US mother retried over drownings (BBC News)

[Up2Late]

(Could someone from Texas please explain to me WHY the Texas courts feel they need a re-trial of this woman, when she is already sentenced to LIFE in prison?!)
Tuesday, 27 June 2006, 11:05 GMT 12:05 UK

US mother retried over drownings

A US woman pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity as her retrial began in Texas over charges that she drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001.

Andrea Yates, 41, admitted drowning her children, aged between six months and seven years, at her first trial. But her convictions were overturned last year after a court dismissed the evidence of an expert witness.

Yates's lawyers argue she was mentally ill at the time but prosecutors say she knew her actions were wrong.

The retrial in Houston is set to be a reprise of much of Andrea Yates's trial in 2002, with both the prosecution and defence expected to call many of the same witnesses....

(clip)

...Under Texas law, Yates does not face the death penalty because the first jury gave her a life sentence.


(more at link) <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5120522.stm>

[LostinVA]

1. Bet Parker Dietz won't be a witness for the DA this time around n/t

[LisaM]

2. When are they going to try her frigging husband?

who kept getting her pregnant despite her post-partum issues AND left her alone with the kids? Didn't their church have something to do with her frequent pregnancies?

[Bridget Burke]

6. The Yates family didn't actually have a "church"....

She was raised Catholic & Rusty was Protestant. But he found a "guru" in Michael Peter Woroniecki, who travels the country preaching his twisted beliefs. "The neutrality of this Wikipedia article is disputed"--perhaps someone else can point out this nut's "good side."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Peter_Woroniecki

Yes, Woroniecki's teachings demand that women have "as many children as nature allows." If the Yates family had actually attended a church, the church ladies might well have asked why Rusty didn't keep it zipped--after her first bout with postnatal psychosis.

[LisaM]

7. OK, gotcha. I knew there was some freaky religious thing going on

It's my belief that both the husband, then, AND this man should be in jail.

[OneBlueSky]

3. they wanna kill . . . kill . . . KILL! . . .

see blood and gore and guts, veins it their teeth . . . eat dead burnt bodies . . .

they wanna KILL . . . KILL . . . KILL . . .

with apologies to Arlo . . .

[Justitia]

4. Her conviction was overturned because prosecution witness LIED.

Park Dietz, forensic psychiatrist completely made shit up in order to ascribe her motive.

Thus, her conviction was overturned.

The DA chose to re-try her, so that is why we are having a 2nd trial.

Someone asked about her former husband....he divorced Andrea while she was in jail and he is now remarried.

[Bridget Burke]

5. She is pleading "not guilty by reason of insanity"

If she "wins"--she'll probably be in a mental hospital for most of her life, instead of prison. Your link explains that the first verdict was thrown out because an "expert witness" testified that she'd gotten the idea from a Law & Order episode. But the episode never existed.

The Houston Chronicle has more information on this sad story than the BBC.

Earlier in the day, defense attorney George Parnham told jurors that Yates has a documented history of severe psychosis.

He said that history included a three-week stay at a mental-health facility a few months earlier and being prescribed strong anti-psychotic drugs.

A few months before the June 20, 2001 drownings, a doctor "for some inexplicable reason" took Yates off the medication and counseled her to have "happy thoughts," Parnham said.

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/drownings/4002840.html

[Vexatious Ape]

8. god told here to do it.

Just like god told our hominid in the White House to invade Iraq.

[LostinVA]

9. The difference is she was psychotic and he's sociopathic

Thus, she can legally and morally be excused and forgiven... he can't.