Andrea Yates Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity
Posted on July 26, 2006
Via AP
A jury found Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity in the drowning deaths of her young children in the bathtub of their suburban home.
Yates will be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released. If convicted, she would have faced life in prison.
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, thought Satan was inside her and was trying to save them from hell.
This is the second trial for the 42-year-old suburban mother.
I think we all knew she was crazy, but shouldn’t she have to pay some kind of consequences for her actions? How did she suddenly become the victim? She freakin drowned her five children in a bathtub!!!
Christine at SoCal Pundit is absolutely furious!
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4 Responses to “Andrea Yates Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity”
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Clearly, they found the 12 stupidest people possible.
Unless she’s a complete sociopath, she is being punished. I can’t imagine living life knowing I murdered my own children. But then how much difference is there in Andrea Yates and any woman who aborts her child. There are certainly a lot of them walking around free. But then, maybe that’s why she got off. Maybe the jury decided she merely exercised her “choice”. Moral relativism creates problems like thsi, and this is just the beginning.
She won the case in the media. I question if someone who is rational enough to drown their children from oldest to youngest is at the same time irrational enough to not know it’s wrong. Emotional turmoil does not equal insane. If I killed someone in a fit of anger I would not be legally insane when I did it.
KerwinBrown said:
“If you killed someone in a fit of anger I would not be legally insane when I did it.”
All crimes require a proper mens rea for the defendant to be charged.
In some situations being in a fit of anger would certainly lower the punishment handed out.
It is different for each jurisdiction. For example: A man finds his woman sleeping with another man and flies into a rage and kills the other man.
In some states the fact that he didn’t have a period to cool off before committing the crime will lower the punishment for the crime from Murder 1 to Murder 2 (without the threat of the death penalty).