Breaking News: Andrea Yates, guilty on two counts of capital murder.
Sorry, y’all. But this woman was plum insane… Justice is not served here, I fear.
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Sorry Jeff, but while she is probably medically insane, that doesn’t make her legally insane.
I’m sorry isn’t anybody who kills people insane? Ergo, why have that involved in the debate over whether or not we ought to fry her arse? I mean should we not have fried McVeigh because he was insane? I’m sorry Jeff, but the humanities department is getting to you!
Time to bring out the race card. I wonder how many people would care if this were a black mother who killed her own, black children? I wonder if a black Andrea Yeats would have received those half-sympathetic portraits in the newsweeklies? I wonder, still, if such a woman were insane or not?
I doubt it. Our fictional black Andrew Yeats would deserve to be locked up forever, and the real, white one does too.
I agree, and I have said as much. How anyone can argue that she is not bonkers is beyond me. She needs to be locked up in perpetuity, and we have done a vast disservice to all people out there with legitimate mental illnesses. Why even bother asking the Supreme Court if it is ok to execute mentally retarded people? So what if they have an IQ of 68, if we can produce a jury of 12 people who ‘think’ they can determine that the person knew right from wrong.
Jeff,
Are you really saying that because she is insane that she should not have been given the guilty verdict?
JH
I agree, Jeff. On her medication she is clear and repentant. Off her medication she kills her children. That says something to me.
Even if she is found not guilty by reason of insanity, she will spend the rest of her life in a mental institution. She never tried to kill other children, did she? The guilty verdict is vengeance, plain and simple.
I can’t believe all these apologetics for this murderer.
Yeah, fine, let her visit a shrink when she’s in the slammer. But <i>she drowned her five children</i>. What the hell is everybody talking about? Why this logic chopping over her sanity (you see, on her medication, she was reasonably contrite…)?
And what is this: “She never tried to kill other children, did she? The guilty verdict is vengeance, plain and simple.” I’m almost too flabbergasted to respond. <i>Vengance?</i> These twelve jurors were just, you know, getting back at this poor nut for <i>drowning her five children</i>?
Ask yourselves: if by some impossible chance, Andrea Yeats were the white man Andrew Yeats, or the black woman Tamika Yeats, or the black man Leroy Yeats, if the media–or you, the reader–would be so willing to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. I’m not trying to cry racism or sexism, but to point to how a certain image (“this nice, white soccer mom–she could almost be that neighbor I’ve got…”) is distorting otherwise sound judgment.
And, John, the issue of a executing the retarded is something quite different. <i>There</i> the issue is not only whether the defendant can distinguish between right or wrong, but whether he has the sheer mental competence to stand trial and understand what it happening to him. The question involves, then, not only issues of substance, but also issues of process.
Becca-
I know this is meant for comment and not debate, but I would like to ask a question of you. If I go out and kill 15 members of my family but no other people, and on the day I forgot to take my medications that keep me in balance mentally…does that mean I am not guilty on grounds of insanity? And what of this vengeance talk? Are insane people just victims of the hideous murder is wrong law? Instead of criminalizing the murderers – or should we find a more PC term? – should we throw them in a looney bin where they can be cared for? Yeah she is insane, but I do not see where that excuses the FACT that she murdered her kids! I have to agree with Mr. Edgar and Mr. Knapp on this one.
JH
I checked back in to see if I could find apologists for the Yates case or if Jeff’s response was up. I see JH and Glenn got here before I did! If I ever kill anyone (no plans here mind you) I guess i could just cry “But I’m just a victim of the mean pharmacy that didn’t refill my pills!” For Pete’s ever loving sake – can anyone deny the fact that anybody who kills someone is nuts – which means that bin Laden, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, McVeigh, Hussein, and a whole list of others were insane so should we just say “Oh we understand that you have mental problems so we will give you a stay in a mental institution instead of declaring war on you and/or throwing you in jail.” Give me a break…
I see Matthew and Glenn have thoroughly gotten their knickers in a twist here. I am not making excuses for her. It is rather clear that she is a multiple murderer and should never spend another day in public.
My problem is with the law. She is clearly nuts/insane/out of her mind/loony/daff/Rallian- whatever you want to call it. Right now the only options are to convict of capital murder or set her free on the insanity defense. I would like a guilty but insane option, where her guilt (something I have never debated) is clearly established and then she is carefully locked up in a padded cell for the rest of her existence.
Further more, I find it as morally indefensible to execute a severely mentally ill murderer as it is to execute a mentally retarded murderer. I am sorry you feel differently.
John
John –
My point is:
1) That all murderers are clearly insane. From those at the big level (like Hitler) to those at the low level (like Yates).
2) Since all are insane they all should be treated the same. Namely, all murders at the Yates level should be thrown in jail (I do not support the death penalty) and the Hitler types (and bin Laden types) should be blown to bits.
3) The Yates types (which is what I am really debating here) should be thrown in an isolated jail cell without TV/Computer/etc. benefits because she does not deserve the comfort that would be provided in a mental ward. Comfort in this case meaning that she would have someone to talk to when she felt disturbed, whereas I would rather see this murderer suffer in prison than have the ability to work out her problems.
4) She is guilty and should be treated the same as all guilty folks.
I have a final at 8am and a term paper due then as well. I am cramming for the test and hurridly finishing the paper so I do apologize if I happen to sound too brief!
All murderers are not insane. Otherwise the ‘insanity defense’ would seem to be brought to you by the department of redundancy department, and would not be a defense at all.
Andrea Yates is insane. Ted Bundy was a calculating, cold-blooded murderer. Slobodan Milosevic was a cold-blooded murderer. John Hinckley, but for better aim, would be a murderer who was insane.
I’m sorry wait a minute…you are saying that ted Bundy was a sane person. Maybe I have a different meaning of insane than you do.
the insane definition though legally is not used everytime. There is a difference between where you can and cannot legally use the term insane. I wasn’t talking about arguing the case, I was just saying that in my opinion all people who want to kill other people are not what I consider sane. Thus since they are all insane, the legal definition needs to be changed so that it is not a factor, again in my opinion, in the murder trials. I would rather see Yates and her kind suffer without state-funded mental help in a smelly old jail sell, because I think that it is fitting punishment.
Note to self: Finals, finals, finals Matthew…stop arguing on the blog comments and study would ya
I just wrote (two) long answers that were eaten by my own blog. The horror. I’ll summarize:
That Yates killed is not in dispute; the severity of her mental illness is. Alex Knapp notes that while Yates may be mentally insane, she’s not legally insane—hardly good enough, if you happen to be Ms. Yates. When you can be sane in Texas but insane in Colorado, the problem is with the legal definition of sanity, I think.
The kernel of this debate is this: do we believe we’re punishing with an aim toward rehabilitation, or do we think we’re punishing with an aim toward enforcing a strict social contract?
I confess to being baffled by the racial component you try to introduce into this, Glenn. Ms. Yates is a religious zealot—the kind of person whom I’d normally hold in the highest disdain for beliefs that border on the dangerously superstitious. A soccer mom? Her? Hardly the suburban cliche I’d ascribe to her.
Her illness allowed her to understand “right from wrong.” But schizophrenia is precisely schizophrenia because its sufferers recognize right from wrong but are compelled nevertheless to act irrationally (for “reasons” peculiar to the particular manifestation of their illness); Yates sacrificed her children to save them, in her mind, much like Abraham was prepared to kill Isaac to fulfill the dictum of an “angel.”)
Statistically speaking, those sentenced to spend time in institutions are incarcerated slightly longer than they would be had they been sentenced to prison for the same offense. What are we trying to do to/for Ms. Yates? These aren’t just rhetorical questions. What we think it is we’re doing when we pass judgment matters.
So. I’m curious. What is the purpose of our penal system? Josh? Alex? Glenn? Matthew?
The purpose of the penal system is to punish people for bad behavior as defined by laws drafted by legislatures which are judged by their constitutionality. Therefore, murder and property damage, for two examples, should be punsihed via the penal system at the appropriate level. People should be judged by the crime they committed objectively, instead of looking at the indiviudal. Murder is murder, and does not differ if the murderer has schizophrenia or is just plain nuts or what the murderer’s mental state is.
A penal system is there to help people return back to society after correcting them unless they did something so bad that they need to be put a way for a while. However, I kind of agree with you that people do change per disease. Mr. Edgar is a little radical. I really do not know what I think about the penal system but I think what we have is okay but a little problematic.
How can you judge something “objectively” while excluding the object from scrutiny, Matthew?
I oppose silly distinctions like “hate crime murder” vs. “murder,”—but killing someone while insane means you haven’t committed “murder” in the sense you mean. You’re begging the question…
Josh —
If you believe “A penal system is there to help people return back to society after correcting them,” then you’d be for freeing Andrea Yates. Returning her to her antipsychotic medication seems to have done the trick.
“killing someone while insane means you haven’t committed “murder” in the sense you mean. You’re begging the question..” I guess I am missing something Jeff…and it is likely I am because I am in the midst of studying for an International Econ final….what do you mean to say, that there are two kinds of murder: those committed by sane people and those committed by insane people? See, I would say those are the same because it is the act that matters not the reasoning behind the act, in my not so humble opinion. Whether or not Yates is sane or insane should not be the issue, what should be the issue is that she either killed or did not kill someone. Now, I think she is insane and I think she killed her five kids, but only the act of killing is what should matter in the penal system.
well then i don’t know what i believe – the only issue is suicide right?
It’s the idea behind “not guilty by reason of mental defect,” Matt. Not guilty <i>of the act of murder</i> is what that verdict suggests—though it certainly doesn’t suggest people haven’t been killed.
As in the Yates case. That she killed her children is not in dispute. Whether she “murdered” them is. Josh: I’m not sure I follow? Suicide? In what sense?
Man, do I hate using scare quotes…
<b>[update</b>: Josh: I’m not sure I follow? Suicide? In what sense?]
Yes, Jeff, after re-reading my last post you are right I did get a little circular there…may my logic teacher have mercy on my soul…
“It’s the idea behind “not guilty by reason of mental defect,” Matt. Not guilty of the act of murder is what that verdict suggests—though it certainly doesn’t suggest people haven’t been killed.”
Yes, but Jeff this will allow her a stay as I understand it in a funy farm where she can “Deal with her problems”. I don’t 1) want to pay for that and 2) I don’t want prisoners to have head work because they are there to suffer.
I just was kidding Matthew in that he was going off on issues involved. Suicide is the only issue to some old dead guy and I found that funny. Sorry it is late for me.
It wasn’t funny and I didn’t get it Josh. You lost me too there…don’t comment when you are too tired. Oh wait, I shouldn’t be hypocritical.
Mrs.Yates killed five people, that fact was not in question. Mrs. Yates is, to use the technical term, loony as a ‘toon, that fact was also not in question – the prosecution even agreed that she suffered from a, probably multiple, mental illness. Mrs. Yates exhibited clear signs of premeditation, that fact also was not in question. Absent the mental illness question this is clearly an open and shut case of first degree murder.
But there is the mental illness question so the deciding factor becomes whether or not Mrs. Yates was capable of understanding right from wrong at the time she murdered five children. Mental illness is not a free pass to violate societal strictures however one might like, far from it. It is quite possible to be mentally ill and still know that you shouldn’t, well, kill five of your own children in cold blood. It is also quite possible for mental illness or retardation to cause one to be incapable of discerning right from wrong. The question comes down to strictly the question of whether or not she knew she should not be doing this. It seems quite clear that the jury believed that she did in fact understand that her actions were wrong and it’s not difficult at all to see how they could come to that conclusions as Mrs. Yates own actions and premeditation indicate such knowledge. The fact that she was mentally ill alone does not and should not absolve her from responsibility for those actions.
That the standards for defining innocent by reason of insanity are different in Texas than other states is wholly irrelevant. Numerous standards, let alone what even constitutes a crime, vary from state-to-state. It’s called federalism, and unless those standards violate state or federal constitutional protections – a question you can bet good money will come up in appeals – that is perfectly permissible.
If Mrs. Yates had been incapable of understanding the ramifications of her crime it would be one thing. But that has never appeared to be the case from her own statements and actions and a jury of her peers has determined that she did indeed understand that drowning five children was wrong. Mentally ill or no, she is guilty of murder and must be removed from society.
Myria
I’m all for states’ rights, Myria—as you probably know from visiting this site regularly. However, in this case we’re dealing with a definition of “sanity” that for all intents and purposes predates “psychiatry” by 200 years. Some states have redefined their stipulations to address a more modern understanding of mental illness; some (like Texas) have not. States have a right to constitutionally allowable self- determination, sure—but, for instance, if Texas was still finding ways around Jim Crow statutes we’d be a little less forgiving, I suspect.
Knowing “right from wrong” doesn’t mean anything to sufferers of paranoid schizophrenia; in fact, it’s what defines the illness, this compulsion to act against what’s “right”.
I’d like to point out that it’s not definitive that she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Her psychologists said she did. The prosecution’s said she didn’t. It is clear that she suffered from clinical depression.
However, when you gauge her actions on that day, it’s clear that she acted with premeditation. It’s equally clear that she knew that killing her children was wrong. And there’s no dispute that she killed her children. That’s what the law requires for murder. Moreover, her actions on the day in quesiton following the murders clearly indicates that she was rational and capable of appreciating the nature of her acts.
In a different case, I might feel differently about the verdict. But here, I’m satisfied that justice was done.
“[…]<i>it’s not definitive that she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.</i>”
You’re right, Alex. But this is one of the reasons I’m so bothered by the verdict. Even <i>had</i> she been undeniably paronoid-schizophrenic, Texas insanity law couldn’t account for it.
And the “premeditation” and the “knowing right from wrong” everyone keeps pointing to as proof of Yates’ guilt <i>under the law</i> is precisely the reason why I’m worried about the ability of said law to account for crimes like Yates’.
This is not an easy argument for me to make, mind you. I’m very skeptical of psychiatry as a science, and I’m loathe to forgive violent crimes.
But I’ll ask you, Alex: what do we as a society think we’re doing when we administer “justice” in this case? Are we administering retribution?
Part of the problem is that of defining insanity. Pick up the DSM-IV sometime and flip through the criteria at random, it isn’t hard to see how just about anyone can be defined as having a mental illness. We have to have a legal definition that varies from the clinical definition because the two serve very different purposes. When you strip away all of the psychobabble, the clinic definition is basically about enforcing societal norms. The legal definition is about determining responsibility.
I am aware that you aren’t against state’s rights, Jeff, I was merely trying to point out that the state of Texas having a different standard is not in and of itself proof that the state of Texas is in the wrong. Many (though not you) seem to be taking exactly that tact.
You’re also right, of course, that there are limitations upon what a state can do, limitations set both by the state and federal constitution as it is interpreted by the various courts. I don’t honestly know enough about the legal definition of insanity used in Texas to hold a strong opinion one way or the other. I’ve heard it stated multiple times in multiple forums that the legal definition for insanity in Texas is Draconian, anachronistic, and other such things, but I’ve seen no evidence for this. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any, just that few, if anyone, seem to wish to state *why* they believe it is so. Or, at least, that has seemed the case where I’ve seen the subject discussed – perhaps I’ve missed something. To be honest, I can’t say as I’m overly concerned with the matter. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that in appeals the Texas insanity statute will be as much on trial as anything else. The matter will be settled one way or the other, most likely by SCOTUS. If indeed the Texas statute is in error Mrs. Yates will either get a new trial (or a trial on the other two counts) or will be released. I tend to doubt it’ll be found in error, but it’s certainly possible and it seems like the best, possibly the only, avenue for her inevitable appeals to follow.
I have to disagree with your definition of Paranoid Schizophrenia, the primary criteria of which is “Preoccupation with one or more systematized delusions or with frequent auditory hallucinations related to a single theme”. The secondary criteria is “None of the following: incoherence, marked loosening of associations, flat or grossly inappropriate affect, catatonic behavior, grossly disorganized behavior”. Associated features are “unfocused anxiety, anger, argumentativeness, and violence”.
Paranoid Schizophrenia does not inherently mean the inability to discern right from wrong nor the inability to control one’s behavior. Both things are possible, but they are not inherent as far as I can see.
If you’d like to read the technical definition, try “http://www.psy.med.rug.nl/0023”. That’s from the DSM-IIIR, I couldn’t find anything from the DSM-IV on a quick search but the differences between the two are extremely minor for most disorders.
It seems to me that a lot of how one views this case and its outcome depends on whether one sees the criminal justice system as being about punishing the guilty or rehabilitating them. Why there seems to be few who view it as a combination is something of a mystery to me as they do not seem to me to be mutually exclusive goals. Personally I don’t see it as being exactly about either. I more see it as being about removing those who have proved themselves to be a danger from society. Mrs. Yates has proven herself to be an extreme danger, she should thus be removed. Simplistic of me, perhaps, but that’s how I tend to view it.
Understand, I am not in favor of the death penalty, even in this case.
Myria
As always, you make excellent points, Myria. I didn’t mean to suggest paranoid schizophrenia is marked by “the inability to discern right from wrong nor the inability to control one’s behavior” <i>inherently</i>—rather that the “Preoccupation with one or more systematized delusions or with frequent auditory hallucinations related to a single theme” becomes the dominant controlling mechanism in advanced cases (that is, it takes precedent—particularly in a case wherein a devoutly “religious” woman is being told by “God” to protect her children from Satan).
You write, “ I more see [the purpose of the criminal justice system] as being about removing those who have proved themselves to be a danger from society. Mrs. Yates has proven herself to be an extreme danger, she should thus be removed. Simplistic of me, perhaps, but that’s how I tend to view it.” Well, this is not simplistic at all, the way I see it. But the questions become, <i>where should we remove Ms. Yates to</i>? and <i>How long must we keep her there, and to what end</i>?
You’re right, though—I think ultimately this case will provide the legal challenge to Texas’ legal definition of “insanity.”
The point that is so often missed by posters here and elsewhere is that murder is not killing per se, it’s killing in a particular state of mind. If Andrea Yates had a heart attack while driving, ran her car into a lake, and her kids drowned, no one would be talking about prosecuting her for murder, because the killings would be accidental. Similarly, if a four year old child found a loaded gun and shot his playmates, saying “bang-bang you’re dead” as he did so, there would be no murder case because a four year old isn’t capable of understanding the significance of the act. This would be true even if the four year old knew that he wasn’t supposed to touch a gun, knew he wasn’t supposed to pretend to shoot people, etc.
The insanity defense has to do with whether an individual is capable of forming the relevant state of mind. Thus, it’s silly to argue that Andrea Yates is “objectively” guilty of murder based on the acts she performed, because murder is not just an act but the combination of an act with a particular state of mind.
Here, it appears that Andrea Yates is in a position similar to my hypothetical four year old: she knew that there were rules against what she was doing, but she was incapable of understanding the significance of those rules and believed them to be overridden by other imperatives (her delusions). If that’s the case, it’s awfully hard to see any justice in punishing her.
You can argue that Andrea Yates should be locked up to protect others, although it’s hard to believe she’s a danger to anyone but herself at this point. You can even argue that the line-drawing between those who are capable of being moral actors and those who are too far gone is so difficult that an insanity defense should not be recognized at all. But it’s awfully hard to see Andrea Yates as a moral transgressor in the state of mind she was apparently in. Punishment may be expedient, but it’s not just in any moral sense.
You ask a good question, Jeff, I wish I had a good answer.
First we’ve got to establish that there are various degrees of offense and thus various degrees of harm and future risk to society – a debatable point, I’ll grant. A purse snatcher does not represent as much of a risk to society as someone who tries to hire a hit man. Past a certain debatable point either repeated serious offenses or a single heinous offense indicates that a person poses such a risk that they cannot be allowed to re-enter society ever. They have shown through their actions that the chances they will, if freed, hurt another is simply too high to be acceptable.
Prior to that point you’re talking about punishing and/or rehabilitating someone. You can make the price for purse snatching high if you are caught, a year out of your life, say, and a serious fine. You can try and rehabilitate the purse snatcher by getting them off drugs, trying to give them a job skill or education, whatever. Whether any of this does any good in the real world is highly debatable – about all you know for sure is that in that one year in jail they probably won’t snatch any purses – but it at least looks good on paper. But past a certain point society can’t allow that person to ever be free. Punishment and rehabilitation are irrelevant, protecting society from them is the relevant factor. The question becomes what do you do with them?
The simple answer is the death penalty. You kill them, end of problem. I’m not talking about eye-for-an-eye justice here or silly notions of deterring others, just simple efficiency. But even leaving aside the fact that due to appeals and such it takes forever and costs society a bloody fortune, I personally don’t like that option much for a variety of reasons.
Absent the death penalty you have to warehouse them. Where do we put Mrs. Yates? In a prison somewhere. For how long? The rest of her natural life. To what end? To make sure she can never do anything like this again. That doesn’t mean we should be cruel about it. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and do something about the various predations so common in the prison environment. It doesn’t mean we should withhold necessary treatment or lock her in a room plastered with pictures of her victims. It just means that she has proven herself to be a highly dangerous individual and should never be allowed to live in a free and open society where she might harm again.
That’s not a very satisfactory answer either, in some ways the death penalty might seem more kind. For starters the prison system is a bloody disaster area. Mrs. Yates is, if I remember correctly, somewhere around my age (mid-thirties). Absent the Jeffrey Dahmer effect she will very likely live another forty to fifty years. It is very, very expensive to guard, house, and feed someone for forty to fifty years, to put it mildly. Her life in many ways is basically over whatever happens from this point out. But short of a Gene Burns style sentenced to an island of no return scenario that probably isn’t viable in the real world, I don’t see any other option.
Myria
Finally I get to the bottom and see some sensible articulate comments, as opposed to the oh-so-typical ‘vengeance is ours’ comments. Namely, “I’m so bothered by the verdict. Even had she been undeniably paranoid-schizophrenic, Texas insanity law couldn’t account for it” and “The problem is where to send Mrs Yates, and how long for?”
In the UK after a plea of insanity is rendered said person is remanded “At Her Majesty’s Pleasure” to a mental institution. This can literally mean forever. The court and the doctors will determine the patients stay. Very few defendants will opt for this plea because they prefer the more definite time terms that a guilty plea provides. Both the plea and the incarceration procedure clearly separate the wheat from the chaff. Having read up today on Texas sectioning (the legal term used in the UK under our Mental Health Act), the terms for incarceration in a mental institution if the insanity verdict is rendered are determined on a month to month basis. Average stays in the Northern Texas State facility near the Oklahoma border average 101 days.
As a British person, a lawyer, and now a qualified lawyer for New York State, it struck me that American society has opted out of admitting its woefully inadequate mental healthcare cannot prevent such events occurring, so its better to just slam the door, cry vengeance, stick in the needle and have done with it. As opposed to firstly, drafting some good watertight legislation such that not guilty by reason of insanity patients stand a better chance within the legal process and are locked up for the foreseeable duration and some form of rehabilitation takes place. Secondly that that mental health is more properly provided for (financially) in both your HMO’s and your state Medicaid, which currently it’s not, as the Andrea Yates case showed. This is not to say that I think the UK system is perfect. I don’t. As a lawyer I sectioned patients under the Mental Health Act in a previous job, it was a thankless, saddening task, frustrated by our ‘pc’ correct authorities and do-gooder social workers. I even had a case once of a family who wanted their schizophrenic family member to go on an aromatherapy course to stop the seizures, and the social worker had agreed to this! We’ve have our share of mistakes too, such as the schizophrenic released too early who murdered a man on a tube platform in 1992. It just seems to me that we do try to deal with our ‘loonies’ as they have been called, and we are not so vengeful. My Texan lawyer friend whom I met at university has often said to me that ‘at least in the UK you deal with your loonies, we’re too embarrassed to deal with us, so we shut our eyes and hope that they go away’. She is aghast at this verdict, worrying how American’s will now be perceived in the rest of the world. I have to say the answer to this is not one you will want to hear. In the UK our local authorities have power under Section 2 and 3 of our Mental Health Act to section people who present themselves in the ordinary machinations of everyday life. Possibly if Andrea Yates were in the UK she would have been treated and sectioned earlier, and the children would have been put on an ‘At Risk’ register and this terrible crime would not have happened. Possibly she would have been failed just as miserably by our system as she obviously was by yours. This is a question I cannot answer.
It also strikes me that the change to the Texas legal definition of insanity, implemented post John Hinkley, is proving itself to not be robust enough to withstand the vagaries that mental illness presents to a court. Much as one writer disparaged the McNaughten definition of insanity laid down by Lord McNaughten in the 1800’s, in the UK, it has stood the test of time and it removes from the legal process the lacunae we see in evidence in Texas today, whereby if an insane person can differentiate between right and wrong but carries on nevertheless because their illness has altered their mind to such an extent that they cannot stop their actions they are then held to the same ‘ legal ‘objective’ standard (the standard of a reasonable person) of accountability as a rational and sane person in the same circumstances. In the UK a ‘subjective’ test is used (the standard of a reasonable person suffering with the same afflictions as the accused). I actually think McNaughten got it right (and I have studied the 4 different versions of insanity that the US uses). He visited enough Victorian Asylums in greater London to have seen insanity at its purist form, without the benefit of 21st century drugs, to actually see what insanity truly is. How many modern day clinicians can honestly say they have viewed the ‘real’ insanity? Indeed McNaughten developed the concept within this plea because he saw insane people being committed to our dungenous, filthy, rat infested, prisons when clearly they shouldn’t because they were not of a sound mind to appreciate the nature and brevity of their actions. To him it seemed cruel to send an insane person to a prison. I cannot see why this has changed. Are we really abrogating treating our mentally ill in the same way as the truly depraved and evil?
I think at the end of all this the real issue for us all here is our attitudes towards mental illness, and crimes committed by such people. As truly horrific as this crime was, Mrs Yates was suffering from a mental illness (and no-one has disputed this) to such an extent that her faculties were severely impaired such that she despite the nature and quality of her acts, the rational and sane reasoning process which should have stopped these acts was no longer functioning. Do we truly want to take out a vengeful act on this woman? Have we moved so little forward in two hundred years of mental health treatment that we are prepared to carry out legalised barbaric acts on a woman who was clearly deranged at this time?
The stigmatisation than inevitably accompanies a mental illness meant that she was failed by society, her doctors, and possibly her family, yet now we still want to exact retribution?
I think the question that we must ask ourselves now is are we still this barbaric and if we are not, are we brave enough to want to change this?
[Sorry–blogger’s been down. Just able to post this reply which I wrote last night]
John writes: “Furthermore, I find it as morally indefensible to execute a severely mentally ill murderer as it is to execute a mentally retarded murderer. I am sorry you feel differently.”
Oh, come on! I think it was just that they convict a loon-ish murderer of five children, and you’re going to patronize me for <i>that</i>?
Condescend to my snideness, or to my lack of rhythm, or to the fact that I got a B+ in <i>Cornel West’s</i> class, but not that! (In self-defense, I know plenty of people who did worse in African-American Studies 10. God-damn complaining about grade-inflation…)
But at the end of the day, I’ll admit that, despite any earlier protestations to the contrary, yes, Andrea Yeats should not be executed.
But only because I’m opposed to the death penalty generally, and think it should be reserved for the Milosevic’s and bin Laden’s of the world.
Where I’m isolating myself from fellow hardasses is here: Matt writes, “[A]ll murderers are clearly insane.” This is very much untrue. Plenty are in perfect control of themselves, know what’s going on, and all that. A weak moral center is not insanity; it’s something closer to evil.
I don’t deny than insanity should sometimes be an acceptable defense. Nor do I don’t doubt that Yeats was crazy: but she wasn’t the drooling-the-floor shaking-in-the-grocery-store kind of nut that that defense should be reserved for. I might even be willing to indulge the defense if it was just one child drowned: but <i>five</i> done by a woman who <i>acts</i> sane when she gets her pills simply beggars belief.
Some people should not be held responsible for themselves. Some people who do rotten things deserve our mercy.
Andrea Yeats is by no means one of those people.
Lisa L wrote –
“Secondly that mental health is more properly provided for (financially) in both your HMO’s and your state Medicaid, which currently it’s not, as the Andrea Yates case showed.”
I fail to see how this case shows anything of the kind. Mr. Yates had a good paying job, Mrs. Yates had a long history of seeing mental health professionals and in fact went against their advice both on the ECT and fifth birth questions. While one might debate whether she got proper help or not, this is not a case of her not being able to get/afford any help.
Our handling of mental health issues could certainly use some work and then some, but this case makes a lousy poster child. It would be difficult indeed to portray it as a systemic failure.
“In the UK our local authorities have power under Section 2 and 3 of our Mental Health Act to section people who present themselves in the ordinary machinations of everyday life.”
Surely you’re aware that in the United States a person can be “Pink Slipped” – that is, institutionalized against their will – if they present a clear and present danger to themselves or others? Because of past abuses there are very stringent rules concerning this, but it can be and is done.
“[…]Mrs Yates was suffering from a mental illness (and no-one has disputed this) to such an extent that her faculties were severely impaired such that she despite the nature and quality of her acts, the rational and sane reasoning process which should have stopped these acts was no longer functioning.”
The question of whether or not Mrs. Yates’ mental illness was such that it impaired her ability to know right from wrong and to use that knowledge to determine her actions is *very* much under dispute. Obviously a jury of her peers believed that she was capable of discerning right from wrong, exhibited premeditation, and acted in a manner that she knew was wrong and would be punishable. You may disagree with their decision, and that’s fine, but it is ludicrous to suggest that it was not in dispute.
Myria
Myria —
You write:<blockquote>The question of whether or not Mrs. Yates’ mental illness was such that it impaired her ability to know right from wrong and to use that knowledge to determine her actions is *very* much under dispute. <i>Obviously a jury of her peers believed that she was capable of discerning right from wrong, exhibited premeditation, and acted in a manner that she knew was wrong and would be punishable.</i> You may disagree with their decision, and that’s fine, but it is ludicrous to suggest that it was not in dispute. [my emphasis]</blockquote>
Well, the jury had to work within the legal recourses given them by Texas law, which is very much dependent upon a particular idea of insanity. Which is why I’ve argued (though I’m not certain about this by any means) that Texas insanity definitions are what’s really at issue here.
You said it yourself previously: the appeals in this case will challenge the legal definition of insanity.
It’s unclear to me whether the jury ruled as they did because they felt Yates’ insanity was irrelevant, or whether their ruling was proscribed by the law they were given to work with.
I certainly think that the Texas insanity statute will be a big part, if not the near entirety, of the appeals. But basically I believe that because a) questioning the constitutionality of the law one was convicted under is a common tactic, and b) I don’t honestly see that they have much else to hang their hat on. I’m no lawyer, of course, but it just doesn’t seem to me that they’ve got much else to go after. There’s no doubt about who actually committed the crime, they might be able to bring up some procedural error or other but that’s going to be weak, the only real hope I can see for Mrs. Yates’ side is to go after the law itself.
Mrs. Yates’ mental illness and state was definitely a factor in the trial, albeit perhaps not in a way or to the degree that many might like. It seemed like the trial was really little more than a battle of the hired gun shrinkologists affair, not that that’s all that unusual (nor generally a very successful tactic). Given that who did this horrid deed was not in question the only real direction for Mrs. Yates’ defense team to go was the insanity defense, they simply had no other viable option. Texas law is such that as soon as they did that the burden of proof shifted. The prosecution did not have to prove that she was sane or responsible, the defense had to prove that she was insane to the point where she was incapable of being responsible for her actions. To this end the defense put a number of shrinkologists on the stand to testify to Mrs. Yates mental state at the time of the act, the prosecution did likewise. The conclusions the shrinks from each side came to were mostly predictable, so it came down to which “expert” the jury found more credible. The jury clearly agreed with the prosecution and we can guess from what they asked for that this was at least partially based on her police call and confession.
The big complaint about Texas law, at least the one I’ve heard most mentioned, seems to be the lack of a “Guilty but insane” option for the jury. If I understand things correctly, and I certainly may have misunderstood this (again, I’m not a lawyer, I’m a housewife, so take whatever grain of salt is appropriate), there’s only a couple of states with that option. Absent that, the jury had to decide, based on shrinkological testimony, her own actions and words (but not testimony), and her demeanor in the courtroom, whether Mrs. Yates was sufficiently sane to be legally considered responsible for her actions – basically whether she was insane and killed, or mentally disturbed and murdered. They decided the latter, obviously, but it is hard to believe, given the amount of shrinkological testimony, that they did so without consideration of her mental health issues as the degree and effect of those were obviously in dispute.
The verdicts the jury could return and the definitions they are supposed to use in deciding said verdict are, of course, determined by Texas law. But a jury is not wholly limited by those, jury nullification just isn’t that unusual. The jury could have very well decided, despite what Texas law says, that Mrs. Yates was loony as a toon but still capable of understanding right from wrong, the Texas law suck-diddly-ucks, and she should go to a mental institution and not jail even if under any reasonable strict interpretation of Texas law that wasn’t justified. In fact, at least as originally conceptualized, jury nullification is called that because the jury “nullifies” a law they find unjust. To be sure, the law can limit what a jury can hear and be told, though there seemed to be no shortage of discussion of Mrs. Yates’ mental health issues in that courtroom, and can limit what verdicts a jury can return, but it cannot require a jury to decide a matter based on a strict interpretation of the law.
So… 1) I think the Texas insanity statute will definitely come under strong scrutiny in appeal. 2) I think the matter of Mrs. Yates mental health and it’s effect, or lack thereof, on the question of her responsibility for her actions was definitely in dispute in the courtroom – though perhaps not to the degree or in a manner that some might think appropriate. And 3) I find it hard to imagine that in a case that centered pretty much in its entirety upon the question of Mrs. Yates’ sanity, the jury did not take those mental health questions or the nature of the law into account.
Myria
Again, Myria, you may very well be correct—though if I had to guess, I’d suspect that it was the death of <i>children</i> that was the single biggest factor in the jury’s returning the verdict they did. In this case, were jury nullification to occur, it would doubtless occur <i>against</i> Yates. 5 once-healthy children drowned by their own mother. A jury filled with parents. Somebody was going to pay.
Just to clarify, I’m not at all <i>surprised</i> by the verdict. But what interests me so much about this case is precisely the inevitability of this verdict despite the overwhelming evidence that, not only was Yates seriously ill, but that she repeatedly sought help, that her actions can be directly tied to her having been removed from her medication, and that she had no history of trying to harm her children (and in fact by all accounts was a wonderful mother—perversely, to the point where her children <i>trusted</i> her right up until the end, a point used by the prosecution to bury her).
For whatever it’s worth, I was absolutely stunned by the verdict. Not just the rapidity, but the verdict itself. I didn’t honestly think there was a snowball’s chance in Hades she’d be convicted even in notorious Texas.
You couldn’t have asked for a better defendant. No Pam “Ice Queen” Smart here. No Susan “Yes, my middle name is ‘calculating bitch’, why do you ask?” Smith. Just a thirty-something, bespectacled, semi-horse faced, having a bad hair life, excruciatingly pathetic looking woman. Sad to say, but appearance and demeanor count – I can certainly understand why the defense didn’t run her by a good hairdresser and an Estee Lauder counter or three. And then you had Mr. Yates falling on his sword at every opportunity. People want to blame him and he’s apparently only too happy to provide a convenient target. I can’t honestly decide if he’s as whacked as she or being smart about taking incoming fire because he knows he’s at no real legal risk (I suspect the former, actually, but grant that it could be none of the above). Add to that the sheer magnitude of the crime. Kill five children in cold blood? Your *own* five children? It’s beyond the ability of most of us to even conceive of anything sane that could drive someone to do such a thing. The very nature of the crime almost cries out for the automatic assumption that anyone who could do that took a one way train to fruit loop land a very long time ago. Why do you think so many people have spent so much time trying to blame this on motherhood, being a housewife, religion, Mr. Yates, shrinkology, our generally screwed up society… Anything but Mrs. Yates? We don’t want to believe that a mother is capable of something like this, not even in our most horrid nightmares, and we will look for any other explanation before we’ll look at the one staring us in the face. I fully expected the jury would look for any out before they would convict Mrs. Yates.
I thought the trial was basically a sham, the outcome very close to pre-ordained. I just expected a different outcome from what you did. Obviously there I was badly mistaken. I can’t say as I’m overly thrilled about that, but I do believe that, to my surprise, justice was done.
Though we disagree, I’ve very much appreciated hearing your thoughts on this, Jeff. I’ve discussed it somewhat with my husband, who is much more sympathetic to Mrs. Yates’ cause than I, and several of my friends, most of whom are likewise in your camp. But because of my background it’s a very emotional issue for me so everyone tends to walk on eggshells a bit. Writing about it I can be a little less emotional and our back and forths have caused me to examine things a tad even if my overall opinion hasn’t been swayed much. Anyway, thanks.
Myria
You’re welcomed, Myria. And thank you. I enjoy exploring these things with interested (and interesting) folk, which I suppose is why I run this weblog.
Once the Yates sentence comes down, I’ll likely write up my final thoughts—to respond to Matthew Edgar, Alex Knapp [Heretical Ideas], and Richard Bennett, and others who—like yourself—have been thoughtful enough to engage me in this debate.
In the meantime, thank you for visiting our site. Make yourself comfortable—we’re open 24 hours a day…
Here’s the comment I posted on the other Yates thread:
There’s a point about Andrea Yates that I haven’t seen anywhere, and I think it’s relevant. When I was in college, I worked at a mental hospital where all patients were on medication of some sort. A few were on Haldol, the drug Yates was on until a 13 days before she killed the children. Haldol, as I recall, causes liver damage if taken over the long term, so doctors would switch patients off it to something else, like Thorazine, after some time. It could be that this was what Yates’ doctor was doing, and he followed the normal practice of letting it flush out of the system before starting the new drug in order to prevent combination effects that would make correct dosing impossible.
So let’s assume that the best medicine has to offer to people like Yates is temporary fits of relief from their illness, punctuated by periods when they’re extremely dangerous to the community.
Do you want such people walking around?
—
I’d add to that one observation on the Texas insanity law, to whit that it’s not an unusual statute at all. California’s is virtually identical, except for a few weaselly words that don’t seem to alter its import a whole lot. The point of these statutes is to circumscribe the insanity defense such that it can’t simply be claimed by anyone at any time, which respects the rights of the mentally ill to vote, drive cars, work, and do any number of things that they wouldn’t be able to do if we were more black-and-white about the status of the mentally ill versus the rest of us.
On appeal, the defense has to argue the law, following the old maxim that the attorney should first argue the facts, and if they’re not on his side, argue the law, and if that’s not on his side, he should impeach opposing counsel (or bang on the table, in the other version.)
The facts are clearly not on Andrea’s side. The verdict doesn’t surprise me because it was delivered by a predominately female jury disinclined to chivalry. Two of the women were psychology majors, as it turns out. So it was a well-educated jury of Andrea’s peers, and they didn’t buy her defense.
So be it.