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Day by day, people around the world do many bad things and we do not have other choices but face them. One June 20, 2001, 36 -year-old Andrea Yates, a Texas mother of five kids ranging in age This world is full of many things we will never understand. Nobody said life is from 6 months to 7 years, drowned all of her children and then phoned the police. The controversial question pops up: Is this woman guilty of capital murder? The truth is that she should not be punished for what she did considering that she did not know right from wrong. Prison is not the right punishment for her.
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services revels that Postpartum depression is a common, frequently unrecognized, yet devastating disorder. If it not treated early, will develop the followings symptoms: Dysphoric mood, loss of interest in usually pleasurable activities, difficulty concentrating or making decisions, psychomotor agitation or retardation, fatigue, changes in appetite or sleep, recurrent thoughts of death / suicide , feelings of worthlessness or guilt, especially failure at motherhood and excessive anxiety over a child's health.
Yates, had been suffering from post-partum depression since the birth of her two-year-old. She had been on medication, and Child Protection Services, who investigated the family after Andrea Yates's suicide attempt two years ago. The same people who irresponsibly claimed they had no reason to believe the children were not being properly cared for. The trial began February 18, 2002. Yates was found guilty of two counts of capital murder on March 12, 2002, and sentenced to life in prison (with the possibility of parole after 40 years) on March 15, 2002 Four of the jurors who convicted Andrea Pia Yates of capital murder told a nationally televised news program that they believed the crime was premeditated, but they also believed the mother who drowned her five children was mentally ill. They said there's no doubt in anyone's, minds that she was mentally ill.
Several of the jurors voted to convict Andrea Yates of capital murder, some of them initially voted for death, then the jury discussed it and agreed on the life sentence. They said the way she drowned her children in the family bathtub seemed premeditated and methodical. "She was able to describe what she did... I felt like she knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew it was wrong, or she would not have called the police, " said a juror identified as Roy, a math teacher. A juror identified as Jill, a social worker, said as Yates explained to police how she drowned the children, it seemed as if she was "thinking pretty clearly. " All these jurors conclusions suggest that she was not insane. "Legally insane" means that, at the time of the commission of the offense, the actor was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if the actor did know the quality of the act, that he did not know that what he was doing was wrong, but this definition does not include that the actor did not know how he did the offense. Yates did not know her actions were wrong when she drowned Noah, John, Paul, Luke, or Mary, in the bathtub of her home moments after her husband left for work. She told homicide Sgt.
Eric Mehl what she had done and why. So, Did she really know right from wrong just because she phoned the police after this horrible act and remember everything about that day? Medical records showed Yates was at the breaking point, tottering between insanity and sanity, for several years. She twice tried to commit suicide. She was twice hospitalized for psychotic breakdowns.
Defense lawyer George Parnham asked the judge to recommend that Yates be kept as long as possible at the Harris County Jail for continued treatment by the jail's psychiatric team. Parnham also said that after a period of psychiatric evaluation, she probably could be sent to a prison in Lubbock where she could receive psychiatric care. If Yates had been found not guilty by reason of insanity, she would have been "locked away" in a mental institution, probably for the rest of her life, The guilty verdict, however, generated a great deal of discussion about the insanity law and mental illness. Why did Russel Yates not respond to his wifes postpartum conditions? There are many factors in a difficult postpartum adjustment or depression which are obvious, such as, sleep deprivation, financial stress, grief over an unexpectedly difficult birth, a traumatic family history and the high expectations of the mother and the society she lives in, being some of them. Brian Kennedy, a brother of Andrea Yates, called Russell Yates an "unemotional" husband inattentive to his sister's needs.
Russell Yates told to a TV show that "I think I have to" sue those responsible for her medical care. He contends that she was wrongly taken off antipsychotic medication before the killings despite lapsing into severe mental illness following the births of her last two children. "She was never diagnosed, she was never treated and they didn't protect our family, " he said. Dr. Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist who testified for the defense in the Andrea Yates murder trial who interviewed Yates twice, testified at her trial that Yates knew drowning her children was illegal. But because of her mental illness, Yates thought it was the right decision to keep her children from eternal damnation. But the reason had to do with the jury selection process more than the clinical evidence, he said.
Nine months later, after many statements against insanity, psychiatrist testimonies, and judgments, the Jurors rejected an insanity defense and convicted Yates of capital murder in the June 20 drownings of Noah, John, and Mary. Evidence also was presented about the drownings of Paul, and Luke. This woman will spend the rest of her life in prison with real criminals. She will not receive the appropriate medical help for her illness and who knows what will happen to her. Fortunately, the jury rejected lethal injection.
As this case shows, not all the time is justice fair, clear or right. Human behaviors are very complex, and under certain conditions, cannot be judged fairly by our Justice System Works Cited POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. 1998 Judge will formally sentence Yates today in drownings of her children Houston Chronicle March 18, 2002. Yates was insane Court TV. Feb. 27, 2002 Penal Code Chapter 8.
General Defenses to Criminal Responsibility web Trial Begins ABC News. com Jan. 7 2001
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Research essay sample on U S Department Rest Of Her Life
