Andrea Yates and the Insanity Defense
Yesterday, District Judge Belinda Hill delayed the start of Andrea Yates' capital murder retrial until June 22, 2006. Her defense lawyers had asked for a continuance to accommodate a scheduling conflict with two expert witnesses.
Yates drowned her five kids in June 2001. She was convicted of capital murder in 2002 but an appeals court threw out the conviction last year because of improper testimony by a prosecution witness.
Dr. Park Dietz, a California psychiatrist who was paid $500 an hour by the State for his expertise, testified that the television show Law and Order had an episode where a mother kills her children and is acquitted with an insanity defense. Prosecutors argued to the jury that Yates regularly watched Law and Order. However, no such episode exists and Yates was granted a new trial by the 1st Court of Appeals.
Texas has one of the most restrictive insanity defenses in the nation. It is rarely used and almost never successful. Yates will have to prove that she was suffering from a severe mental illness and that she was incapable of knowing right from wrong.
Unlike many states, Texas does not tell jurors definitions of "knowing" and "wrong." The lack of definitions contribute to a vague standard and often jurors are reluctant to find insanity when a defendant has some minimal appreciation of having committed a crime.
Texas, like many states, restricted the insanity defense after John Hinckley was acquitted by reason of insanity of shooting President Reagan in 1981. Hinckley claimed that he shot President Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster.
Yates drowned her five kids in June 2001. She was convicted of capital murder in 2002 but an appeals court threw out the conviction last year because of improper testimony by a prosecution witness.
Dr. Park Dietz, a California psychiatrist who was paid $500 an hour by the State for his expertise, testified that the television show Law and Order had an episode where a mother kills her children and is acquitted with an insanity defense. Prosecutors argued to the jury that Yates regularly watched Law and Order. However, no such episode exists and Yates was granted a new trial by the 1st Court of Appeals.
Texas has one of the most restrictive insanity defenses in the nation. It is rarely used and almost never successful. Yates will have to prove that she was suffering from a severe mental illness and that she was incapable of knowing right from wrong.
Unlike many states, Texas does not tell jurors definitions of "knowing" and "wrong." The lack of definitions contribute to a vague standard and often jurors are reluctant to find insanity when a defendant has some minimal appreciation of having committed a crime.
Texas, like many states, restricted the insanity defense after John Hinckley was acquitted by reason of insanity of shooting President Reagan in 1981. Hinckley claimed that he shot President Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster.
posted by Fred Dahr at
9:09 AM
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