Jul 27, 6:51 AM EDT

Jury Finds Yates Not Guilty in Drownings

By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer



Second Trial Yields Different Verdict for Yates


HOUSTON (AP) -- After being acquitted by reason of insanity in her children's bathtub drowning deaths, Andrea Yates won't spend her life in prison - but she will be committed to a state mental hospital.

One day after her acquittal, Yates will learn Thursday where she will be held until she is no longer deemed a threat. It will likely be North Texas State Hospital in Vernon, a maximum-security state facility, said her lead attorney, George Parnham.

Yates' ex-husband, Russell Yates, called the verdict "a miracle."

"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," Yates said outside the courthouse.




Four years ago, another jury convicted Yates of the 2001 murders, but an appeals court overturned the conviction last year because of erroneous testimony from a prosecution witness.

Yates' attorneys 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 by drowning 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah.

"It's this simple: This lady never did anything, anything wrong in her whole life," defense attorney Wendell Odom said. "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."

Prosecutors had maintained that although Yates was mentally ill, she failed to meet the state's definition of insanity: being so severely mentally ill that she did not know her actions were wrong.

"I'm very disappointed," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. "For five years, we've tried to seek justice for these children."

Yates "made a decision that what she did was right," said prosecutor Joe Owmby. "That is an untenable position."

It will be difficult for Yates to be released. Getting released, or transferred to a lower-security hospital, requires a complicated and comprehensive evaluation process. Experts say it can take decades before psychiatrists decide that a patient is healthy enough to be released, and even then a judge can reject those findings.

The jury, split evenly between men and women, deliberated for about 13 hours over three days. The jurors, in accordance with state law, had not been told what would happen to Yates with a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict.

Jury foreman Todd Frank, 33, a marketing manager, said the group had "some emotional difficulty" reaching its unanimous verdict. Frank said it would have been easier if they had the option of a "guilty but insane" verdict.

Prosecutors had sought Yates' execution in the first trial but could not in the second because the first jury had rejected a death sentence.

That could help explain the different verdict in the retrial, said Charles P. Ewing, a law and psychiatry professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Juries considering execution tend to be more harsh, he said.

Yates did not testify. Her lawyers presented much of the same evidence as in the first trial, including half a dozen psychiatrists who testified that Yates didn't know the drownings were wrong.

Yates' 2002 conviction was overturned after Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist, told the first jury that before the drownings, NBC ran a "Law & Order" episode about a woman who was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children. It was later learned that no such episode existed.

Yates was charged in this case with three of the children's deaths. Owmby said Wednesday he would recommend to Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal that he not pursue prosecuting Yates on the remaining two deaths.

Parnham said that if Yates had not been convicted the first time, Texas could have seen a backlash against mentally ill people instead of greater understanding.

"There would have been a massive protest to change the law and get rid of the insanity defense because (they thought) that woman didn't deserve to be acquitted," Parnham said. "But it worked just the opposite, and it took five years of doing, but people are talking and changes are taking place as we speak."

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