Justice and the Yates Jury

In RealClearPolitics - Articles - Yates Jury is Wrong Mark Davis displays a stunning lack of knowledge about mental illness and the Yates case in particular. The jury did not have to "magically know how coherent she was when she methodically drowned her five beautiful children on June 20, 2001", they had the advantage of medical testimony to show what state she was in. They did not have to judge from her current state (properly medicated) to know how she was then - unmedicated.

Everybody around her at the time KNEW she was very ill. Why else would her husband feel the need to have someone with her at all times (an effort that failed the day she killed the children)? Why else had she been hospitalized? She was only out of the hospital because her insurance had run out - not because she was well. No, if ever there was a case of 'not guilty by reason of insanity', this was it.

There is much to blame in this case - The husband for having more children with a woman he knew was ill and agreeing to home school them. The hospital and her doctors for putting her out when there was no question that she was not well and probably dangerous. But that does not justify convicting her of crimes which she committed while insane.

The great injustice here is not the verdict, but the fact that Harris County taxpayers had to shell out who knows how much money to prosecute (twice) a case that should never have come to trial in the first place. A "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea could have been had at the outset.

David