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For Yates, 'Five years makes a big difference'
This time, jury finds mother was insane when she drowned her 5 kids
09:52 AM CDT on Thursday, July 27, 2006
By ANGELA K. BROWN / Associated Press
HOUSTON – Andrea Yates' unexpected second chance came in a quiet courtroom, after time had softened community outrage against the woman who held her five young children under water in the bathtub until they could no longer breathe.
After jurors filed into the room Wednesday, some smiling softly, the judge read the verdict: not guilty by reason of insanity.
Ms. Yates stared wide-eyed, then bowed her head and wept quietly. Her relatives present also began weeping and the children's father, Russell "Rusty" Yates, muttered, "Wow."
Four years earlier, another jury rejected defense contentions that she was so psychotic she thought she was saving her children's souls when she killed them in 2001 – a guilty verdict that triggered pained sobs from her relatives and confusion from Ms. Yates.
"Five years makes a big difference," defense attorney Wendell Odom said. "Five years ago, there were a lot of people who could not get past the anger of what happened."
The 42-year-old former nurse, who was charged in three of the five deaths, will be committed to a state mental hospital until she is no longer deemed a threat. If convicted of murder, she would have been sentenced to life in prison.
"This means a woman who we perceive to be also a victim in all this, just like our children are, is going to get a better quality of life for herself for the balance of her life," Mr. Yates said.
Prosecutors had maintained Ms. Yates failed to meet the state's definition of insanity: that a severe mental illness prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing that it is wrong.
"I'm very disappointed," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. "For five years, we've tried to seek justice for these children."
Ms. Yates' 2002 murder convictions triggered debate over whether Texas' legal standard for mental illness was too rigid and whether the courts treated postpartum depression seriously enough. An appeals court overturned the convictions last year because of erroneous testimony from a prosecution witness.
Ms. Yates' attorneys never disputed that she drowned 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah in their Houston-area home in June 2001. But they said she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and, in a delusional state, believed Satan was inside her and was trying to save the children from hell.
The jury, split evenly men to women, had deliberated nearly 13 hours over three days. By law, jurors were not allowed to be told what would happen to Ms. Yates if they found her not guilty by reason of insanity.
Jury foreman Todd Frank, 33, a marketing manager, said that the group had "some emotional difficulty" with its decision and that it would have been easier for some if a "guilty but insane" verdict had been an option.
About a half-hour before reaching a verdict, jurors asked to see a family photo and pictures of the smiling youngsters. Mr. Frank said the jury wanted to "take a moment to remember the children."
The jury was unaware that Ms. Yates would be committed to a mental institution for treatment until state District Judge Belinda Hill told them after the verdict. By law, they could not be told. Mr. Frank said that knowledge beforehand might have made the decision easier for some.
He said he couldn't speak for all the jurors, but it was clear to him that Ms. Yates had psychosis before, during and after the drownings.
"She needs help," he said. "Although she's treated, I think she's worse than she was before."
During a videotaped 2001 jail interview, Ms. Yates told a psychiatrist that her children had not been progressing normally because she was a bad mother, and that she killed them because "in their innocence, they would go to heaven."
Prosecution witness Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist, testified that Ms. Yates killed the youngsters because she felt overwhelmed and inadequate as a mother, not to save their souls. He said that it was not until a day after the killings that she talked about Satan and saving her children from hell.
Dr. Welner also said Ms. Yates showed that she knew her actions were wrong by waiting until her husband left for work to kill them, covering the bodies with a sheet and calling 911 soon after the crime.
Jurors disagreed.
"It's this simple: This lady never did anything, anything wrong in her whole life," said defense attorney Odom. "She's mentally ill. She wakes up one morning. She drowns her five kids. Come on – we all know she's insane, and it's a shame that it took us this long to finally get the right verdict."
Russell "Rusty" Yates shed tears Wednesday after the verdict was announced in his ex-wife's retrial.
Outside the courtroom, he told reporters he was glad jurors had "looked past what happened and looked at why it happened."
"Yes, she was psychotic," Mr. Yates said. "That's the whole truth."
Mr. Yates, who divorced Ms. Yates last year and remarried in March, said he shared his ex-wife's relief.
"She's ... the type of person who doesn't want to get her hopes up too high so as not to be disappointed," Mr. Yates said. "There will probably be a little bit of that for all of us, letting the verdict sink in."
"To me, this is really about Andrea's quality of life for the balance of her life. Is she going to spend her time in a prison cell with barely adequate medical treatment and no interaction with other people ... or is she going to spend some time in a hospital and get good medical treatment and have some hope of a, possibly, somewhat normal life later?"
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