Andrea Yates Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity
Andrea Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity Wednesday in her second murder trial for the bathtub drownings of her young children.
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.
A couple of things:
- I hate it that they call this not guilty by reason of insanity. Clearly, this woman is guilty, she’s just out of her gourd crazy to boot. The fact that she’s off her rocker doesn’t change the fact that she is responsible for systematically drowning all five of her children in a bath tub. They should call it “guilty but in need of specialized mental health treatment” instead. Because I don’t see why mental disease should deflect culpability for a crime.
- I also hate that because this woman believed she was possessed by Satan while she drowned her kids she’s going to be put in a situation that makes it easier for her to be released back into the public. As the article indicates, Yates now gets the benefit of routine hearings on her mental health. If she’s deemed to be mentally healthy, she gets released. She’ll still have murdered her kids, of course, but at least she won’t walk around thinking she needs an exorcism any more.
Guilty by reasons of insanity. There is nothing guiltless about what she did. She did it, plain and simple, she is guilty.
Why she did it is different than if she did it.
I realize you have nothing to justify that statement, but…
Can you post a link that justifies your accusation? Thanks!
Didn’t she call 911 immediately afterwards… after she drowned them each one by one? She knew what she had done and was very deliberate about the whole process.
I have zero sympathy for her… of course, if she had just done this when they were born, she’d be considered “liberated”.
Make that “you’re”.
I hate to quibble over such a tragic story but being off her rocker does mean she’s not responsible. One can argue whether she was truly insane at the time but if she was then how can she be considered responsible?
Just lumping you in with the liberal/Democrats.
Citing Szasz on psychology is like citing Bruckheimer on film.
Obviously Whistler, you must have been there in the court room and heard all the testimony and read all the psych reports and saw all the evidence. Again, what are all the elements of murder that must be proven by the state?
She is not crazy. She tried to hide what she had done, therefore she knew it was wrong, therefore she is not crazy. In less than 5 years she will be in the street, popping out another batch of kids to murder. Exactly how the hell is this justice for those murdered children?
Look up the definition of murder for which she was charged. yes she did it but wasn’t sane at the time. There is more than one element of proof for murder, the actual killing is just one. Thank god, the insanity defense is hard to prove and is rarely sucessful.
Think a poor black woman would? I’m a racist for saying that; so why does it not make you a sexist for making your comment?
Hey guttermouth, obviously you can’t read worth shit, but that is so you to tell others what I meant. Cuz if you could actually read you would have read that I said that the insanity defense is rarely used and rarely successful, THANK GOD! So guttermouth, put up or shut up, prove that I “am fighting tooth and nail”, asshole! (oooh that felt so good)
BatOne, Actually the Texas statute is one of the tightest there is. The only thing left would be to not allow the defense in any way, which will never happen. The fact that it didn’t work in the Dahmer, Gacy and Speck and the other cases shows that it is indeed a difficult standard to meet. Just because it was used successfully in this case, does not mean that it was used wrongly according to the jury who was in the room.
to say that intent and mental state should never be used would require a total overhaul of all criminal statues, since mens rea is a requirement for most crimes. Not sure that will ever happen.
She knew what she was doing, in fact it was premeditated.
She knew it was wrong.
Of course the weak minded among us think that you must grant leniency to a mother who lost her kids.
Puzzle,
An interesting article to be sure, although it’s clear that the author is sympathetic to the notion that those who are deemed “mentally ill” should not be punished for their actions.
Still, the victims of Dahmer, Goldstein, and Yates are all still very dead. So maybe instead of expanding the basis on which we excuse such behavior from criminal sanction, we should consider adjustments to our criminal statutes which tighten the requirements under which we absolve this sort of heinous behavior.
Ted Bundy, Juan Corona, Richard Speck, and John Wayne Gacy might all well claim mental illness exemption under the proposed expansion discussed here. If we are to err, we should err on the side of caution… society’s caution. We are already headed down the “slippery slope” toward handing out judicial indulgences to any and all mass murderers on the notion that anyone who commits such unspeakable horrors must be crazy.
It’s called capital punishment for a reason.
Frankly I don’t give a cats ass where she does her time; hospital, prison or a pit.
I just don’t think she should ever get out.
I found this to be an interesting article on the issue of knowing and ability to conform: http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/women/andrea_yates/14.html
The only question here should be: Is this someone we want to be able to be in society with all the non-murderers(crazy or not)? Isn’t the fact that she killed her kids enough evidence that she should be permanently removed from society? Her mental state should not be an issue. It’s what she did that matters.
Oh, like you can really complain. Good God, you were in Hitler’s cabinet!
Just lumping you in with the Nazis. I realize I have no reason to do so, but….. Hey, if you can be absolutely illogical, so can I!
Andrea Yates has earned the right to have her head shoved into a bucket filled with human feces and urine and held there until she is dead. As it stands now she will be out and free in 5 years or less. Ain’t that just peachy?
Andrea Yates is now a target. She deserves a drowning. Maybe somebody will step up to the plate and kill her. One can hope that the world will get rid of this hideous creature.
National Socialist German Workers Party
I’m not a socialist so I can’t be.
Yes! Why she did it is irellevent. She murdered her children, then attempted to hide that fact, and now is successfully dodging being punished for her crimes.
No, your racist for arogantly thinking that blacks can’t make it without your help.
And out she will get. People like Puzzle are fighting tooth&nail to see that it happens.
I don’t think Yates deserves to be murdered…
Me neither. She deserves just retribution. She deserves a drowning. Maybe she’ll be Jeffrey Dahmered and be visciously killed with guards looking the other way.
This beast of Hell deserves no sympathy. She has renounced her humanity.
This reminds me of the joke about the kid that murdered his parents who pled for leniency because he was an orphan.
Michael Reagan went through a timeline of the murder.
She was rational enough to plan the murder.
I don’t think Yates deserves to be murdered any more than her kids did, but neither should the full consequences of her actions be deflected simply because she’s crazy.