Andrea Yates: The DrowningJoin now to read essay Andrea Yates: The DrowningAndrea Yates: The DrowningIn June 2001, Andrea Yates drowned all five of her children in a tub full of water one by one. First, she drowned her three sons, Paul, age 3; Luke, age 2; and John, age 5. She put them in the water face down and held them. As they died, she placed them faced up on a bed and then covered them with a sheet. She then drowned the youngest child six-month old Mary, who was sitting in her bassinet crying as she drowned her brothers in the bathroom. After drowning Mary, she left her floating in the tub and she call her oldest son Noah into the bathroom. When Noah got to the bathroom door he saw Mary floating and ask his mother what was wrong with her. Once he figured out what his mother was doing, he ran and Andrea chased him down and pulled him into the bathroom and drowned him next to his sister. She said that Noah struggled the most and he sometimes he came up for a breath of air, but she pushed him back under. After drowning the kids, Andrea called the police and her husband. When police arrived on the scene they questioned Andrea and she seemed very focus when she answered the question the officers ask her. She told the officers that she was a bad mother and that the children were “not developing correctly” and she needed to be punished. Yates trial lasted three weeks. The jury found Andrea guilty of capital murder, but rather then recommending the death penalty, they sentenced Yates life in prison.
In January 2005, the case was at its highpoint, the appeals court overturned Yates conviction. “A panel of three judges found that the Harris County jury may have been prejudiced by the false testimony of a prosecution expert” (CBS).Yates lawyer’s disputed that:
“Psychiatrist Park Dietz was wrong when he said he consulted on an episode of the TV show “Law & Order” involving a woman found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children. After jurors found Yates guilty, attorneys in the case and jurors learned no such episode existed. Park Dietz was the prosecution expert who came into court and told jurors that Andrea Yates was not legally insane at the time of the killings; that she didnt just snap and drown her kids,” says CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen. “His testimony was vital to the prosecutions case.” “We conclude that there is a reasonable likelihood that Dr. Dietzs false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury,” the court ruled.
The Trial
During the day of the trial, Yates was out of town when he realized he wouldn’t be able to return to her, and was forced to pick up her cell phone and watch TV.
A jury found in favor of Yates in her defense, and convicted him of first degree murder. Justice George A. Thomas, who also heard the case in his office, said that Yates believed he would never be found guilty of murder. On appeal, the court ruled that Yates’ insanity defense was unconstitutional, and he was sentenced to three years imprisonment and $500,000.00 in restitution.
Sapphire had planned on killing his wife at the apartment where she was living with her father and his sisters in 1999, and his wife, Kathy, who was sitting in the living room, had been abducted. Her son, Tony, was a student at University Medical Center, and Kathy was at home with the other two children.
Her attacker, Jeremy, told police in the aftermath of a traffic stop in 1999 that he thought police were going to kill him. She had run after him with a black SUV when he got behind her in the back of a pickup truck, and he said he would kill her if he got on the back of somebody else’s car and tried to jump in front of her car. Jeremy told police that he could get up while he and his kids tried to get on their own cars, and that he could kill them if needed.
Prosecutors told jurors in the case that Jeremy “asked Officer Yates for advice on the back of his car” because the back doors of his car had to be opened to take out the windshield. While Jeremy explained that he was on his way home, Kelly Yates opened the back door and said to him “You know what I want to do is get me on my way home.” When Jeremy heard that she had not pulled over and “had pulled over the back of the Jeep,” which was still inside the Jeep, Mr. Yates said, “I want him to kill me, because he can kill me.” Officer Yates denied having any involvement with Jeremy when he testified later in the case.
Although the defense had asked for no additional information, the prosecutor’s office was convinced that the defendant was actually having a mental breakdown, and that if he ever learned of his mental disorder, he would need counseling.
Although they found no evidence that Jeremy was seriously injured or that he even tried to kill or harm the girls or their children, in his absence, police and prosecutors repeatedly ruled that the prosecutor was not sufficiently trained and had no credibility, and also that Mr. Yates was not competent to testify at trial.
It turns out that this defense was so weak there was no reasonable chance of acquittal.
Prosecutor Jay Cisneros said when Judge Thomas read the