A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14024728/
Her guilty verdict was overthrown by reason of insanity.:cover:
Her guilty verdict was overthrown by reason of insanity.:cover:
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A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
"The states 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 wasnt 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."
Welner said that although Yates may have been psychotic on the day of the murders, it wasnt 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."
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
evearael said:
I don't think so... if the jury finds that she was psychotic at the time of the killings, I don't see how any conviction for the same charges on the same day can stick. I don't see how she can ever be released from custody even with therapy.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
This page has a lot on Yates - http://www.courttv.com/trials/yates/index.html
robtex
Veteran Member
angellous_evangellous said:
Those are excellent points and there are many others that shows the crime was both pre-mediated (ruling out instantiy) and she was aware of what she was doing. It if just flustering how poorly the jury did on this. If you are not in Texas this may be harder to follow but if you live here in Texas, the case is on its third spin and the public is pretty up to date on the details.
Basically she waited till her husband went to work and than drowned her 5 children one by one in the bathtub. She planned it out in smallest of details including time, place, and what she would say when she called 911.
It would be interesting to see the court transcripts on that one day and why the jury thought she was insane.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
robtex said:
It really is beyond me. The evidence seems overwhelming that she knew what she was doing, but we don't have all that that jury had.
egroen
Member
I've heard it argued this case is an excellent example of why arminianism and the 'age of accountability' is wrong -- IE. If children before a certain age are guaranteed salvation, someone like Yates is a soul saver. These children were guaranteed an eternity in Heaven by her, when perhaps only 1 or 2 of them might have gone on to accept Jesus and go to Heaven.
Thoughts?
-Erin
Thoughts?
-Erin
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
egroen said:
Murder cannot be justified in any Christian context.
kateyes
Active Member
I am a bit surprised by the responses to this one. Andrea Yates had suffered post-partum depression after the births of several of her children--she AND her husband were warned twice not to have any more children, yet her husband participated in her impregnation 2 more times. I am a bit concerned that no-one seems to feel that Randy Yates had any responsibility in this. You have only to look at the photos of Andrea over the 2 years before the murders to know that this was a woman on the edge. The prosecution said the insanity plea was invalid because she knew what she was doing was wrong--she waited until her husband left for work, covered the children with a sheet and called 911 herself. Andrea had been diagnosed as psychotic she had spent 2 weeks in a mental hospital in April and 10 days in May, she had attempted suicide. She killed her children in June. Knowing this how could her husband leave her alone with the children? Did she wait until he left for work because she knew it was wrong--or did it occur because she was unable to cope with being alone with the children and she snapped. I think this was a more fair verdict--I also think the chances of her ever being allowed to leave the mental institution are pretty small--so what is the difference if she spends the rest of her life in prison, or in a mental hospital. In the mean time her husband has remarried and gotten off without any responsibility at all.
robtex
Veteran Member
kreeden said:
Kreeden in the legal definition of insanity the proposed insane cannot demonstrate the mental capicity to distinguish right from wrong, fantasy from reality as demonstrated by impulisve behavior.
footnote:
http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?selected=979&bold=||||
If foresight planning or premediation is shown than insantiy is traditionaly ruled out as impulisive is no longer a componet. In this case Yates planned the murders down to the smallest details including when where and how. She obviously could distinguish reality form fantasy and it was premeditated.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
egroen said:
If you think that this case can be used to argue against any Christian group's "age of accountability", then the murder is justified in the system that you argue against on the basis that Yates is a savior.
In my opinion, you grossly misunderstand the "age of accountability" teaching because no Christian group tolerates murder on this basis.
egroen said:
robtex
Veteran Member
Tigress
Working-Class W*nch.
robtex said:
Pre-meditation does not necessarily rule out mental instability, as the person in question could easily have been in an episode during the process of said pre-meditation. As to any apparent awareness demonstrated, it's difficult to say. It's entirely possible that she made the phone call after realizing what she had done; after the episode. The thing with mental illness, it's always there, it just lays dormant at times, allowing the person to be 'normal,' and at others, it rears its ugly head, often at different levels of serverity.
kateyes said:
Excellent points.
alwayswondering
Frubler
Booko said:Anyone commenting here actually suffered from PPD?
I did, but certainly not to the extent Andrea Yates did. It wasn't fun and it wasn't pretty, that's for sure.
I agree that Rusty should have been put on trial, too. He had to have known she wasn't right. One of the people who responded to the scene asked for a drink of water; the house was so filthy there wasn't a clean glass to be found. That's not a symptom of a healthy household.
Booko
Deviled Hen
alwayswondering said:
Thankfully, mine wasn't that bad either.
I was just suicidal for a couple of months, a danger to my family a few days here and there, and the worst I ever did was to toss a chair out the window. That was a strange thing -- it felt like an out of body experience. At the time I did and did not know what I was doing. If "possession" exists, I would wonder if that's what it feels like.
There were a few occasions I literally begged my husband to stay home from work, because I didn't feel exactly stable. He did. And it was a good thing he did, too.
Unfortunately, I did not find out until after the imbalance settled down that there are hormone therapies for PPD. I consider myself pretty lucky I didn't manage hurt myself or anyone else in the meantime.
Outside of the times I had PPD, I haven't been prone to violent fits of destruction or suicidal thoughts.
No, it isn't. My son's best friend was from such a household. His father died (young) his mother has mental problems, and there was no one there to cope with anything. His grandparents took one look and the house and took him home. I mean, there's a difference between cluttered and unkempt and *omigawd!* His mother is doing fine now, in a good environment where she can get the treatment she needs. Now everyone is doing well.
Gee, if she had killed him in a fit of insanity, maybe everyone here would like to stuff her in jail too, huh? They certainly seem ready enough to do so with Ms. Yates. From where I'm sitting, that makes about as much sense as blaming a rape victim for being raped.
I think the jury made the right decision, and they showed some bravery in doing so.
Yates will be in treatment, not jail. And she will be somewhere apart from society where she cannot have any more kids that could be killed either.
The thing that saddens me most about these events is wondering how many of them could be avoided if we only did something in the way of public education on what PPD is.
All I was ever told, or ever read about, was the "baby blues." I was completely unprepared for what happened.
It was only a year after I'd already had the kids and recovered that I found out my aunt had the same problem.
It's a problem that everyone seems to be, I dunno...too embarassed to admit happens?
