Infanticide and the State

Texas Mom's Murder Convictions Overturned

Thursday January 6, 2005 2:46 PM
HOUSTON (AP) - Andrea Yates' capital murder convictions for drowning her children were overturned Thursday by an appeals court, which ruled a prosecution expert witness gave false testimony at her trial.
Yates' lawyers had argued at a hearing last month before a three-judge panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston that psychiatrist Park Dietz was wrong when he said he consulted on an episode of the TV show ``Law and Order'' involving a woman found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children.
After jurors found Yates guilty, attorneys in the case and jurors learned no such episode existed.
``We conclude that there is a reasonable likelihood that Dr. Dietz's false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury,'' the court ruled. ``We further conclude that Dr. Dietz's false testimony affected the substantial rights of appellant.''

This is interesting on many levels but most of all to me because it relates to a Wisconsin case that points up the futility of assuming the Democracts are any better on women's issues than the Republicans. Here, our Democractic Governor Doyle was asked to pardon a woman who HAD ALREADY SERVED 12 YEARS because she delivered a child conceived by rape and left it to die in a cardboard box. The courageous governor appointed a panel to cover his ass and they recommended that he deny her a pardon. Here is the reason they gave.

They said she refused to accept responsibility for her actions.

Do you think that is BECAUSE SHE KNOWS SHE WAS SUFFERING FROM A MENTAL CONDITION SHE COULD NOT CONTROL? Which was her entire defense for the last 12 years.

These things always remind me of the techniques of the inquisition where they threw witches in the water and if they drowned they were innocent and if they lived they were guilty. So the state burned the "witches" who lived.

Doyle left her to rot in jail - the media never talks about what happened to her rapist. They never say why she did not get an abortion. And they do not compare her sentence with the many men who are convicted of killing children.

In Wisconsin rapists are allowed to sue the mother for custody, block adoption and raped children untill recently were not allowed to sue the church because "it would entangle the state excessively in religious matters". I think there has just been some sort of relaxation of that last rule.