Andrea Yates

LET'S GO back quite a few years, to the early part of the last century. Emma Buck, a widow, tries to support her three children the best way she knows how. Some days, she appeals to local charities in her pre-Depression Virginia community for support. Other days, she turns to prostitution. Virginia authorities say Buck can't care for her kids and take them from her. Her daughter, Carrie Buck, goes to live with J.T. Dobbs and his wife, Alice. Years later, in April 1920, Emma Buck is committed to the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and the Feebleminded in Lynchburg.

HOUSTON -- Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who drowned her five children in a bathtub, likely will be retried next year after the state's highest criminal court yesterday upheld a lower court's decision to toss out the murder convictions against her. "We are very close to being back to square one, meaning a retrial," her lawyer, George Parnham, said. "It's a real good feeling that is tempered by our concern. Can you imagine the impact on her to hear once again what another Andrea Yates did in 2001?

MOST PEOPLE cannot fathom the horror of what Andrea Yates did to her children: drowning them in the family bathtub, one by one. Even chasing down the oldest one, age 7, in order to do it. And no one doubts that Andrea Yates is guilty - least of all, apparently, the Texas jury that convicted her of murder Tuesday after less than four hours of deliberation. But that jury got it wrong, because Andrea Yates is not guilty of being a murderer, she is guilty of being mentally ill. Virtually no one has doubted that Mrs. Yates is insane; the jail psychiatrist who interviewed her the day after the killings called her one of the most severely mentally ill people she had ever examined.

The World The official death toll from the Asian tsunami climbed to about 150,000 and authorities held out little hope for tens of thousands still missing. Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a group of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, killing one and wounding three, a day after militant leaders in the area told Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas they were ready to abide by a cease-fire. The Nation An appeals court overturned the murder conviction of Andrea Yates (right)

HOUSTON -- Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who drowned her five children in a bathtub, likely will be retried next year after the state's highest criminal court yesterday upheld a lower court's decision to toss out the murder convictions against her. "We are very close to being back to square one, meaning a retrial," her lawyer, George Parnham, said. "It's a real good feeling that is tempered by our concern. Can you imagine the impact on her to hear once again what another Andrea Yates did in 2001?

ON THE MORNING OF June 20, 2001, shortly after her husband, Rusty, left for his job at NASA in Houston, Andrea Yates drew a tub full of water in the guest bathroom and, one by one, held her five children face down in the water until they stopped struggling and drowned. She carefully placed the bodies of John, Paul, Luke and 6-month-old Mary on a bed and covered them with a sheet. The oldest, 7-year-old Noah, was the last to die. He put up a fight, and his body was left floating in the tub. Calmly, Andrea Yates called 911 and asked for a policeman to come to the house.

HOUSTON - If ever a man stood alone, it was Russell Yates, who paced at the head of a dim brown church and choked down sobs long enough to eulogize his murdered children yesterday morning. The five of them lay in tiny white caskets covered with blankets of roses. His wife sat across town, locked in a jail cell on charges of systematically drowning Mary, Luke, Paul, John and Noah in the bathtub. "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and that's exactly what he's done," the 36-year-old computer expert said, wiping at his cheeks.

Maryland offenders deemed legally insane confined for treatment We are writing to correct two errors in The Sun's article "Insanity defense hard to use, Maryland experts say" (March 14). First, the article reports that a study conducted in Baltimore in 1991 showed that only eight individuals in Maryland were successful in their use of the insanity defense that year. In fact, that study was limited to cases in Baltimore City; statewide, approximately 50 individuals were found not criminally responsible (or legally "insane")

THAT WE are daily drowning in falsehood and misconception is usually harmless, so long as we see the world around us primarily as entertainment. Our twin obsessions with politics and celebrity ensure that we only occasionally confront anything resembling the truth. Lately, however, things have been worse than usual. A Texas jury has now decided that Andrea Yates -- a woman described by one of her treating doctors as "one of the sickest patients I've ever seen" -- should get life in prison for killing her children.

BOSTON -- Unless you live in northern Texas, you might have missed the story. The dateline was Throckmorton, and it was only a paragraph long. A father killed his three children as he was returning them from a custodial visit to their mother. The deaths of Corie, Casey and Chase Smallwood didn't make the evening news. There are no debates on whether their father, James, was sane. No one will ask whether he deserves the death penalty for shooting his children -- because he administered that penalty to himself.

ON THE MORNING OF June 20, 2001, shortly after her husband, Rusty, left for his job at NASA in Houston, Andrea Yates drew a tub full of water in the guest bathroom and, one by one, held her five children face down in the water until they stopped struggling and drowned. She carefully placed the bodies of John, Paul, Luke and 6-month-old Mary on a bed and covered them with a sheet. The oldest, 7-year-old Noah, was the last to die. He put up a fight, and his body was left floating in the tub. Calmly, Andrea Yates called 911 and asked for a policeman to come to the house.

Maryland offenders deemed legally insane confined for treatment We are writing to correct two errors in The Sun's article "Insanity defense hard to use, Maryland experts say" (March 14). First, the article reports that a study conducted in Baltimore in 1991 showed that only eight individuals in Maryland were successful in their use of the insanity defense that year. In fact, that study was limited to cases in Baltimore City; statewide, approximately 50 individuals were found not criminally responsible (or legally "insane")

THAT WE are daily drowning in falsehood and misconception is usually harmless, so long as we see the world around us primarily as entertainment. Our twin obsessions with politics and celebrity ensure that we only occasionally confront anything resembling the truth. Lately, however, things have been worse than usual. A Texas jury has now decided that Andrea Yates -- a woman described by one of her treating doctors as "one of the sickest patients I've ever seen" -- should get life in prison for killing her children.

DENVER -- The Andrea Yates trial meant a lot of things to a lot of different people. It spurred a national debate over how the mentally ill are treated in our justice system. It generated much awareness and discussion of the nature of post-partum illnesses, schizophrenia and even filicide -- the troubling phenomenon in which parents kill their own children. It became a symbol for both victims' and women's rights groups. And, of course, it focused national attention on the insanity defense.

LET'S GO back quite a few years, to the early part of the last century. Emma Buck, a widow, tries to support her three children the best way she knows how. Some days, she appeals to local charities in her pre-Depression Virginia community for support. Other days, she turns to prostitution. Virginia authorities say Buck can't care for her kids and take them from her. Her daughter, Carrie Buck, goes to live with J.T. Dobbs and his wife, Alice. Years later, in April 1920, Emma Buck is committed to the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and the Feebleminded in Lynchburg.

MOST PEOPLE cannot fathom the horror of what Andrea Yates did to her children: drowning them in the family bathtub, one by one. Even chasing down the oldest one, age 7, in order to do it. And no one doubts that Andrea Yates is guilty - least of all, apparently, the Texas jury that convicted her of murder Tuesday after less than four hours of deliberation. But that jury got it wrong, because Andrea Yates is not guilty of being a murderer, she is guilty of being mentally ill. Virtually no one has doubted that Mrs. Yates is insane; the jail psychiatrist who interviewed her the day after the killings called her one of the most severely mentally ill people she had ever examined.

The World The official death toll from the Asian tsunami climbed to about 150,000 and authorities held out little hope for tens of thousands still missing. Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a group of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, killing one and wounding three, a day after militant leaders in the area told Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas they were ready to abide by a cease-fire. The Nation An appeals court overturned the murder conviction of Andrea Yates (right)

DENVER -- The Andrea Yates trial meant a lot of things to a lot of different people. It spurred a national debate over how the mentally ill are treated in our justice system. It generated much awareness and discussion of the nature of post-partum illnesses, schizophrenia and even filicide -- the troubling phenomenon in which parents kill their own children. It became a symbol for both victims' and women's rights groups. And, of course, it focused national attention on the insanity defense.

BOSTON -- Unless you live in northern Texas, you might have missed the story. The dateline was Throckmorton, and it was only a paragraph long. A father killed his three children as he was returning them from a custodial visit to their mother. The deaths of Corie, Casey and Chase Smallwood didn't make the evening news. There are no debates on whether their father, James, was sane. No one will ask whether he deserves the death penalty for shooting his children -- because he administered that penalty to himself.

Depressed mothers can lose the ability to control their acts Since when does being a professor of communications qualify someone as an expert on psychotic depression? Indeed, the column by Richard Vatz and Lee S. Weinberg about Andrea Yates demonstrates irresponsible communication at its worst ("Mother must answer for her deadly choice," Opinion * Commentary, Jan. 7). Mr. Vatz and Mr. Weinberg invent possible rational explanations for Ms. Yates' behavior, yet they fail to explain or even mention the testimony in the pretrial competency hearing, and her husband's interview on 60 Minutes, in which Ms. Yates is described as hallucinating, delusional and mentally deteriorating immediately before and after the killings.