Andrea Pia Yates

In her wisdom, the judge in the trial, State District Judge Belinda Hill, allowed cameras in the courtroom for coverage of opening arguments only, thus ensuring that the integrity of the trial would remain intact, and that the American people, and more importantly the surviving family members would not be the subject of either a dog and pony show or worse – a media circus/frenzy.

In his opening statement to the jury, Prosecuting Attorney Joe Owmby made it perfectly clear to the jury that the defendant not only had a clear mind at the time of the offense, but that she also knew that she had a very limited ‘window of opportunity’ in which to accomplish her ‘plan of action’ as it were and that she carried out her crime with definite malice aforethought.

Defense Attorney George Parnham – in his opening statement, stated that she was on (my words here) an industrial strength cocktail of psychotropic drugs, and that in the words of one of the psychiatrists who will testify at the trial, was on a combination of drugs they had never before seen. Despite the fact that the success rate for the insanity defense in Texas is near ZERO (.008 percent), the defense is still using it, for they know that a conviction on Capital Murder means a trip to the Death Chamber for their client, which would suit me and most other folks more than just fine. As the father of a six-year old child, I’d even volunteer to strap her to the gurney myself, as would most other parents of small children.

What perhaps is going to be the most damaging blow to the defense in the battle of the psychiatrists is whom the State is calling to the stand. In their bullpen is Dr. Park Dietz, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, a member of the New York State Forensics Unit and one of the leading profilers for the FBI as well as a technical advisor for among other shows, Law & Order. This guy’s credentials are about as good as they get, thus putting Yates’ chance of either an acquittal or an insanity finding at just about zero.

So while the media gives daily reports on this trial, we now have the sad facts coming out on this tale, and unfortunately there will be those who will use this to further stigmatize any and all who suffer from any form of mental illness however slight, and that is not fair however you may choose to look at it.

There are millions of people in America and other countries suffering from mental illness in varying degrees, and most of them function quite well under supervision of their doctors. I suffer from mental illness myself in the form of bipolar affective disorder and have been under the care of a doctor for 10 years. Although it took a while to find the right ‘chemical cocktail’ (as I call it), my life is and has been a good one, and the quality of that life continues to improve with each passing day.

By her own admission as stated by her attorney in opening arguments, Andrea Yates’ behavior had become more and more erratic, even going so far as to be involuntarily detained at an inpatient psychiatric facility – not once, but twice; yet that had apparently done no good, for if it had, there would be five beautiful children still enjoying life and their mother would not be facing the possibility of looking down the other end of a syringe.

As I said in the original piece I wrote last summer, I will say it again now: Call me cruel if you want; brand me insensitive if you wish. The fact of the matter is that I believe that Andrea Yates should not only be sentenced to die for the slaughter of her family, she should not get off the hook easily for what she did by getting a lethal injection. Dogs that get put to sleep go down by lethal injection. Yates’ atrocities are of such severity that for her, they should fire up the electric chair and plug her in.