HOUSTON - Andrea Yates' capital murder convictions for drowning her children were overturned Thursday by an appeals court, which ruled a prosecution expert witness gave false testimony at her trial.

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Yates' lawyers had argued at a hearing last month before a three-judge panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston that psychiatrist Park Dietz was wrong when he mentioned 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.



"We conclude that there is a reasonable likelihood that Dr. Dietz's false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury," the court ruled. "We further conclude that Dr. Dietz's false testimony affected the substantial rights of appellant."



The court ruling returns the case back to the trial court for a new trial.



Jurors in 2002 sentenced Yates to life in prison in the 2001 deaths of three of her children. She was not tried in the deaths of the other two.



The defense's appeal cited 19 errors from her trial, but the appeals court said since the false testimony issue reversed the conviction, it was not ruling on the other matters. Among other things, Yates attorneys had claimed the Texas insanity standard is unconstitutional.



Prosecutors told the court last month there was no evidence Dietz intentionally lied and that the testimony was evoked by Yates' defense attorney during cross-examination. They also argued that Dietz's testimony wasn't material to the case and there was plenty of other testimony about Yates' plans to kill her children.



"We agree that this case does not involve the state's knowing use of perjured testimony," the appeals court said in its ruling. But the judges said prosecutors did use the testimony twice and referred to it in closing arguments.



Dietz testified the episode aired shortly before the drownings. Testimony during the trial had indicated Yates watched the television series.



A wet and bedraggled Yates called police to her home on June 20, 2001, and showed them the bodies of her five children: Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary. She had called them into the bathroom and drowned them one by one.



According to testimony, Yates was overwhelmed by motherhood, considered herself a bad mother, and had attempted suicide and been hospitalized for depression.



Prosecutors acknowledged she was mentally ill but argued that she could tell right from wrong and was thus not legally insane.



The case stirred debate over the legal standard for mental illness and whether postpartum depression is properly recognized and taken seriously. Women's groups had harshly criticized prosecutors for pushing for the death penalty.



I wonder how much blood money she would have to pay if she was living over in the Middle East. Where is the justice?

:devil

I agree she's guilty and should rot in jail, but that doesn't give the prosecution a free pass to use a witness that's lying on the stand. Not only did they discuss an episode of law and order that didn't exist. The "expert" witness supposedly was a consultant for the particular fake episode of Law and Order. It was also argued that the woman got the idea to kill her children in said manner that he said was in the episode as he said it was aired before she killed her children, all of which was false.

Regardless of what she did, which was completely abhorrant, in this country we are all afforded the same civil liberties to a fair and just trial. While the result of the trial was imo, just, her trial wasn't fair.

She's not being released from prison, she's just getting another trial, which should follow the rules of the land and legitimately put her back in prison.

I agree with you here Taleren, though what she did is horrible, she does have a right to a fair trial. I doubt the new trial will result in a lesser sentence anyway.

This is interesting and since it has been some 10yrs since I lost my aspirations of understanding law and giving up law school altogether I am out of touch and somewhat removed from how "Due Process" is interpreted nowadays.

From what I remember about the 6th Amendment no one can be "tried" for the same crime twice I think it was called Double Jeopardy or something like that....anyway if she is re-tried for the same crimes wouldn't this violate her 6th Amendment? I'm just curious what the charges will be.

I too think her acts were horrendous and mortifying but everyone deserves a fair trial by their peers, even if they are a sick-twisted-derranged-scum bag.

I think there is something to be said about "postpartum depression". Seems to the culprit time and time again with women and horrific crimes.

If I became temporarily insane and killed all 7 of my children, then sobered up later and realized what I did; I am certain I wouldn't care what they did with me. I would plead no contest and request the chair. But, that's just me. Fighting to save your ass after doing something like that, bullshit. That's how see it.


:devil

Double jeapordy involves a case of being found not guilty or aquitted of a crime; any person convicted of a crime can be retried for that crime should the appeals process find cause due to judicial error, perjury, witness and/or jury tampering, etc.

Once you are tried and found not guilty you cannot be tried again for the same thing.

Once you are tried and found guilty you can go back and do the trial over again if your attorney's can show just cause via the appeals process.

She definitely deserves a new trial based on the fraudulent testimony of the "expert" witness; that is due process in action.

She will undoubtedly remain incarcerated in a county jail while the process plays out.

Thanks for the clarification and good!!! Jail is where she belongs unless she can be fried.

News clip tonight showed the attorneys are not seeking her release, only a new trial. They agree she is most likely in the safest place for her at the moment, so she may not leave her current lodgings until such time as required for access to court proceedings.

She will remain in jail until a new trial is arranged. She will almost certainly be found guilty again based upon true and factual evidence. However, the goal of her attorney(s) will not be to get her off with a not-guilty verdict, but rather their goal will be to prove that she is mentally unstable and was insane at the time she committed her crimes.

If she is, in fact, found mentally incompetent, then she will probably NOT get the death penalty or a life sentence in jail. She will be committed to a hospital for the criminally insane until she is considered rehabilitated and released back into society.

What's that? It won't happen like that?

Uh... sorry... I believe in the justice system to do what it does best... dispense justice... irregardless of guilt or innocence. There are too many cases where someone is convicted of a heinous crime and is remanded to a mental heath institution and ultimately released when they are "rehabilitated." Unfortunately, these "rehabilitated" folks all too often are right back where they were before being committed, except they are a little more street smart and now they know how to work the system.

Save the taxpayers a lot of money... put her in general population and let the inmates handle it....

/rant off

she is not eligible for the death penalty as it wasn't seeked in the first trial.

I doubt the new trial will result in a lesser sentence anyway.
If it does, there is something seriously wrong.

Save the taxpayers a lot of money... put her in general population and let the inmates handle it....

/agree

They say folks guilty of stuff like child molestation dont have a happy life in the gen pop. Let's see what the inmates think of this wench.

She will remain in jail until a new trial is arranged. She will almost certainly be found guilty again based upon true and factual evidence. However, the goal of her attorney(s) will not be to get her off with a not-guilty verdict, but rather their goal will be to prove that she is mentally unstable and was insane at the time she committed her crimes.

If she is, in fact, found mentally incompetent, then she will probably NOT get the death penalty or a life sentence in jail. She will be committed to a hospital for the criminally insane until she is considered rehabilitated and released back into society.

What's that? It won't happen like that?

Uh... sorry... I believe in the justice system to do what it does best... dispense justice... irregardless of guilt or innocence. There are too many cases where someone is convicted of a heinous crime and is remanded to a mental heath institution and ultimately released when they are "rehabilitated." Unfortunately, these "rehabilitated" folks all too often are right back where they were before being committed, except they are a little more street smart and now they know how to work the system.

Save the taxpayers a lot of money... put her in general population and let the inmates handle it....

/rant off Many states now have an additional option in "guilty but insane" verdicts, whereby the convicted is sent to a secure mental health facility until they are judged competent, at which time they are transferred to the prison system to serve their sentence.

Too many folks were fed up with the insanity defense, and legislators do not get re-elected by fed up people, so laws get changed.

I would be surprised if Texas does not have just such a law in place.

I'm just happy this happened in Texas,and not some state where the death penalty has been watered down to the point that the severity and horror of this crime would be played down in the 5-10 years it would take to see the sentence carried out as defense lawyers scramble over appeals on insanity pleas. Seems Texas death row inmates have a shorter wait than any others in the US, and their punishment is swift and secure. Giving people time to contort and molest the judicial system into something that will work for everyone, everytime, should in itself be a crime. I work in the medical field, and have seen the aftermath of the postpartum female mind. It can be horriffic. These women are usually mildly depressed, then eventually recover to a normal, healthy maternal state. Some, though, will develop a deep loathing for their babies. I have heard it explained as having 9 months worth of direct attention and concern for your health snatched away from you. I thought this was a rather selfish excuse for having smothered her baby with the pillow, nonetheless, she felt it as the only way to regain that level of attention. (She lied to law enforcement, stating the baby was found dead in his crib, though the petechiae and subdural hemorrhages proved otherwise..After that she admitted to it.)

I think this degree of post partum depression is similar to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in that both 'compel' the individual to absurd, irrational, and highly obsessive/compulsive ways of thinking. It's insanity.

Definitely Thormir. And most often the perpetrator in Munchausen by proxy is a mother and the recipient of the abuse is a young child. I would love to have had access to this woman's psych report.

Many states now have an additional option in "guilty but insane" verdicts, whereby the convicted is sent to a secure mental health facility until they are judged competent, at which time they are transferred to the prison system to serve their sentence.
Thanks Bylimet... I know our state had talked about something like this but it has not made it to the statute books as far as I know.

We had a couple of high profile cases along this same vein about 6 years ago and it sparked some interest, but it fell by the way when bogged down in the law making system.

in this country we are all afforded the same civil liberties to a fair and just trial. [liberties=rights??]

Patriot act anyone? And lets not forget those poor suckers @ Guantanamo

Explain to us how in the hell the Patriot Act has anything to do with "due process of the law."

Ibudin

[liberties=rights??]

Patriot act anyone? And lets not forget those poor suckers @ GuantanamoLet me clarify Taleren's words for you Linlaweniel:

"in this country we [citizens of the U.S.] are all afforded the same civil liberties to a fair and just trial."

Got that?

Polish up your anti-U.S. rants a little bit. There are much better ones around here.

I am curious to hear his coorelation between the Patriot Act and Due Process ;)

Linlaweniel - on the nuts of the US since 2002

The Patriot act allows for the detention of foreign nationals without the need for burden of proof or due process.

You are afforded Rights, not civil liberties.

Your aguments seem to float about American citizens deserve rights, Foreigners? lock them up just in case.

And it is not an anti-American rant, its a rant against injustice. I know there are millions in America who would agree with it. Just as a few decades ago they would have agreed that black people deserved the same rights as whites.

lin... i have no idea why you are bringing up facts about foreign policy in a thread about a local american, what the hell are you doing talking in this thread?

more importantly why the hell are you continuing to breathe?

You could've attempted to obscure the ending a bit Linlaweniel. The whole race card played in this thread makes about the same amount of sense as your inclusion of a discussion of the Patriot Act. Please go back to your own server boards. Your moustache and uncanny resemblance to a moron frighten me.

Well in all fairness I egged him on :(

It's true the Patriot Act has nothing to do at all with crazy lady Yates.

Your moustache and uncanny resemblance to a moron frighten me. That would be Dali you retarded ignorant moron.

--------------------------------------------------

This is my last post here ever. Hurray!!

You don't want foreigners on "your board"? then have fun agreeing with each other continuously whilst convinced of the uniqueness of your point of view and the wickedness a different opinion would incur.

God bless America.

Adieu

yey, kinuvan2.0, again ... no one fucking knows what you are talking about ... its like this


thread topic : A TSUNAMI JUST HIT JAPAN OH NOEEEZZ!!!

you posting in the thread: AMERICA'S PATRIOT ACT CAUSED HURT AND MADE ME KILL BABIES IN SPAIN

It was stupid to bring it up, and not really related to the discussion, but as for how the patriot act is related to due process is that it gives the goverment the ability to bypass 'due process'. Still the wrong thread for that though. What I really wanted to post about was...

Your moustache and uncanny resemblance to a moron frighten me.

That's Salvador Dali. You fail. My god you fail.

Astounding.