While on the subject of Houston-based cases that are not reflecting well on the U.S. criminal justice system, the jury in the retrial of Andrea Yates — the suburban Houston mother and housewife who drowned her five young children in a bathtub in 2001 — was seated yesterday and opening arguments are scheduled to begin on Monday.
The Yates case is not Texas at its finest. Despite overwhelming medical evidence that Yates was severely mentally ill, suffering from post-partum depression and had been taken off the only medication that had ever helped her when she killed her children, the State of Texas still wants to put Yates in prison instead of a mental health facility for the rest of her life. Not surprisingly, prosecutors have never been able to offer any motive — much less a reasonable explanation — for why an otherwise attentive and loving mother would suddenly go nuclear on her young children and kill them.
But it gets worse. The state is retrying this case despite the fact that Yates’ first trial ended in a conviction that was subsequently overturned because the lead prosecution expert witness made the dubious link between Yates and an episode of the television show Law and Order in which a mother drowns her child. Now, it’s bad enough that State District Judge Belinda Hill ever allowed the jury to hear an expert make such a questionable reference to in the first place, but what’s worse is that the episode that the expert referred to was never even broadcast!
Moreover, it’s not as if this trial of Yates even involves the issue of incarceration versus freedom — even if successful, Yates’ insanity defense would result in her assignment to a secured psychiatric hospital, probably for the remainder of her life. And, from the looks of it, the prosecution and Judge Hill do not appear to be acting any more responsibly in the second Yates trial than they did in the first one. Last week, Judge Hill granted an inhumane prosecution request that Yates be incarcerated in prison during the retrial rather than in a mental health facility.
In short, despite the fact that there is no meaningful dispute regarding the nature and depth of Yates’ mental illness, the State insists upon punishing this feeble and tormented woman by imprisoning her for the rest of her life. Such a lack of prosecutorial discretion leaves a serious black mark on the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and the State of Texas criminal justice system, and it is not one that is easily erased.