New Trial for a Mother Who Drowned 5 Children
The new trial will open up the national debate about mental illness, postpartum depression and the legal definition of insanity.
Yesterday's ruling was narrow and novel. It turned on testimony by Dr. Park Dietz, a psychiatrist who was the prosecution's sole mental health expert. Dr. Dietz testified that Ms. Yates was psychotic at the time of the murders but knew right from wrong. The latter conclusion meant that she was not insane under Texas' unusually narrow definition of legal insanity.
Joseph Owmby, one of the prosecutors, said his office would ask the three-judge panel to reconsider. If that fails, he said, prosecutors will ask the entire appeals court and then the state's highest court for criminal matters, its Court of Criminal Appeals, to reverse the panel's decision.
Posted by katherine at 09:11 AM
Comments
I did not know about the whole Law and Order angle in Yates' case. I recently had a conversation with someone at The Center on Wrongful Convictions and she told me that they were doing a big public information campaign around postpartum depression and the large number of women who are convicted of crimes without that even being taken into consideration.
Posted by: angela at January 7, 2005 06:22 PM
Actually, a classmate of mine is doing her thesis documentary film on the issues surrounding postpartum depression. I think the statistic is that two in ten women suffer from it.
Posted by: katherine at January 8, 2005 12:09 AM
ionolsen20 I just don not have anything to say right now.
Posted by: thomson at October 17, 2006 12:52 PM
ionolsen40 May we exchange links with your site?
Posted by: stalin at November 6, 2006 11:52 AM
