Andrea Yates -- Not Guitly By Reason Of Insanity

Hospital fees for birthing 5 children... $25,000

Raising them for a few years... $75,000

Drowning all of them and getting away with it... priceless.

Anyone who would drown their own children is, by definition, insane.

The good thing is she probably isn't a threat to society, only her own children. And there are no more.

Being in a prison for the rest of your life, or being on drugs and in mental institutions for the rest of your life?

I never understood the rationale behind the "insanity" defense. Why should we let someone who is demonstrably dangerous off the hook just because they are too nuts to know the consequences of what they were doing?

"If he is too crazy to know that we are killing him, and it makes me feel better WHAT THE HELL ARE WE ARGUEING ABOUT."
Ron White on the insanity plea from
You Can't Fix Stupid

There may be many that don't agree with me but this woman knew what she was doing, took steps to hide what she was going to do, it was planned out. Yes I agree that killing your own children you would have to be nuts but then taking any life for the most part you would have to be insane. Charles Manson, son of sam, they are all CRAZY.

I just am so upset though to find out that a woman can kill 5 innocent children and be sent off to a mental institution. She should be sent to prison to take her due. She killed her children to protect them form sin in their future. SHE should just be sent away and with any luck have a big GF named BERTHA that makes her life a living hell. (make that many sadistic GF)

ok ok off band wagon but sick of tired of all the killing in this world and ppl getting away with it.

I don't understand why everyone thinks being locked up in a mental hospital equals being "off the hook".
Locked up is locked up, doesn't really matter where you are.

Revenge is not the same thing as justice.

Sorry it's not the same, mental institute isn't nearly as hard as being in an actual Prison.

So you are saying those children got justice today...I think not.

It would of course depend on the institution.

"Off the hook" as in found not guilty. Of course they've been found "guilty" of insanity, which frankly can be a much worse situation. At that point due process of law goes out the window and your life becomes the whim of doctors, who might do anything from letting you out in a few months to destroying your brain or killing you with some experimental treatment.

No, I'm saying that revenge is not the same thing as justice.

Her head's obviously not right, so what difference does it make where they lock her up? It's not going to bring the kids back or make her better

See? Now here is a person that knows the difference.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14058195/


Just something to read is all.

I thought the justice system was to punish wrong doers. Not to bring the dead back. This will just make it that much easier for the next person, like the woman in Chicago who threw her kids off of the dock in freezing weather after stripping them naked.

A man got a flat tire in Providence, RI and decided to back up over 500 feet to avoid making a U turn. While backing up he hit and dragged a 60 year old man most of the way and didn't realize it until he had stopped. The police say he didn't mean to do it, so they aren't charging him. Making the decision to back up when you won't be able to clearly see what is in your path is a bad decision. Driving a car is like waving a gun around. If you don't do it responsibly, your actions can lead to someone's death. This guy should have know that and he should be held accountable.

Putting your children kicking and screaming under water until they die whether you were doing it in your right mind or not is a crime. She could "get better" any day and be free. Look at Hinkley. He gets to go home for visits and is looking for a girlfriend.

I don't know.

I think we should make her spend the rest of her life touching a bug zapper

Ok, the woman in Chicago is obviously nuts and needs to be put away in a mental institution, if for no other reason than to keep her from hurting anyone else.

The guy backing down the ramp isn't insane and I agree with you that he should have been charged and brought to trial. Let a jury decide if he deserves to be punished or not.

There is a huge difference between these two crimes. I'm not saying that the insane should be let go just because they are nuts. But putting them in a prison would be wrong too. If someone had a seizure while driving down the road and then kills people standing on the sidewalk, do you put them in prison for it?

Locking the criminally insane up in a mental hospital is the right thing to do. In prison there is a good chance they will kill someone else, since they will just be put in the general population. In a mental hospital they will be watched more closely and controlled better.

The “getting better” thing is a bit more tricky though. If they really were sick and not in control of their actions it seems wrong to keep them locked up if they really do get better. What purpose would it serve to keep them locked up?


It just seems to me that there aren't any clear cut answers on this issue, so we just have to trust that the jury made the right decision based on all the facts that were presented to them. Facts that we don't know, so how can we say they were wrong?

I think there are no clear-cut answers because the justice system is comingling too many functions in one action. A jury should not be asked to decide whether someone is insane at the same time they are trying to decide whether someone did the crime. Their concern should be determining guilt or innocence. If the person is actually guilty, the question of the most appropriate institution for them would be a separate issue. And if they are found innocent, then they should be let go. People with mental illnesses deserve due process of law just like anyone else.

It's this gray area of people who are found not guilty but then are locked up anyway that's got to go.

well thats all fine and dandy but um no. In point of fact Not guilty by reason of insanity is an incredibly rare and incredibly hard defense to establish. It is rarely used, and when it is used it rarely works.

Its very fucking comfortable to get on the high horse of moreal outrage and shout "ZOMG she killed her kids..thats wrong!" People do it all time. Its like instead of looking at all the lies they have told in thier own lives, and insted of putting themselves under the microscope of proper moral conduct, they point the finger and shout about someone doing somthing bad. We don't have the opportunity to tattletale, so we persecute.

Well no shit, killing your kids is a bad thing. Nobody disputes that. Its not some huge major revelation when you get on your high horse and say people are bad and the system should punish them more. But such a system lacks compassion, and its all good until the come to lock you up for having an unpaid parking ticket.

So her eis a woman who killed her kids. Noone disputes that. But what do we do with her. Is locking her up with "real" criminals going to solve anything? Am I beeter off becuause she is locked away?

Lets hypothetically say the insanity defense did not work, so now is this murder one? I think not, and I don't think you could make it stick. So now we are talking manslaughter-this might be a shoe in for a homicide based on a heat of passion argument (a sudden uncontrollable impulse). Thus she'd get 10-15 years (yes she killed more than one, but i think the defense would get the multiple counts to run concurrently) she would do double time for good time and be eligble for parole in 3-5 years.

No way is a woman who is at her level insanity going to get out of the pysch ward in that time. Maybe in general pop someone would kill her. Great..does that make me safer? Does that make my life better?

Now if we put her in a psychiatric ward, just maybe, there is a chance that the people treating her will learn something from thier contact with her, from her case, and maybe we can make some in roads inot understanding and treating post-partum depression.
Or are we seriously going to take the tom crusie angle and say post partum depression is not real? Am I better off if she is in a mental hospital? well maybe not me, but there is anoutside chance that someone I love might be. What would I give for every tiny scrap of knowledge that might save the life or sanity of someone I love? I certainly will accept andrea yates living in a pysch ward.

The justice system has eveloved to take us away from revenge. Justice does not exist for the victim of a crime, justice exists for the society as a whole. Its not "andrea yates dead kids v. abdrea yates, it is the people vs. andrea yates.

And yes I think a jury should decide the punishment, or make a determination of insanity. Juries often act with more common sense, courage and sometimes..even in one of the most conservative states in the country..compassion, than the individual memebers have on their own.
In this case the jury came up with the right decision, one that was reasonable and compassionate. Ultimately it is compassion that makes it justice, not law.

Didn't her former husband know something was wrong with her? If he did, perhaps he should be held partially to blame too. What kind of parent lets a crazy person alone with his kids?

I have wondered about that as well. From things I have heard about her behaviour before she killed them, he must have known something was wrong.

She's a witch! Burn her!

Did she turn you into a newt?

She tried