Andrea Yates. Death Penalty or Life in Prison? You decide.

Houston Mother Found Guilty of Drowning Her Children, Faces Death Penalty

March 12 — Andrea Yates, the Houston mother on trial for drowning her five children last year, was convicted on two counts of capital murder today.

The verdict came just under four hours after deliberations began, surprising courtroom observers. Yates could face the death penalty when she is sentenced. The death penalty phase is scheduled to begin Thursday.
There was no doubt that Yates, 37, killed her five children last June. Both prosecutors and Yates' defense attorneys agreed that she was mentally ill. But her attorneys argued that she was not guilty by reason of insanity of the two counts of capital murder she faced.

The key issue at trial — and the pivotal issue for the 12-panel jury — was whether Yates could distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the slayings.

Yates' defense argued that she suffered from severe postpartum depression that made her incapable of rational thought when she killed her children.

Prosecutors argued that Yates confessed to police and psychiatrists that she planned in advance to kill the children, which suggested premeditation. The methodical way in which she drowned her children one-by-one, prosecutors argued, suggested that Yates was capable of distinguishing right from wrong.

"That's the key," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said in closing arguments. "Andrea Yates knew right from wrong, and she made a choice on June 20 to kill her children deliberately and with deception."

Defense experts disagreed, arguing that Yates knew killing children was legally wrong, but was so delusional that she thought she was saving them from Satan.

"We can't permit objective logic to be imposed on the actions of Andrea Yates," defense attorney George Parnham said in his closing arguments. "She was so psychotic on June 20 that she absolutely believed what she was doing was the right thing to do."

Methodical Killing

According to police, shortly after her husband, Russell Yates, left for work at the Space Shuttle Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center on June 20, Andrea Yates methodically drowned her five children in the bathtub of their home. Police found the bodies of John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and 6-month-old Mary in the master bedroom, covered with a sheet. The body of 7-year-old Noah was still in the tub, police said.

Police said Yates told them that she held Luke under water in the bathtub, then Paul, John, and Mary. Noah walked in while she was holding Mary under the water and tried to run away, but Yates said she caught him, and drowned him too.

When she finished, she called 911 and told police to come to her home, where they found her and the children's bodies.

Troubled Mother Under Pressure

Friends and relatives of Andrea Yates portrayed her as a mother who seemed overwhelmed by the responsibilities of raising five children and who feared that she was a bad mother. The Yates' lifestyle came under scrutiny as it was revealed that Russell Yates wanted to have a traditional family where he was the breadwinner and Andrea stayed home and raised and home-schooled the children. A minister, Russell said, encouraged him to teach the children at home to protect them from the moral corruption.

Russell Yates, who has stayed supportive of his wife since the killings, recalled how she tried to commit suicide multiple times two years before the drownings. Still, Russell Yates said, he didn't see her as a danger to herself or others, even after the birth of their fourth child. A psychiatrist also testified that she discouraged the Yateses in 1999 from having a fifth child because there was a 50 percent chance she would suffer from future psychosis. Still, they proceeded to have another child because Russell said the psychiatrist was not "adamant" against wishes.

Preoccupation With Satan

Defense expert Phillip Resnick was among the witnesses who said Yates had a preoccupation with Satan. Yates knew drowning her children was illegal, he said, but in her psychotic and delusional state, she thought it was the only way to save her children from eternal damnation. Resnick said Yates thought Satan lived within her and the state would execute her for her children's killings, thus eliminating evil from the world.

But prosecutors said Yates must be held accountable for her children's deaths. Yates didn't start claiming Satan lived within her or referring to a prophecy until the day after her arrest when she realized she had killed her five children and found herself naked in a jail cell, Williford argued.

She said Yates, a former nurse, had thought about harming her children for years and ignored a doctor's orders in 1999 to refrain from having any more by getting pregnant with her youngest child, Mary.

"Andrea Yates knew right from wrong and she made a choice on June 20 to kill her children," Williford said. "She made that choice to have Mary. She made that choice to fill the tub."

Yates could have been indicted in all the children's deaths, but prosecutors have said it is not necessary to seek indictments for all of them. One of the capital murder charges covers the deaths of Noah and John, qualifying for capital punishment because two victims were killed during the commission of the same crime. The second charge lists the death of 6-month-old Mary as a child under the age of 6, which also is a capital offense.

[hermunn123]

death penalty.

[Gonthrax]

I say life w/o parole, I think that knowing you are going to spend the wrest of your life in prison and your never going to get out is a fate worse then death.

[Melis]

A bullet is much cheaper!

Either way ......she'll get what she deserves whether its on this earth or somewhere else-
that story just makes me ill everytime I hear about it on the news

[Marc04]

i beleive that she is mental ill, and i believe that she should have been found guilty, but i do not agree with killing her

[taranaki]

I do not agree with killing people.By killing a criminal,we exercise the very act that we find repulsive.This woman needs to be removed from society permanently,a life sentence in solitary confinement would be insufficient, but there is no sentence compatible to the crime that does not involve a high degree of barbarism.

[darkness]

life without parole!

let her live with the fact that she was convicted of murdering her own children. She'll probably go completely insane and top herself. And then there is no one to blame but her.

[ric]

death by torture should be brought back. lets let the english and the spanish oversee it too....they were quite impressive with thier ways.

[Jimster]

WE don't hear about American murders in NZ so I will stay out of this one

[Setanta]

I hadn't heard this one either. I'm not a death penalty advocate either, but I do believe that anyone that hams a child is pure evil and should never be alowed to be part of society ever again.

[Moppie]

Originally posted by Setanta
I do believe that anyone that hams a child is pure evil and should never be alowed to be part of society ever again.

Hams a child???? :huh:

oh you mean Harmed!! :flash:

Well then why are you allowed to be a teacher? :o



As for the story, well Its just more of good old american sensationalism.
People making money off of others misfortune.

And besides, who are we to judge her? Did we sit through the entire trial? hear every witness, and see every piece of evidence? No. Which means we have no basis for coming up with a verdict.
Leave it up to the Judge and Jury. Its what thier there for.

[Setanta]

Bastard

It was a typo - honest

[SkyNex721]

I kept up with that trial, cause I would hear about it every morning in the gym. She does have a mental illness. But the doctors said that if she drowned her kids because of her mental illness she wouldn't of had the rationalization to think of the consequences of letting the oldest child get away. You see, while she drowned all of her kids, the oldest one got free and ran away. She was able to chase them down and bring them back. Which means that she knew that letting him go would have consequences.
That's what the psychiatrist said on TV.
So I think she should fry.
Why should we have to pay for someone like that to be around for another 40 years?

I think her husband, Russell Yates, is a nut too. This woman drowned 5 of their kids and he still supports her? He showed virtually no emotion throughout the trial and seemed to suffer from a extreme lack of fashion sense. His wife is on trial and there he was looking like a hillbilly from Mayberry with his plaid shirts and crew cut. The whole family disgusts me. If any women gets with Russell Yates in the future she's a bonafide nut too. I hope NASA fired his ass.

[DVSNCYNIKL]

Death Penalty!