Yates' new trial will test views on mental illness

HOUSTON — Mental-health advocates and defense attorneys hope the public's mindset about mentally ill defendants has changed in the five years since Andrea Yates filled her bathtub with water and drowned her five children.

Since Yates' 2002 conviction, which was overturned on appeal, several other Texas mothers have killed their children and been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

As Yates' retrial begins today with opening statements, those verdicts — as well as community outreach and education efforts about mental illness — are encouraging to the woman's attorneys, who say her severe postpartum psychosis prevented her from knowing her action was wrong.

As in her first trial, Yates has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. If the jury agrees, she could be committed to a state hospital, with periodic hearings to determine whether she should be released. A guilty verdict would mean life in prison.

"Jurors, I think, know now that it's a misconception that a person ... gets out of the defendant's chair, gets in the elevator and walks free," said George Parnham, Yates' lead attorney. "Andrea Yates will be in [a psychiatric hospital] for the rest of her life, no doubt about it."

But prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said the jury must consider only the evidence presented in this case and not get caught up in public sentiment or try to send a message about mental-health issues.

"This is not cookie-cutter justice," Williford said. "I believe in the insanity defense, in which someone can commit a crime and not be held criminally responsible. I do not see that in this case based on the evidence."

Some mental-health experts say they hope publicity from other cases, as well as increased public awareness about postpartum depression, will prevent other tragedies along with leading to a different verdict for Yates.

"More people know it's a brain disorder and not just something you can snap out of," said Betsy Schwartz, director of the Mental Health Association of Greater Houston. "We can only hope the jury will have a keen awareness of the chemistry and physiology of what was going on in Andrea Yates' brain when this happened."

Yates' earlier conviction was thrown out because a key prosecution witness had mistakenly testified about an episode of the "Law & Order" television series depicting a woman who drowned her children in a bathtub and was acquitted by reason of insanity. The witness, a psychiatrist and consultant on the show, said the episode aired before the Yates children were killed, but attorneys later learned that no such episode existed.

Yates is being tried in the June 20, 2001, deaths of 6-month-old Mary, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah. She was not charged in the deaths of 2-year-old Luke and 3-year-old Paul, a strategy that is not uncommon in a case involving multiple slayings.