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Insanity Defense Of Andrea Yates

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Houston, Texas, was home to Andrea Yates; a wife and a mother to Randy Yates and their five children. One morning in the year 2001, she dialed, 911 breathing heavily into the phone “I need a police officer,” (O’Malley). The news over Andrea Yates drowning her children spread like wildfire across the nation, horrifying Americans. Following her confession, she pleaded innocent with the “Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity” (NGRI) plea, yet the jury rejected her appeal and found her guilty of five accounts of first-degree murder. However, in the retrial of 2006, Yates’ abiding murder convictions were overturned, and Andrea Yates was found NGRI. The change in her verdict instigated disputes whether Andrea Yates was in fact mentally “insane” or criminally aware of her acts and avoiding her consequences. …show more content…

Dr. Mark Nolan, Senior Lecturer at ANU College of Law, says that the NGRI plea “enables defendants to avoid criminal liability and standard criminal punishment” (Nolan 8). The main disagreement with America is the focus whether if the “guilty defendant” pursues to misuse the “Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity” as an alternative to imprisonment or if the criminally accused was at the time of committing the crime “clinically insane” and in need psychotherapy. Therefore, during this discussion of opposing viewpoints concerning the insanity defense being misused or ethical are going to be

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After reading chapters one and two of the Psychology in Everyday Life book and learning about the four big ideas in psychology, and also while trying to figure out the contributing factors of Andrea Yates’ murder of her children. I have to focus in on and think about big idea two, the biopsychosocial approach, that integrates three levels which are biological, psychological and social/cultural; all together these factors influence and give insight into behavior and mental processes. (CITE BOOK) After reviewing these, the psychological factors that I believe to have contributed to Andrea Yates’ murder of her children are, firstly biological, Andrea had a genetic predispositions, which means Andrea had an increased likelihood of developing

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When it comes to the case Miller V. State, I believe that trial court refused to give the jury instructions regarding the insanity defense, which the defendant wished to have comunicated, because they wanted the jury to be able to decide imoartially. Miller was examined by three medical experts and they concluded that Miller satisfied the M'naughten insanity test when he stabbed Goring. The district court had instructed the jury to determine whether Miller was actually legally insane when he stabbed Goring. They wanted the jury to find proof of insanity at that time, and to also consider Miller's mental condition "before and after the killing to throw light on what Miller's mental condition was at the time of the killing" (Schmalleger

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There is also an inclination to believe that if he had not suffered from this state, then the offence would not have been committed, specially not in the barbaric way it was done. Thus, it cannot be concluded that the accused willfully preformed the act, nor that the mens rea and the actus reus coincided while he was not in a psychotic state. (Roach, 113) Related to this finding is another element that supports the verdict of the Honorable Judge, which is the Principle of Fundamental Justice that states that no one should be “punished for morally involuntary actions.” (Roach, 82) A person who successfully raises the mental disorder defence is considered to be morally innocent of the act because they were not acting freely, in this case, free from psychotic ideations.

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This story Is about Casey Anthony And the murder case of her daughter Caylee Anthony. Casey was 20 years old When she had Caylee. It appeared that Casey and Caylee had a normal loving mother-and-daughter relationship with the naked eye. But Casey was still young and trying to figure out and live out her young life. Therefore, she wasn’t ready for kids mentally

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Andrea Yates conviction was a unjust trial at first and later on the conviction changed to a just one. She was convicted for the murders of her children (Chan). She suffered from depression and had tried to commit suicide (Chan). Yates was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison (Chan). This convictions was later over turned and she wasn’t found guilty anymore because, of insanity (Chan).

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The Andrea Yates Case: The Insanity Defense On June 20, 2001, in Houston, Texas, Andrea Pia Yates was charged with the murder of her five children, which she drowned in the bathtub one at a time, and was found not guilty by reason of insanity under the Texas Law Insanity Defense. The legislative history of the Texas Law Insanity Defense begins with the British test for right and wrong, known as the M’Naghten, being adopted in the majority of American states. The M’Naghten test for right and wrong required a mental disease that kept the defendant from controlling their actions and that cognitive impairment is the cause for the defective reasoning of what is right and what is wrong. Beginning in 1973, Texas adopted the American Law Institute’s

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A case can be changed due to the call of the insanity plea. Nevertheless, This may cause a possible difference to the charge of the defence. In a court case dealing with murder such as the issue with the Clutter family, the Insanity plea was brought into thought to test if Perry and Dick were mentally stable during that time. By definition, the insanity plea is an argument stating the defense was not responsible for their actions due to a psychiatric disease at the time of the act, consequently, making him/her unaware of the occurring actions moreover the later consequences. In the book, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the main characters Perry and Dick killed the Clutter family committing the crime of the century.

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There has been many law changes for determining insanity in the legal setting. The first major law change was the case of Andrea Yates who pleaded insanity after killing her five kids. Ms Yate suffered from postpartum mental illness, which at that time qualified for insanity. Her case was extremely conversional because many people believe that she knew the differences from right and wrong. Therefore, resulting into an outrage of people and a change in the law for insanity.

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Not calling 911 and hiding the body was morally and criminally wrong. The lack of remorse bothered me as an utter disregard for her dead daughter and selfishness unparalleled. I believe that the prosecution’s putting the death

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In 2001, the nation was shocked into questioning the systems in which help the mentally ill. On June 20th, seemly picture perfect housewife, Andrea Yates, drowned her five children in the bathtub. Rusty Yates, Andrea’s husband, left for his job prior to his mother being able to arrive to the Yates household to help oversee Andrea and her children. For several years prior, after her first child, Andrea had come down with postpartum depression. With each and every pregnancy, it became far worse until she had develop postpartum psychosis.

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In June of 2001, the entire nation was deeply disturbed by the horrific acts committed by a suburban Texas housewife, and mother of five. Andrea Yates had drowned all five of her young children in the bathtub of their home. Yates called the authorities and her husband Rusty Yates to the home, where she confessed to killing her children. According to Faith McLellan of the Lancet Medical Journal, Andrea Yates’s bizarre reasoning behind this horrific act was because she believed to have been marked by Satan, and that in order to save her children from hell she needed to take their lives (McLellan, 2006). Yates pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity on the basis of mental defect due to postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis.

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I feel a little bit of sympathy towards Andrea Yates, but not so much. The reason is because although Andrea did have mental problems which must have been hard to deal with while taking care of kids I do still believe she was still fully capable of understanding that her actions were wrong. Andrea lived a normal life and showed promise that she would lead a successful life. Andrea grew up with loving parents, she got good grades, and she was liked by everybody, and had a career going for her as a nurse.

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The court dismisses the plea quickly because “the justice system ignores psychosocial complexities and histories in favor of black and white definitions of right and wrong” (Myers). The justice system in this time very rarely accepted pleas of insanity or mental illness. Capote wrote that “after an hour’s conversation with the defendants, the doctor rule[d] out that neither man

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In “The Brain on Trial”, David Eagleman claims that the justice system needs to change its sentencing policies due to the discoveries of neurobiological diseases that cause their sufferers to behave in socially unacceptable ways and/or commit crimes. Eagleman uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to present his viewpoint. The most important one is his appeal to logic. By using mostly examples, along with direct address to the readers, Eagleman is able to argue that the legal system has to modify its sentencing policies to take into account the advances made in neuroscience due to the increase in the amount of accused and/or convicted people who have been found to have harbored some kind of brain disease or damage. Eagleman

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On the morning of June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates murdered all five of her children by drowning them in her household’s bathtub while her husband was away. After the birth of her 4th child, Yates became diagnosed with postpartum depression and this carried on after the birth of her 5th. Yates indicated the killing of her children was due to the fact that she was seeing violent images and hearing voices telling her to get a knife, or even hearing a voice she believed to be the devil that told her he was after her children. Such voices can be explained by the psychodynamic perspective that Yates’ behavior of killing her children was a result of these unconscious voices that were demanding her to take such violent action. Growing obsessively religious over the years, Yates followed extreme Christian views presented by the

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