Yates case highlights problems
by Jill Porter, Knight Ridder Newspapers

    They saw the pathetic little pajamas the children wore that morning, saw videos of their dead bodies. They heard the way Andrea Yates submerged the children in water, how they struggled.

   It’s asking too much of the average juror to consider such an inflammatory crime with the dispassion it demands. It was asking too much of the average juror to send Andrea Yates where she belongs: to a mental institution, rather than to prison. Especially when the rigid requirements of the law make it nearly impossible.

   Yes, Andrea Yates knew that killing her children was “wrong.” By that inflexible and inadequate definition of sanity, the jury was right in convicting her of murder. But in the same way that facts aren’t the same as truth, an accurate verdict isn’t necessarily a just one.

   In this case, Yates knew wrong from right—but she thought wrong was right.

   Yates has said she killed her children to “save” them from Satan. Yates’ decision to do something she knew was wrong was utterly and totally motivated by her delusions.

   But the law’s narrow definition of sanity doesn’t accommodate the myriad manifestations of madness. If any case proves the law needs to be changed, it’s this one. Because Yates, who belongs among the deluded in a hospital, will be placed among the depraved in a prison.

   It doesn’t have to be this way.

   Perhaps cases like these ought to be tried exclusively by judges.

   A pretrial hearing could determine if there’s sufficient evidence of insanity, and if so, the case could be assigned to a three-judge panel. Judges are used to setting aside their emotions and to make tough, unpopular decisions.

   It’s asking too much of the average juror to consider this case with dispassion and send her to a mental institution, rather than prison.