Well the decision is finally in. Andrea Yates has been found guilty. Why the fuck she wasn’t found not guilty by reason of instanity is beyond me. Any woman capable of drowning all five of her young children clearly isn’t in her right mind. I mean the woman was suffering from severe medically documented depression for Christ’s sake. She was told by her doctor in no uncertain terms not to have any more children and yet her fucking sicko husband basically forced her to have more. He should be the one up there on trial for murder, not her.
God Damnit, I’m pissed!!!
::We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread in which DoperChic discusses the issue at hand in a calm rational manner::
The defense attorney argued that the insanity defense should be taken off the books, if this woman isn’t insane. I totally agree. Remind me not to go on trial for anything in Texas.:mad:
Not meaning to get into the whole debate of whether or not Yates is guilty… but by your definition, no woman could ever be guilty of killing her children.
Ok, I could very well have missed something (I didn’t follow the trial all that closely), but what’s with all the bile against the husband.
“HE” impregnated her
“HE” left her at home alone with the kids
:rolleyes:
Presuably she had something to say about the situations. Outside of some hysterical-sounding rhetoric, I haven’t heard any evidence that the husband forced (physically or through threats) her to do anything.
And on a seperate note, I don’t buy the argument that “What she did was so horrible that she MUST be insane, 'cause no sane person would have done it.”. All murder is horrible, not all murderers are insane. It’s possible to commit atrocities without being insane: Nazi war criminals to name one group (sorry about skirting Godwin’s law, but I think the analogy is apt).
Also, I find it very telling that she didn’t start raving about Satan until after she was in jail and had talked to her lawyer.
From what I understand, their religious beliefs gave Rusty all decision-making power in the household, so yes, he did impregnate her, etc. He set the rules about when she was allowed leaving the house.
Also, I have heard that people say she wasn’t found not guilty by reason of insanity because she could distinguish between right and wrong, but if she is schizophrenic as she has been diagnosed, she didn’t know the difference between real and not.
When did it come out in the news that she was schizophrenic? Was she diagnosed before or after the murders? If it was after, I’ll have a lot of trouble believing the doagnosis. After all, there are plenty of doctors out there that will say anything for the right price.
Personally, not that my opinion means jack squat, hubby was more responsible for the tragedy than Andrea was. She was clearly ‘losing it’ long before this happened. She had been diagnosed with a mental disorder and they were both told that having more children was a risky idea. What did they do? You guessed it, more kiddies.
There was no point in time that he was without his full mental capacity and awareness. He chose to allow his mentally disturbed wife to go without medication and take care of the children all alone.
Was she ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’? I don’t know, perhaps, perhaps not. But it should have been clear to him that she was a danger to the children, and he should have taken steps to prevent this. The law may absolve him of responsibility, but I do not.
Oh, hell, if you ask me, they’re both mad buggers. As the aphorism goes, “One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different out-come.” They knew having more kids was a bad idea, and yet did it anyway.
She’s guilty and crazy, and so is he. Both of them deserve the same fate. (And I hope to goddess that someone whacks the husband or at least cuts his nuts off and prevents him from breeding again.)
[sarcasm]
The fact that a man would have another kid with his wife, when he knew it would make her condition worse, is so horrible that he simply must have been insane.
[/sarcasm]
And, if that’s the case, she chose to have those religious beliefs. She chose to let him impregnate her. She chose to let him decide when she could leave the house.
If you’re going to feel sorry for somebody, feel sorry for the kids she chose to murder.
Thank you for that link, racinchikki. Very absorbing reading.
I really don’t know what to think about this. What this woman did makes me sick. I mean, chasing her little screaming kids around the house to drown them in the tub – and the shit they’ve been saying she said to some of them as she was doing it – yeesh. I don’t know. Is there a point to a punitive sentence in this case? Her defense made the case that she thought what she was doing was right. That’s just a little hard for me to swallow.
I can say, however, that I believe that if there is a punitive sentencing forthcoming, it’s a travesty that her husband and the psychologists that let her get off her meds can escape blame.
I just got done reading the new issue of The Onion. Their “What do you think?” section was about the Yates trial. I have to agree with “Milton Oberst - Cashier”:
Guin: One wonders whether Russell Yates’ deeply-held religious beliefs forbid divorce when a spouse is on death row. Somehow, I’m thinking Jesus says that’s an exception to the rule.
I’m curious - in watching the news recap tonight, they had film of the prosecuting attorney (or one of them) in closing arguments saying something to the effect of (paraphrasing):
“Perhaps Ms. Yates thought what she did was in the best interest of her children, but it wasn’t according to the laws of Texas!”
It seems to me that right there, he admitted that maybe Andrea Yates was legally insane, but nevermind because in Texas if you kill your kids you have to be punished the same regardless of circumstance.
I am not fit to judge her mental state - but I found his comment most interesting.