Andrea Yates again
Posted by Moonage on 27 Jul 2006 | Tagged as: Corporal Punishment
Andrea Yates, believe this or not, was found NOT GUILTY of systematically killing her four kids by drowning them in a bathtub. Now, everyone admitted she did it, she was just found LEGALLY not guilty. That’s BS folks. She killed them. No if’s, and’s, or but’s. Now, because of this, at some point down the road, there is the legal ( if not realistic ) possibility that Andrea could walk free again. That’s BS folks. this woman is a threat to society. She’s intentionally killed four people already. A lot of people who kill only once get the death penalty. When someone is so FUBAR that they don’t realize that murder is a bad thing, that’s not a good reason to let them live. The instanity plea, in the case of murder, especially in the case of innocent kids, has GOT to go!
20 Comments »
on 27 Jul 2006 at 7:23 pm 1.iDude said …
I posted a lot about this a while back on my old, defunct blog and I was shocked to get a lot of replies from people who actually SYMPATHIZE with her and thinks she should not only NOT be executed or interred, but should actually go free after declared “stable” again.
She should be drowned, just as her 5 children were.
on 27 Jul 2006 at 9:36 pm 2.Moonage
said …
I have commented some on Yates. However, best I can recall, most of my crowd tends to agree with me. I really don’t care how she goes, as long as she does. I could go on a monster tirade right now, but I’ll save that for later I guess. Bottom line, regardless of why, human life is not sacred to her. The world’s got too many people thinking like that. They are killing the people that do value life. I think it’s time that THOSE people be eliminated and if the world eventually is eventually rid of miscreants, it would be that much better off. There’s about six billion people on this planet, weeding some out won’t hurt a thing.
on 28 Jul 2006 at 4:07 am 3.American Phoenix
said …
What Should Criminal Insanity Really Mean?
A family has been destroyed. Five children are dead these past five years. Noah, John, Paul, Luke and Mary will never grow up to become happy, healthy adults, their lives all cut short by their mother, Andrea Yates, who drowned
on 28 Jul 2006 at 8:59 am 4.Moonage
said …
Folks, if you read my post, be SURE to read the post by American Phoenix trackbacked up there. It’s a wonderful read.
on 29 Jul 2006 at 7:02 pm 5.American Phoenix
said …
Andrea Yates probably wouldn’t ever have been sentenced to death. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986) that the criminally insane could not be executed. I think that’s the right decision, in principle. Nevertheless, remember that insanity is a legal definition, not a medical term. Someone who assaults you while in a diabetic stupor can be temporarily criminally insane, but not mentally ill. Someone who is mentally ill, may be sufficiently aware that what they are doing is wrong such that they are not criminally insane. In this particular case, I’m not sure that a verdict of insanity was the right one, however, I do think that her severe mental illness is sufficient to be the kind of mitigating factor that would prevent her from being sentenced to death. Life imprisonment is, in my opinion, the correct sentence, whether that be at a mental hospital or in a prison. The problem with the NGBRI verdict is that it acts as an acquittal and she could very well walk at some point in the future. That is fundamentally wrong.
on 29 Jul 2006 at 10:59 pm 6.Moonage
said …
I knew, under the current legal system, she’d never get death. Someone drunk during a murder can get off. It’s way too liberal in the usage of “insanity”. It’s been abused to the point where people like me just think the entire judgment of mental condition is a wasted argument. If someone is willing to kill, who are we to decide exactly what point murder is not an insane act? Any person that kills a child IMO does not deserve to live. They are all insane by my definition of insanity. That’s just nuts. No child has ever presented a physical threat to an adult to justify self defense. Therefore, all murders of children by an adult is intentional to some degree. In this particular case, premeditation was even proven. So, to then say she was insane at the time of the murders is moot to me. She has killed five innocent people that were in no way able to defend themselves. That to me justifies the death penalty whether the court system thinks so or not. She is insane. She will always be insane. She will therefore always have the mental capacity to murder again. She therefore is a threat to society and society has the right to defend itself. To then turn right around and have that same society give her a potential free pass ( she was institutionalized regardless of this decision ), and the potential to once again walk freely amongst that society, is a total abdication of the court system’s responsibilities and the nail in the insanity defense’s coffin in my opinion.
on 31 Jul 2006 at 12:11 am 7.American Phoenix
said …
1. There are some “children”, i.e., under 18 years of age, who are so violent that some adults have been known to need to defend themselves against them.
2. I think Yates should be put away for the rest of her life without the possibility of parole. I do not think she should be executed because I think her mental illness is a sufficient mitigating factor. The woman IS seriously mentally ill. I think a Guilty But Mentally Ill verdict would have been the most appropriate as it would accomplish justice at both ends of the scale.
3. I think her husband should be charged with criminal negligence. Really.
on 31 Jul 2006 at 9:05 am 8.Moonage
said …
3. We agree 100% on the husband, he’s as guilty IMO as she is, if not moreso knowing her state.
2. It’s obvious she’s mnetally ill. Guilty is guilty. As I’ve noted in the past, if she regains her sanity at some point, and truly was only temporarily insane, then the burden of what she did would a living nightmare no one should be forced to live with. So, death is not as callous as it sounds on paper. Forcing someone to live with that history is just as inhumane, if not moreso, than just simply ending their life. If she stays as insane as she was, she’ll never have a quality of life beyond much more than your typical house pet. Ending her life will mean nothing to her. So, from a humanity perspective, the insanity protections are more humane people’s protection of their own personal values than it is a consideration for person committing the crime.
1. My child has given me an absessed tooth, and I will be having surgery to correct another “accident” this Friday. I however, don’t feel compelled to do much more than pick him up and remove the threat. If a “child” is old enough to willfully commit crimes, they are not children as society would prefer to consider them. Billy the Kid killed a bunch of people before he was sixteen years old. He needed killing in the worst way regardless of the point in his life when society would have considered him an “adult”. I don’t think that point in life should be a predetermined age. Kids delveope cognitive skills at very radically different points in their development. To say a kid is suddenly fully capable of and willing to commit a crime the day they turn eighteen is ludicrous and I’ve never agreed with it. In many cases, if a kid commits a severe crime, they will be tried as an adult before they turn eighteeen. I think that bar could be pushed a lot lower. Some kids are that bad. When a kid commits a heinous crime and gets, say, thirty years in prison, their life is ruined and they will not have any quality of life once freed. More often than not, they’ll return to prison shortly after being released. What’s the point in that?
on 02 Aug 2006 at 9:04 am 9.Moonage
said …
I received this via email, but I think it raises a lot of good points relavent to what’s going on here:
I wonder if you have ever had post partum depression?? I wonder if you have ever had someone telling you God said you are the women and you are suppose to do what I say??? I wonder if you had a very weak personality if you could be intimidated by a preacher and his wife?? I wonder how well you would survive living all day in a travel trailer with 3 kids so you could give more money to the preacher??? Life of this type for a women is really hard to ever leave because you want I said want to believe this man loves you and is making good decisions for you and the kids. At the same time your hoping and praying if you can just be more spiritual because its got to be your fault things aren’t working out and at the same time you are going deeper and deeper into a black hole. It becomes harder and harder to find your way back out. I am so sorry for her children. I am sorry men don’t understand that some women are just not as strong as they would like for them to be and just don’t have the guts to say enough is enough. You just can’t keep piling it on her back and not except it to break into a million pieces. I hope you can use your blog to help all men and women become a whole person . Women need to learn to express their anger in a way that makes a man listen and not be afraid of them.
First of all, I have never had post partem depression, I am a male. Second, you’re making a judgment that isn’t fair, that I am blaming Andrea exclusively in this tragedy. I am not, her husband is as guilty or moreso than she is. However, he was not on trial, she was, and I was commenting on the verdict of the jury. Lastly, this wasn’t a case of post partem depression, Andrea had other much more severe conditions that had existed for years and against the advice of her doctors, had more children. Regardless of her domestic situation, she had been advised not to risk compounding her problems with post partem depression and chose to do so. The result decision of that is five dead children. If she was not in any capacity to make that decision, her husband was fully aware of the possibility and chose to chance it as well. She’s not alone in this crime. The fact he was charged with facilitating the crime she was charged with committing is another miscarriage of justice as well.
I have worked in mental health, I have experience dealing with these situations. Do you? I know that people who commit acts like this will never know a quality life as anyone would hope for. If I killed even one of my kids in an act of temporary insanity, I know I would kill myself once that “temporary” insanity left. The fact Andrea has not done so yet tells me she’s still insane, and ALWAYS will be. Symptoms this severe don’t just vanish into thin air.
I can’t use this blog to force people to make logical decisions if they are totally incapable of doing so in the first place. If her situation was as you paint it, she would not have ever read this blog, it’s too sinful. I can however, let people know that a lot of people are disgusted and fed up with the current legal system that basically tries to wash its hands of a bad situation which in effect potentially allows murderers to walk free. There is only one guaranteed way to prevent Andrea from ever doing this again, and the court punted. You do realize that Andrea now has the very real possibility of doing all this again?
I addressed post partem depression in another post ( trashing Tom Cruise ). It is real, and it’s a totally different situation. Post partem depression doesn’t last for years. Per written documentation, Andrea planned these acts two years prior ( before the last baby was even born ). That’s not post partem depression, that’s murder.
on 02 Aug 2006 at 12:56 pm 10.American Phoenix
said …
2. I don’t think we can execute someone solely because we make a judgment that their life is not worth living. Who are we to say? This precludes the possibility of redemption in this life and negates any good that can come from suffering. Weird as it may seem, suffering isn’t always a bad thing. You learn things from it that you never would learn otherwise. Some day, if Yates’ mental illness is controlled, she may be able to help someone else who is in prison. So I don’t think this is the sole reason to execute a person. Nor do I think it’s a valid reason, because as soon as we start making that kind of judgment, we make it in other areas of life as well, notably euthanasia and the termination of the ill.
1. I seriously doubt that your son, who is right around the same age as my son, understood that he was giving you an abcessed tooth or even intended to hurt you. He’s not anywhere near old enough to understand the consequences of his actions. Having said that, the law does make provision to try minors as adults, when it can be proved that they were sufficiently mature to understand what they were doing and that what they were doing was wrong. That is as it should be.
With respect to your most recent post, I think you’re wrong on the medical issues. Yates did have post partum depression with psychosis. Her preexisting mental health issues were made worse because of the post partum depression. She has already tried to commit suicide twice.
I haven’t seen or read about any written documentation that says Yates planned this two years prior. There was some evidence that she had filled the bathtub a month or so earlier, but not two years. Given that she had her last child about 6 months prior to the crime, that puts any premeditation well within the time frame that one would experience post partum depression. Her post partum depression was unusual, however, in that aggravated an already existing psychotic condition. Again, murder like insanity is a legally conclusion. I’m not sure that this wasn’t murder, but only because she appears to have realized that what she was doing was wrong even if she had “reasons” for doing it.
on 02 Aug 2006 at 1:27 pm 11.Moonage
said …
2. I am not asking for a judgment of whether their life is worth living or not. I am asking for the exact opposite, judge the crime for what it is and remove the purely subjective definition of one’s sanity out of it.
You add the caveat that I’m claiming as if it were a defense. It is EXACTLY my point that she suffered from psychosis in the first place. When one is psychotically depressed, it doesn’t mean anything from a treatment standpoint to say they were even more depressed at some point in their life. And, when the post partem effect is gone ( which it surely is by now ), she won’t be any better off than she was before if she truly is perfmanently insane ( which she obviously is ). If your back’s broke, spraining your knee is irrelevent until the broken back is repaired. Andrea now is what Andrea was before she committed the crime. She’s still insane and always will be. Ten years from now she’ll be the same threat to society as she was before. In this particular case, post partem sent her supposedly over the edge. Ten years from now, it could a post-traumatic trigger. Post partem IMO had nothing to do with this. She was FUBAR before the PPD became a factor. There is no such thing as being a little more FUBAR.
But, my bottom line is she should have been judged on what she did, not why she did it. When society starts enforcing the law based on the crime and not diagnosing everything THEN the death penalty will be a lot more of a factor than it is now.
on 03 Aug 2006 at 9:23 pm 12.American Phoenix
said …
The problem is that you would seek to reverse law that has been in place for over a millennia. What you propose would make all crimes, strict liability crimes. I don’t think that’s a wise solution.
on 03 Aug 2006 at 9:43 pm 13.Moonage
said …
As with all laws, there is a difference in the type of crime committed. I could care less if someone jaywalks. However, crimes against humanity should have a higher standard of personal responsibility.
on 04 Aug 2006 at 12:28 pm 14.American Phoenix
said …
Historically, strict liability (absence of a mens rea element) crimes have been limited to things that have to do with affecting the public health.
I think you really have to examine the mens rea of a criminal defendant for a variety of reasons. It’s part of determining what is the appropriate punishment. In most cases, it’s clear cut that the adult defendant knew or should have known what they were doing is wrong. But people do get mentally ill who have lost the capacity to reason. Some are children who have not yet developed the capacity to understand the consequences of their actions. This doesn’t mean that the victim should be ignored. You have to look at both elements if you really want to achieve justice - which is fundamentally different than mere retribution.
3. Getting rid of the mens rea element would result in a very Draconian society. I don’t think even you want to live that way.
on 04 Aug 2006 at 1:48 pm 15.Moonage
said …
mens rea is Latin for “guilty mind”. The very simple example of the insanity plea is that if there is no mind, how can it be guilty? But, my gripe is not with mens rea, my gripe is with applying it accross the board to any situation. If the crime is heinous, then strict liability is fine with me. I have worked with “insane” people, although it is obvious there is something wrong with them, what is wrong won’t go away. There are very few exceptions to that situation ( post partem being one ). However, post partem itself unchecked most often results in a situation of neglect, not murder. So, I don’t buy the “temporary insanity” argument under any circumstances as by the current social norm, any act of murder is “insane” by any normal person’s standards. It’s too broad. So, for crimes that are not heinous, or against humanity, mens rea would still apply as it does now.
on 05 Aug 2006 at 3:53 am 16.American Phoenix
said …
Uh, NO! “Mens rea” is Latin for “concerning the mind”. (Never argue with a Latin major. I’m right on this one.) There is indeed a mind or she’d be dead and completely nonfunctional. The problem is that it’s a sick mind.
You need to remember that insanity is a legal definition, not a medical one. One can be judged criminally “insane” from a medical condition such as diabetes or epilepsy, because it affects a person’s capacity to reason. Example: an epileptic has a seizure and assaults someone. Example: a diabetic suffers an alteration of blood sugar which causes him to do something criminal. I don’t think executing people with medical issues constitutes justice. That’s what strict liability would require and it’s Draconian in the extreme. (The word comes from Draco of Sparta for a reason - the penalty for breaking any law in Sparta was the death penalty.)
I agree with you that the insanity defense has been too widely applied. As I originally wrote there is the temptation to say that because sane people would not have committed a crime, that the criminal must be insane. That’s putting the cart before the horse. As I also wrote earlier in this post, I’m not sure that insanity is proven in this case, although there was indeed severe mental illness. Did she know what she was doing was wrong? I think the evidence says that she did, but that the jury ignored it. There have also been reports that not all of the psychological evidence along these lines was presented. That disturbs me.
Bottom line: I think we agree on the ends, but differ on the means. I don’t want to use unjust means to reach the correct end. I’d prefer to see the law applied correctly thereby using just means to reach a just end.
on 05 Aug 2006 at 9:29 am 17.Moonage
said …
Bottom line: I think we agree on the ends, but differ on the means. I don’t want to use unjust means to reach the correct end. I’d prefer to see the law applied correctly thereby using just means to reach a just end.
Has a law ever been changed? That’s what I’m shooting for here.
on 06 Aug 2006 at 2:56 am 18.American Phoenix
said …
The law regarding the insanity defense isn’t all bad. I do believe that laws should make available a Guilty But Insane verdict in most states. I also believe that life without the possibility of parole should mean life and that parole boards and courts shouldn’t be able to second guess an earlier decision. The problem, however, is until we get a lot of these wacko liberal judges out of the courtroom, passing new laws isn’t going to make a bit of difference.
on 20 Oct 2006 at 9:17 am 19.Moonage Political Webdream
said …
A True Case of Temporary Insanity
Now, I have taken a little bit slack, not much, but a little for sure, for asserting that Sandra Yates deserved to die rather than be allowed to cop an insanity plea. IMO, if you’re capable of murder in a
on 26 Apr 2007 at 1:21 pm 20.Moonage Political Webdream » A True Case of Temporary Insanity said …
[...] I have taken a little bit slack, not much, but a little for sure, for asserting that Andrea Yates deserved to die rather than be allowed to cop an insanity plea. IMO, if you’re capable of murder in a regular, semi-normal-function-as-yourself role, [...]