Capital murder trial for Houston mother begins
By Pam Easton
Associated Press

HOUSTON — Andrea Yates, the Houston mother accused of drowning her children, faced for the first time Monday the 12 men and women who are to decide her fate as her capital murder trial began.

Jurors will have to decide if Yates, 37, had a severe mental illness that kept her from knowing right from wrong when she drowned each of her five children in their bathtub last summer.

Prosecutor Joe Owmby told jurors in his opening statement that Yates is presumed innocent until proven guilty, but under Texas law the defense must prove she is insane.

“She is presumed to be sane, to know right from wrong,” Owmby said. “The state bears no burden of proof to prove she was sane.”

Yates faces two capital murder charges in the June 20 drowning deaths of three of her five children. Attorneys trying to save her from a death sentence say the former nurse turned stay-at-home mom is innocent by reason of insanity.

Yates’ lawyers must show she suffered from a severe mental disease or defect which prevented her from knowing it was wrong to hold each of her five children beneath water until they could no longer breathe.

“The testimony in this case will support the position that Andrea Pia Yates was, on June 10th, 2001, suffering from a severe case of psychosis,” defense attorney George Parnham told jurors in his opening comments Monday. “Postpartum depression with psychotic features, as will be testified to from the stand, is the cruelest and most severe of mental illnesses. It takes the very nature and essence of motherhood — to nurture, to protect and to love — and changes the reality.”

Getting jurors into Yates’ head at the time of the killings with hopes they will understand why she drowned her five children will be among the defense’s largest hurdles, legal experts say.

“Her argument is that a reasonable person with her perception would take the position that society, if it only understood, would regard her act as acceptable,” University of Texas law professor George Dix said.

Before jurors get to evidence about Yates’ mental state at the time of the drownings, they will hear the details of them.

Prosecutors will be the first to lay out their case, including Yates’ 911 call shortly after she finished drowning her last child, Noah, 7, whose body was discovered face down in a bathtub half full of water.

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