yates finalizes divorce from Andrea Yates
 

By PAM EASTON
Associated Press Writer
March 17, 2005 - 2:49 p.m. CST


HOUSTON — Russell Yates finalized his divorce Thursday from his wife, Andrea, three years after she was sentenced to life in prison for drowning their children.

Under the decree, Andrea Yates will get her gliding rocking chair — generally used for nursing babies — and the right to be buried near the five children. Russell Yates will also give her $7,000 and a portion of his retirement benefits from his employment at NASA.

The house where the children were drowned in the bathtub in 2001 has been sold.

Andrea Yates, 40, was sentenced to life in prison for three of the 2001 drowning deaths, but the capital murder convictions were overturned in January. A panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston sided with her lawyers, who contended false testimony from a prosecution expert witness influenced the jury. Andrea Yates claimed she was insane at the time of the drownings.

Prosecutors have asked the full appeals court to reconsider.

"She has come to terms with it and knows Rusty needs to go on with his life," Andrea Yates' attorney, John O'Sullivan, said. "She just wants to get it behind her. She doesn't like it. She wishes it didn't happen."

The divorce was also tough for Russell Yates, his attorney David Salinsky said. Russell Yates still cares for Andrea and continues to visit her in prison, he said.

The couple married on April 17, 1993 and stopped living together on June 20, 2001, the day the children were killed, according to the divorce petition.

The family had seven cemetery plots — five for the children and one each for Russell and Andrea Yates. Salinsky said it's unclear whether Russell Yates will be buried next to Andrea.

"Nobody ever knows what the future is going to hold," he said.


In the weeks leading to his divorce filing last summer, Russell Yates acknowledged uncertainty about the couple's marriage had contributed to Andrea Yates' brief stay at a prison hospital for refusing to eat.

"I always have and I always will support Andrea," Russell Yates said in July. "I do what I can to encourage her. When she is lucid, she is distraught. Then when she is not lucid, she is psychotic. It is a very, very difficult situation for all of us."

O'Sullivan said Andrea Yates put thought into what she wanted from the divorce.

Andrea Yates remains at a psychiatric prison in East Texas, where she works in the commissary three days a week and performs general housekeeping duties, said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Mike Viesca.

O'Sullivan said Andrea Yates is mentally stable, but "her life is forever scarred."

"The important thing is, she is stable with her medicine and she is able to cope with things," he said. "She looks better than she has ever looked."

Yates, wet and bedraggled, called police to her home and led them to the bodies of her four youngest children: John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary. Police later found the oldest, Noah, 7, floating face down in the tub's murky brown water.

Yates called the four younger children into the bathroom and drowned them one by one. When Noah discovered what she was doing, he tried to flee, but Yates chased him down and drowned him as well.

According to trial testimony, Yates was overwhelmed by motherhood, considered herself a bad mother, attempted suicide and had been hospitalized for depression and psychotic episodes.
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um....should what someone saw on a tv show be considered as evidence anyway?

i think there was an law and order episode where a woman placed her baby in a furnace and on trial she said god made her do it.....