Do you think Andrea Yates should have been found guilty today?

Question

Instead the court found her inncocent by reason of insanity....i am from clear lake and there is alot of talk about it here right now....she was the woman who dround her 5 children....

she's not free...she will be in a mental hospital in Rusk Texas....she still may never get out of there.

Answer 1

Usually, the legal definition of insanity includes a knowlege of "right from wrong." She called police to report herself immediately after the murders. GUILTY. GUILTY. GUILTY.

Insane, oh, yes for SURE. But guilty none the less.

Answer 2

According to the news, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. This mean that she killed her 5 kids, admitted it, called the police and walked them through the scene, and will spend her life in an institution until she's found to no longer be a threat. That's just not right...... because really she's no longer a threat NOW. I mean, she was only a threat to her children and they're all gone. She doesn't have anyone else to kill, so she's not a threat, right? So why not just let her out??

What a stupid system! What SHOULD happen is that she should be in an institution until she's no longer a threat, and THEN she should go to jail for life (after she's "sane" so she will realize what she's being punished for).

How could someone do that to their children and then completely get off? And don't tell me that she's NOT getting off because she's still not free -- hospital and prison are a LOT different.

Ridiculous.

Answer 3

The court made the right call. Unfortunately, the judge did not have the power to order forced sterility. This is a woman who SHOULD NOT be having children. However, some responsibility should be placed upon her former husband. He knew she was experiencing extreme postpartum depression and still wanted her to have another child. He left her alone with the children knowing she was having serious problems. Of course, now he's off scott free and has two new "replacement" children with the next wife.

Answer 4

She should be placed in an institution for the rest of her life because what she did was evil but also the work of a woman who was not at all right in the head. I also think her own husband and doctors who dealt with her should face some sort of charge because it must have been quite obvious she was not well yet they still left her to go home to those poor kids.

However, she was insane and that was the right decision. It wasn't like this woman and her husband in my locality who very knowingly and consciously left their children to starve, treating them worse than the family dogs and forcing them to live in squalor. At least Yates wasn't really aware of what she was doing unlike these two, who knew exactly what they did.

Answer 5

I think there should be another option open to a jury; "guilty but insane." It may seem like splitting hairs, but...I would have a hard time seeing her ever go free, no matter how much therapy she gets. She may have been out of her mind when she killed her children, and may be burdened by terrible guilt for the rest of her life, but she still must bear the responsibilty for their deaths.

I do not believe we have the wherewithal to cure an illness like hers. Some people are just broken...we may be able to fix them, someday, or prevent such illnesses from occuring, but in the interim, I think they should not be loosed into the world again.

Answer 6

In my opinion, the not guilty by reason of insanity verdict is the correct verdict. Andrea Yates has had a long history of psychosis and other mental problems. It's not as if she just suddenly "snapped" one day and decided to kill her children.

Now that this verdict is in, hopefully she can get the help she should have gotten all along. It's a tragedy that it took the deaths of those 5 innocent lives in order for her to get correct medical treatment.

Andrea showed many signs of injuring herseIf and the children before the day she killed the kids. Rusty ignored those signs, and refused to put her on medication. She had a mental illness and couldn't take care of herself. As her husband, HE HAD AN OBLIGATION TO GET HELP FOR HER IF SHE WAS INCAPABLE OF GETTING THAT HELP!.

Answer 7

I am not an expert on jurisprudence, so I cannot comment on the legitimacy of the verdict in relation to what the law requires. What I can say is that it does set a bad precedent for future legal cases where mothers murder their children since postpartum depression can now be used as an excuse to circumvent the normal punishment for murder.

What I find most disturbing is that postpartum depression is very common among women, and yet you see little, if any murders, attributed to that.

Answer 8

Well, she will be put in an institution for insane, no? Its really sad, because mental illness is real and it can have devastating effects on families.

I agreed with the court's decision. Its a shame that something like this has to happens, if we would have so much more awareness on mental illness, perhaps these things would not happen...

Answer 9

Of course she should have been found guilty. A person who drowns her own kids (5!) should be guilty no matter what the reason. One death is enough for jail. If she really is insane (which it does look like) than she wouldn't know the difference if she was in jail or not...(not really, but hey!)

Answer 10

She was put in a mental institution until she is "no longer a threat." I personally think that even though she had postpartum psychosis, it's no excuse for drowning your five children. She is crazy, but she deserves prison time, not an institution. She's a murderer, and murderers don't get put in rooms with padded walls.