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dude, what the ?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/06/ch...ned/index.html
Yates' murder conviction overturned
Texas court reverses 2003 ruling of woman who drowned her kids
(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. (Blaze's Insert: WTF!)
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 do ented 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.
dude, what the ?
Wouldn't it be amusing if he meant "The Practice" or something?
Of course, nothing is as amusing as a TV show being referenced in a Capital Murder trial.
See, in this episode of "Family Guy"...
Seriously, let's not forget the real victims in this case.
Noah
John
Paul
Luke
Mary
Oh my gosh.
Someone needs to drown Andrea Yates.
Jesus.
I hope her tubes are tied.
And then run over her corpse with an 18 wheeler. I volunteer.
WTF?
So what the kind of a disclaimer will Law and Order use now?
"Real events may or may not have taken place based on this episode."
They already do. Sorta.
Check my wording out Blaze. Damn I hate explaining jokes! :p
. You can smack me upside the head at the next GTG.
I'm a little zoned out because I have to wait until 2P to add new classes.
[Thread hijack]I love the disclaimer at the bottom of that Howie Long Chevy commercial. "Professional drivers on a closed course". No . You mean I can't drive my Silverado around in a football stadium? DAMN![/Thread hijack]
The court of appeals did what it was supposed to do, even if you don't like the result, because it is there to make sure that the trial is fair to both the State and the defendant. The rules permit a reversal only where there is an error that affects the substantial rights of the defendant, and only where the error may have lead to an improper result.
I don't really understand the reasoning for finding that this error may have lead to an improper result, but then again, I didn't sit through trial and I haven't read the record, so I don't know what testimony and evidence was before the jury. My su ion would be that the evidence might have supported guilty by reason of insanity, but the Court believed that this guy's opinion may have swayed the jury to reject insanity in favor of a straight-on guilty verdict. I'm skeptical about the merit of her insanity plea, but there must be some pretty good evidence to support it -- otherwise, there would have been no reversible error in this appeal. Since there was some evidence to support a finding of guilty by reason of insanity, though, she's en led to a new trial according to the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure.
Ultimately, she's only going to get a new trial and will again be convicted -- and likely on the same finding of straight-on guilt. But the new trial will ensure that the result is fairly-gotten and not the result of a lying witness or fabricated evidence. It's frustrating, but that's what the system requires. It doesn't sound like her attorneys are trying to argue that she's not guilty; only that she shouldn't be sent to prison without getting some treatment. That's their obligation to her and their role in the system. I think they understand that the children are the true victims here, and I don't have the sense that they're trying to argue that Andrea should go unpunished for what she did.
Last edited by FromWayDowntown; 01-06-2005 at 12:29 PM.
I agree. Many will be disgusted with this reversal but if there is legal cause for the reversal than so be it. Justice for All.
I simply don't see what good prison will do in a situation like this. Get her some treatment or put her in a straight jacket and study her drooling patterns.
all biblical names....maybe satan did possess her?
either way, she needs to be locked up for the rest of her life. in prison, in a mental hospital, whatever.
Agreed...just make sure she's never released.
I was living in Houston while all of this was going down, and the local news was saturated with it. While what she did is unspeakably horrible, there are a lot of things that never made it outside of local media it seems.
The woman was living in an RV trailor taking care of 5 children under the age of 8. Her husband enforced the "biblical idea" of the submissive wife to an astounding degree, and after severe depression following every birth her husband told her she had to keep having children. Her doctors told her husband that more children would be severely detrimental to her mental health, and he disregarded all of it while telling his wife to push out more kids. I think it is the husband's fault as much as it is hers, and that man should be doing some serious time.
She needs to be in a mental ins ution, not in a prison.
Unless the husband was holding a gun to her head to keep her from leaving him or procreating with him, you'd be sending him to prison for being a monumental asshole but not a criminal.
I think you underestimate the effects of depression and mental abuse. Leaving him was probably never an option - and they should be some sort of reprocussions for him for directly ignoring a diagnosis that had the potential to cause what happened.
What would you convict him of? And what precedents are there for such a conviction?
I didn't think they were living in a trailer. They always showed a house on TV. I might be wrong since it's been a while.
They guy is an idiot and an ass but you can not convict him of anything. Selfesteem assault is not a crime. Serious time? That's not appropriate at all. At the very most maybe mandatory counciling.
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