![]() Defence lawyers called Dr Phillip Resnick, a leading forensic psychiatrist, as their expert witness. Dr Mohammed Saeed, her treating psychiatrist, said, “We hospitalised her because I thought filling the bathtub was an indication she might be suicidal.” Yates was released on 14 May.ĭr Saeed, who examined Yates again on 18 June, two days before she drowned her children, said he saw no evidence of psychosis then. However, she was returned to the facility for additional care on 4 May, after she filled the family's bath with water a day earlier. Yates improved during her two week stay at Devereux, where she was treated with haloperidol, an antipsychotic. Dr Allbritton described Yates to defence lawyer George Parnham as “someone who had declined to the point of nonfunction, just there, a shell.” Three months before she drowned her children, Andrea Yates was admitted to Devereux Texas Treatment Center, and psychiatrist Dr Ellen Allbritton said she immediately recognised her as someone who required inpatient treatment. ![]() Psychiatrist Dr Eileen Starbranch warned Andrea Yates and her husband against having more children after she treated Andrea in 1999 for postpartum depression that had resulted in two hospitalisations and two suicide attempts.īut Dr Starbranch testified, “Rusty Yates and Andrea wanted as many children as nature would allow.” The defence had submitted much evidence to show that Yates had suffered from mental illness for at least two years before she drowned her children. This states that in order to prove insanity the person must be shown to have been so ill as either not to know what they were doing or, if they did know, that they did not know it was wrong. Defence lawyers for Yates offered a plea of insanity to the jury, invoking the 19th century McNaughton rule. ![]() #YATERS GONNA YATE MEANING FULL#In the current trial the state of Texas has charged Yates with capital murder, after her full videotaped confession. But only last year a woman in Arkansas was executed after a similar case, said Ms Murdock. Some US states, such as Hawaii, have far more lenient laws than Texas in such cases and would allow treatment rather than a prison sentence or death penalty. In the United Kingdom, parliament introduced the Infanticide Act in 1922, which reduced the crime automatically from murder to manslaughter on the basis of insanity if a mother “had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to such child, but by reason thereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed.” This would enable her to receive treatment in a special hospital rather than being imprisoned. The bill, named after a woman who killed herself four months after the birth of her child while suffering postpartum psychosis, calls for more research and better services for women with postpartum mood disorders and depression. Her organisation is fighting for better provision for women with the condition and has the backing of Congressional representative Bobby Rush, who is supporting the Melanie Stokes Postpartum Bill. “We are totally against the execution of mentally ill mothers,” she said, admitting, “We are so much further behind than in the United Kingdom.” “It is horrific and barbaric,” said Sonia Murdock, president of Postpartum Support International, which provides support and information for women with the condition and carries out research. ![]() Despite a history of severe mental illness dating back to 1999, former nurse Andrea Yates, aged 37, living with her husband in Houston, Texas, could face the death penalty if she is found guilty. A US organisation has called for more research into postpartum depression and better services for women affected by the disorder, as the trial of a mother charged with capital murder for drowning her five children reached its final stages this week.Ī Texas jury has been hearing final arguments in the case of a woman who has admitted drowning her five children, who ranged in age from 6 months to 7 years, on 20 June 2001. ![]()
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