Jan. 7
TEXAS:
[my note----this story goes to the heart of the issue of arbitrariness in
(seeking) the death penalty]
Inmate avoids death for area girls' killings----Plea deal closes book on 3
children's abduction-slayings
Days before the start of his capital murder trial, an Ohio prison inmate
pleaded guilty Thursday to the abductions and slayings of 3 Dallas-area
girls more than 17 years ago.
David Elliott Penton was accused in the strangulation deaths of Roxann
Hope Reyes, 3, Christie Diane Proctor, 9, and Christi Lynn Meeks, 5. Jury
selection was to begin Monday in the Reyes case.
Mike Meeks, father of one of the victims, was incensed by David Penton's
plea deal. In a plea agreement with Collin County prosecutors, Mr. Penton,
47, avoided the death penalty by accepting a sentence that should keep him
behind bars for life. He is now convicted of killing five children,
including his own infant son.
"The man is a devil. He has no soul. He has no heart," said Tamela Lopez,
Roxann's mother, sobbing that she had hoped her daughter's killer would
die for his crime.
The agreement, approved by state District Judge Nathan White, comes almost
20 years after Christi Meeks disappeared during a game of hide-and-seek
outside her mother's Mesquite apartment complex. Her body was found almost
3 months later in Lake Texoma, and the slaying brought national attention
to the plight of missing and abducted children.
Christie Proctor's body was found in a south Plano field in April 1988,
more than 2 years after the fourth-grader was last seen walking from her
North Dallas apartment to a friend's house. Roxann Reyes was snatched from
an alley while playing outside her Garland apartment in November 1987. Her
body was found 6 months later in Murphy, east of Plano.
The girls' families said Thursday that they are consoled that their
daughters' killer is in custody, but they wanted Mr. Penton put to death
for his crimes.
"For 18 months, I've been told this man was going to die. I was told from
day one that this was a death penalty case," said Mike Meeks, Christi's
father. "They [prosecutors] are taking the easy way out, in my opinion."
Prosecutors said they agreed to the lesser punishment because they feared
that evidence showing that Mr. Penton may have been out of Texas when
Roxann was killed could hurt their case.
Before announcing the agreement Thursday, Greg Davis, Collin County first
assistant district attorney, met with the victims' families and the police
officers from Plano, Mesquite and Garland who had worked on the three
cases over the years.
"These people have just flat lied to me," Mr. Meeks said. "They walked in
there this morning and said they cannot try this case because they don't
think they can win."
Edwin King, lead defense attorney, said the plea agreement was a "fair
resolution" and called the state's evidence against Mr. Penton "very
thin." Mr. King said recent evidence found by the defense shows that Mr.
Penton received pay from another state during the time of one of the
murders.
He said that the guilty pleas were Mr. Penton's decision and that going to
trial would have been a gamble.
Gregg Gibbs, another defense attorney, said the new information was "not
rock solid, not bulletproof" but would have improved Mr. Penton's chances
at trial.
Ms. Lopez, who now lives in Ohio, said that the last time she saw Roxann,
her daughter gave her a handful of flowers she'd picked outside and kissed
her cheek. She still celebrates Roxann's birthday with a cake each January
and collects Beanie Babies for her. She would have been 21 this month.
Roxann had another handful of flowers when a playmate saw her get into a
car with a man after he promised her ice cream and candy. Roxann
apparently thought Mr. Penton was her father's friend because she had seen
him around their apartment complex, Ms. Lopez said.
"I won't ever forgive him," she said, "but I know she has. I'm just glad
he won't be able to hurt another."
Laura Proctor, Christie's mother, agreed. "He can harm no other child.
Essentially, he'll die in jail," she said.
The girl's father, Howard Sherrill, said "there is some sense of closure.
I personally would have preferred the death penalty." He added that he was
consoled by the idea that Mr. Penton will likely never be free.
When asked whether Mr. Penton was admitting to the crimes or only trying
to save his life, his attorney, Mr. King, replied, "That's between God,
Mr. Penton and three little girls."
Mr. Meeks said he had believed that police had his daughter's killer but
now isn't so sure.
"From what I got today, a guy can plead to anything," he said. "He wants
to save himself from being killed. I'm not even sure at this point that he
did it."
Mr. Davis, the assistant district attorney, said he believed that Mr.
Penton's confession was honest and "that he killed all three of these
murdered girls."
The prosecutor said he, too, wanted Mr. Penton to be sentenced to die.
"I think David Penton was very deserving of the death penalty," he said.
"His crimes were heinous."
Bill Hobson, assistant Mesquite police chief, investigated Christi's
disappearance. He said no case has moved him more in 33 years with the
department.
"It's kind of a quiet satisfaction in knowing that we've pursued this
thing for so many years and here's a successful conclusion," he said.
"There's still a lot of emotion in this case. But part of me feels that,
'OK, Christi, you can rest easy now.'"
Mr. Penton is serving a life sentence in Ohio for the abduction and
killing of 9-year-old Nydra Ross, who disappeared from her aunt's Columbus
home in 1988.
Under the agreement approved Thursday, he will complete his sentence in
Ohio, where he is eligible for parole in 2027. After completing his
punishment there, Mr. Penton will serve three consecutive life sentences
in Texas.
"In my opinion, he'll never see the ground in Ohio, much less Texas," said
Mr. Gibbs, his attorney.
For years, authorities suspected Mr. Penton in the three Dallas-area
slayings, in part because the Texas victims died in a fashion similar to
the Ohio girl. At least 2 of the Texas victims were sexually assaulted.
But investigators lacked enough evidence to charge the former Fort Hood
soldier, who was arrested by Ohio authorities in 1988.
Mr. Penton was honorably discharged from the Army in late 1985 in Killeen,
Texas. He pleaded guilty that year to manslaughter in the Bell County
death of his 1-month-old son. He fled during an appeal of his sentence,
and his whereabouts were unknown until his 1988 arrest in Ohio.
In 2003, Plano police forwarded charges against Mr. Penton to Collin
County prosecutors, declining to publicly reveal what new evidence
connected the inmate with the local killings.
He was extradited to Texas in 2003 after a Collin County grand jury
indicted him on 3 counts of capital murder.
Prosecutors said Thursday that a collection of evidence, including the
words of jailhouse snitches in Ohio, led them to seek the indictment
against Mr. Penton.
Prosecutors said Mr. Penton told fellow inmates in Ohio about the Texas
cases. Those inmates came forward with information about the deaths and
were not given any deals in return, Mr. Davis said.
A TIMELINE OF DAVID PENTON'S CRIMES
Jan. 19, 1985: Five-year-old Christi Lynn Meeks is abducted while playing
outside her mother's apartment in Mesquite.
April 3, 1985: Christi's body is found floating in Lake Texoma.
Feb. 15, 1986: Christie Diane Proctor, 9, of North Dallas is reported
missing by her family. She was last seen walking to a friend's house.
Nov. 3, 1987: 3-year-old Roxann Hope Reyes is abducted from behind her
mother's Garland home at the Meadow Terrace Apartments while playing with
a friend in the late afternoon.
April 1988: Christie Proctor's body is found in a south Plano field more
than 2 years after her disappearance. About the same time, David Elliott
Penton is arrested in the slaying of Nydra Ross, 9, of Dayton, Ohio.
May 19, 1988: The body of Roxann Reyes is found in Murphy, just east of
Plano.
Aug. 15, 1988: Area detectives acknowledge that Mr. Penton is being
questioned in the deaths of the 3 Dallas-area girls, but they can't find
evidence that he was in Texas at the time of the abduction-slayings.
May 10, 1990: Mr. Penton is indicted on charges of kidnapping and killing
Nydra Ross.
1992: Mr. Penton is convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing
Nydra. He will be eligible for parole in 2027.
May 21, 2003: Plano police charge Mr. Penton in the abduction-slayings of
Christi Meeks, Christie Proctor and Roxann Reyes. Collin County
authorities say that if Mr. Penton is indicted on the charges, they will
seek the death penalty.
June 17, 2003: A Collin County grand jury indicts Mr. Penton in the
abduction-slayings of the 3 girls.
Aug. 2003: Mr. Penton is extradited to Texas.
January 2004: A jury trial is scheduled in the Reyes case.
Jan. 6, 2005: Mr. Penton pleads guilty to the murders of the 3 Dallas-area
girls. He will remain in prison for life, first finishing his sentence in
Ohio before facing his sentence in Texas.
(source: Dallas Morning News)
***********************
Advocates, experts favor Yates ruling -- Others see few changes
forthcoming
Although Andrea Yates capital murder conviction was overturned on a
procedural error, mental health advocates viewed Thursdays ruling as a
fresh opportunity to prove the Houston mother was insane when she drowned
her children.
A Texas appellate court ruled that false testimony by prosecution expert
Park Dietz violated Yates rights in the 2002 trial. The court said the
case should be returned to the state court for further proceedings, which
could include a new trial.
The court did not rule on the larger question of the constitutionality of
putting mentally ill defendants on trial.
"Were ecstatic," said Betsy Schwartz, executive director for the Yates
Children Memorial Fund for Women's Mental Health Education.
"It's a great day for people who have mental illnesses because finally
Andrea's case will be dealt with, realizing the severity of her mental
illness."
After rejecting an insanity defense, jurors sentenced Yates to life in
prison in the 2001 deaths of three of her children, who were drowned in
the bathtub at their Houston home. She was not tried in the deaths of the
other 2 children.
Schwartz said she would like to see Yates get help in a treatment
facility, rather than prison.
The case has "made people more aware of what postpartum psychosis is and
how the law needs to treat someone's illness in a different way than they
treat other criminal acts," she said. "This also speaks to the important
opportunity the Texas Legislature has to approve a bill that would make
modifications to the legal definition of insanity."
Dr. Joseph Valenti was chairman of the Texas Medical Association's
committee on maternal and perinatal care when the Andrea Yates Law went
into effect in 2003. It requires hospitals, birthing centers, doctors and
midwives to provide pregnant women or new mothers with a list of places
that provide postpartum counseling.
Now in private practice in Denton, he said about 1 in 5 of his patients
suffers from some sort of postpartum depression.
"It's very difficult for a society that doesn't know that much about
postpartum depression to rationalize the situation," Valenti said. "It's
not just boo-hooing and feeling bad. It can change into a psychosis
situation."
Denise Brady, an attorney and public policy analyst for the Mental Health
Association in Texas, applauded the overturned conviction. She said she
was concerned about Yates having to withstand another trial and suggested
a plea bargain would be a better outcome for all concerned.
"I still think there is a sentiment out here that these are just bad
mothers or women who got angry or impatient and not a real appreciation of
how significant this depression can be," she said. "To put someone in a
punishment environment like prison when they are so clearly mentally ill
at the time of the crime is just wrong and immoral. Its not in the spirit
and interest of the law."
Some advocates have called for the creation of a "guilty but insane"
finding, saying Texans might find it more acceptable than acquittal and it
would ensure that the severely mentally ill get proper treatment and
supervision.
Other legal experts said that a Yates retrial likely would have little
effect on Texas law.
"They reversed on a single issue, which was Park Dietz's testimony ... but
they didnt address any of the other issues," said Professor David Dow of
the University of Houston.
Two other cases in which Texas mothers killed their children since the
Yates case have resulted in verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity.
In August, Collin County jurors decided Plano homemaker Lisa Diaz's
psychotic delusions left her unaware that it was wrong to drown her two
young daughters.
And Deanna Laney, who killed her two sons and maimed a third in 2003, has
been undergoing treatment at Vernon State Hospital since shortly after the
Tyler jury returned its verdict last year.
Another high-profile capital murder case is pending.
Dena Schlosser of Plano admitted Nov. 22 that she severed the arms of her
10-month-old daughter, who died shortly afterward at a hospital. Schlosser
had been treated for postpartum depression earlier in the year.
The lead prosecutor in Yates case, Harris County Assistant District
Attorney Joe Owmby, said he was appealing the decision. He would not
comment on the possibility of a new trial.
Yates would not be eligible for lethal injection in a 2nd trial because
the jury didnt sentence her to death the 1st time; the U.S. Supreme Court
said that constitutes double jeopardy in capital cases, said Diane
Beckham, senior staff counsel for the Texas District and County Attorneys
Association.
However, if prosecutors decided to try her for the deaths of her other 2
children, they could raise the death penalty issue, Beckham said.
"If you are the prosecution, you argue that the circumstances were more
egregious than they were for the other - kids and if you are the defense
you argue that the double jeopardy should apply in the same course of
events," she said.
Laney's attorney, F.R. "Buck" Files Jr., said if Yates were retried, her
attorneys still would have to overcome jurors prejudice against acquitting
by reason of insanity.
"Jurors have difficulty with the insanity defense under the best
circumstances," he said. "Insanity is never a reason to kill your kids. It
only explains why you killed your children."
Jurors also do not understand the consequences of an acquittal, he said.
"There is always speculation that when you say 'not guilty by reason of
insanity that the defendant simply walks out the courtroom door and that
just isnt the case," Files said.
Brady said her colleagues are urging courts to keep the "not guilty by
reason of insanity" plea. But jurors should be better informed of the
consequences, she said.
"We do think improvements to the law, however, would make a difference. If
you make it clear that judge retains authority over that person for as
long if they went to prison and that they would stay on their medications,
it would help," she said.
Files said the questions about Dietzs testimony could be a big boost to
Yates' case.
Dietz had testified that the drownings of the children in their bathtub at
home was similar to an episode of the TV show Law and Order that aired
before Yates acted. It later was learned that no such episode existed.
"The only mental health expert who testified she knew right from wrong was
Dietz and he's been horribly discredited," Files said. "I'm sure (attorney
George) Parnham will give jurors, if there is a new trial, every reason in
the world to find Yates not guilty by reason of insanity."
Robert Udashen, a Plano defense attorney who represented Lisa Diaz, said
he felt fairly certain the case would be retried, but agreed that
persuading jurors to believe a clients insanity is another matter.
He said he experienced a backlash among some potential jurors in the Diaz
case who were appalled that Laney had been acquitted of killing her sons.
Other jurors believed the insanity defense was used frequently, and
Udashen said he had to explain that insanity was raised in about 1 % of
all cases and even fewer are acquitted.
"Because insanity verdicts are so hard to win, you really have to focus on
the mental illness part of it by explaining that it is a disease and that
the person didnt know they were doing something wrong," Udashen said.
"There will be a lot of people who show up on that jury who are not
willing to accept insanity as a defense, no matter what you do."
One person who objects to the insanity defense is Dianne Clements,
executive director of the Houston-based victim advocacy group Justice for
All. Yates should be tried and convicted again, she said.
"I know why the jury found her guilty and it had nothing to do with Park
Deitzs testimony, but with how she murdered her children," said Clements,
who attended the trial. "There was strong, relentless testimony to her
mental health but the jury didnt buy it. They want to create some
misplaced sympathy for this woman who brutally murdered her 5 children.
Its very frustrating."
(source: Denton Record Chronicle)
****************************
PLEA FOR LEGAL SANITY----Drop capital murder charges against Yates
Clear Lake stay-at-home mom Andrea Yates, who drowned her 5 children in
the bathtub, was a diagnosed delusional schizophrenic who suffered from
postpartum depression before the drownings. Medical experts documented her
continuing mental illness after her conviction and imprisonment. If there
was ever a case that justified a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict,
this was it. Only Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal and his
hang 'em high prosecutors would argue that Yates became legally sane at
the moment she killed her children.
However, Yates' obvious insanity wasn't the reason the Texas 1st Court of
Appeals threw out her conviction Thursday. Writing for the court, Justice
Sam Nuchia, a former Houston police chief, found that false testimony by a
prosecution medical expert had potentially biased the jury and violated
Yates' rights. Psychiatrist Parker Dietz had testified that Yates had
patterned the killing of her children on a Law and Order episode with a
similar plot, implying she acted with premeditation. Right after the jury
convicted her, defense attorneys learned Yates couldn't have seen such an
episode because it never existed.
It's difficult to feel compassion for a child killer, but the facts in
this case argue that Andrea Yates was as much a victim of her illness as
were her children. Witnesses at her trial documented multiple suicide
attempts, depression, delusions and her continuing obsession that she had
to kill her children to save them from hell.
Shortly after the verdict nearly 2 years ago, American Civil Liberties
Union attorney Annette Lamoreaux told the Chronicle that the district
attorney's handling of the Yates case "makes us look barbaric. ... The
international community looks at Harris County, in a sense, the way we
looked at South Africa during the days of apartheid."
Expending court time on another legal circus makes no sense if the end
result is the imprisonment of a desperately ill woman. Prosecutors should
meet with Yates' attorneys to negotiate a plea agreement that protects the
public, but also allows Yates badly needed treatment in a nonprison
psychiatric facility.
Such sane legal solutions happen on Law and Order episodes that actually
exist. Maybe it's District Attorney Rosenthal, rather than Andrea Yates,
who should have been watching the show for pointers.
(source: Editorial, Houston Chronicle)
****************************
Doctor's reputation takes a hit----Colleagues can't believe Dietz gave
wrong testimony
In the rarefied domain of forensic psychiatry, few names shine as brightly
as Park Dietz, the California doctor whose testimony has figured in some
of the most notorious criminal cases of the past 2 decades.
Though Dietz most often appears as a prosecution witness - one who finds
legal sanity in the most inexplicable acts - his peers have rarely found
reason to publicly take issue with his work. Unlike the late James
Grigson, the Texas psychiatrist whose testimony on behalf of prosecutors
earned him the moniker "Dr. Death" and got him kicked out of two
professional associations, Dietz has been praised by opposing counsel for
his professionalism.
"He is an unbelievable expert, somebody I have a great deal of respect for
despite the fact that he disagreed with our experts," Gerald Boyle,
attorney for serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, told the Houston Chronicle on
the eve of Andrea Yates' 2002 capital murder trial after the drowning of
her five children.
Yates' case, however, is one Dietz likely wants to forget. His reputation
took a hit when it was discovered that part of his testimony was not true.
And when the 1st Texas Court of Appeals used his mistake to overturn her
conviction Thursday, Dietz was making headlines for the wrong reasons.
"In a case like this, you ought to be very, very sure that the testimony
you are giving is accurate," said Lucy Puryear, a forensic psychiatrist at
Baylor College of Medicine who testified in Yates' defense. "I was
incredulous that in a case where someone's life depended on it, that he
could give testimony that was wrong, and so egregiously wrong it could
have had an influence on the decision of the jury."
High-profile cases
Because he has been at the center of so many high-profile cases, from
Dahmer to presidential assailant John Hinckley Jr. to "Unabomber" Ted
Kaczynski, Dietz has become a celebrity. He has testified in all 50 states
and consulted on numerous movies and for NBC's long-running television
series Law & Order.
It was Dietz's reference to that series, specifically to an episode he
said was about a child-killing mom similar to Yates, that undid her
capital murder conviction. Defense attorneys quickly learned the episode
did not exist. The 1st Texas Court of Appeals concluded that Dietz's
mention of it, as well as a prosecutor's subsequent claim that it inspired
Yates to commit a desperate act, could have had an impact on the jury's
verdict.
Dietz did not return phone calls for comment. In a prepared statement
issued Thursday, he said he made an honest mistake in part because he had
not anticipated answering questions about Law & Order.
"My spontaneous recall about particular shows is admittedly imperfect,"
Dietz said.
One of Puryear's Baylor colleagues, psychiatry professor Victor Scarano,
said Dietz's gaffe is hard to understand given his reputation for
thoroughness.
"He is usually very careful about what he does," Scarano said. "When we do
our work, we usually are very scrupulous that what we have are the facts.
We understand that we are going to be vulnerable to cross-examination, so
we have to have our ducks in a row. How this happened, I don't know.
Unfortunately, it will hurt him."
After the Yates case, Dietz was retained by Tyler prosecutors pursuing a
capital murder conviction for Deanna Laney, charged with bludgeoning two
of her children to death in 2003. Dietz surprised prosecutors by
concluding that Laney, who said she was acting under orders from God, was
"a textbook case" of insanity. Laney was found not guilty.
That shows he's not just a gun for hire, supporters say.
"Dietz is to my knowledge just as honest and ethical as he can be," said
William Reid, a Texas forensic psychiatrist who, like Dietz, has served as
president of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. "He has felt
extremely badly about his error. I've talked to him personally about it
and heard him speak to others."
Reid said he did not think the mistake ultimately will affect Dietz's
credibility or his popularity as a witness.
"It was an accident on his part," Reid said. "He did give an off-the-cuff
answer that there had been this episode. The person who took it to the
next level and said (Yates) had seen it was the prosecutor."
'Extreme focus'
Off the cuff hardly squares with Dietz's reputation. Prosecutors who have
worked with him said he gets to know the facts of a case inside out and
prepares his testimony carefully. Dietz himself once told an interviewer
that when he enters the witness box, "I'm in a state of extreme focus."
Dietz has at times drawn the ire of some in his profession for the
narrowness of his views on insanity. Though usually willing to concede
mental illness, as in Yates' case, he rarely concludes that defendants
meet the legal standard of insane.
"I draw a crisp line between psychotic mental illness and other
disorders," he said in a 1994 interview with Johns Hopkins magazine.
In another interview seven years later with Psychology Today, he
elaborated.
"With rare exceptions, people are responsible for what they do," Dietz
said. "Killers seldom meet the legal standard for insanity, which is quite
different from the way most people use the word every day. Killers may be
disturbed, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can't tell right from
wrong or are compelled to maim or murder."
Under Texas law, a jury can find someone legally insane only if the person
had a severe mental disorder and could not tell right from wrong when the
crime was committed.
After the trial, some jurors said the fact Yates called police after the
drownings proved she knew it was wrong.
****************************
Yates wins: Shrink was delusional
Perhaps irony is the best way for rational people to deal with an insane
world.
That, I think, is the lesson from the 1st Texas Court of Appeals' reversal
of Andrea Yates' conviction.
The first three pages lay out a powerfully succinct and persuasive
argument (though the justices wouldn't term it so) that Yates was
terribly, terribly insane.
There's a suicide attempt by pills, an incident in which her husband finds
her with a knife at her throat, a hospital admission in which she speaks
of voices beginning with the birth of her first child, a psychiatrist
classifying her as among the five sickest patients she had ever seen.
There's a warning that more babies will lead to more psychotic episodes, a
further decline after the death of her father, another hospitalization,
catatonic states, a suicide watch, a psychiatrist's recommendation upon
her release that she not be left alone with her children, her scratching
of her head so much that she caused bald spots, her failure to eat, a
recommendation for electroconvulsive therapy.
Two bits of serendipity
Then came the drownings of her 5 children and Andrea Yates' calling of
police and her "quiet and cooperative" behavior with them.
This devastating section of the opinion concludes that four of the five
psychiatrists and the one psychologist who interviewed Yates after she
killed her children testified that she "did not know right from wrong, was
incapable of knowing what she did was wrong, or believed that her acts
were right."
Yet the reversal has nothing to do with the testimony of these 5 experts.
It has to do with 2 bits of serendipity regarding the testimony of the 5th
psychiatrist, the one that testified Yates did know right from wrong.
The 1st bit of serendipity is that Dr. Park Dietz, one of the nation's
leading professional testifiers in criminal insanity cases, veered from
his prepared testimony in response to a question from Yates' defense
attorney.
Defense attorney stunned
Dietz said he had been a consultant on an episode of television's Law &
Order in which there was "a woman with postpartum depression who drowned
her children in the bathtub and was found insane and it was aired shortly
before the crime occurred."
The defense attorney, George Parnham, appeared stunned by this answer and
quickly changed the subject. Law & Order was his client's favorite
program.
One of the prosecutors took this unexpected nugget and used it in his
closing argument.
"These thoughts come to her, and she watches Law & Order regularly, she
sees this program," Joe Owmby told the jury. "There is a way out. She
tells that to Dr. Dietz. A way out."
The 2nd bit of serendipity was that in the courtroom was a reporter,
Suzanne O'Malley, who had written scripts for Law & Order and knew the
producer. Dietz had consulted on one of her scripts.
As she explains in her gripping book on the Yates trial, Are You There
Alone?, O'Malley doubted there had been a show such as the one Dietz
described. A call to the show's creator and producer, Dick Wolf, confirmed
her suspicion.
Defense attorney Parnham learned of the false testimony and asked for a
mistrial. It was the judge's decision to deny the mistrial that the
appeals court overturned Thursday.
O'Malley, who is now a writer in residence at Rice University and is
working on another book, said Thursday she doesn't think Dietz
intentionally lied.
"When one has consulted on three hundred episodes of Law & Order as Dietz
has, it's very easy to collapse one episode into another," she said.
"However, I believe that Dietz showed a bit of hubris in volunteering this
information, which was unnecessary."
He was, it appears, trying to put down a defense attorney who was annoying
him. But, O'Malley argues, a powerfully effective expert witness like
Dietz has a special responsibility to get his facts right.
In his competitive eagerness to win, his brain apparently made up a Law &
Order episode. But had O'Malley not been in the courtroom and curious
enough to call producer Wolf, the fantasy TV episode - as unreal as the
voice of Satan that was talking to Yates - would have gone uncorrected.
The saving irony is this: Dietz's error and O'Malley's catching of it gave
the appeals court what its 1st 3 pages suggest it fervently wanted: a way
to undo the larger madness of the trial of Andrea Yates.
(source for both: Houston Chronicle)
***********************
New Trial for a Mother Who Drowned 5 Children
Andrea Yates, the Texas woman convicted of drowning her children in a
bathtub, was granted a new trial by an appeals court in Houston yesterday.
The court ruled that a prosecution expert's false testimony about the
television program "Law & Order" required a retrial.
Ms. Yates, who had received diagnoses of postpartum depression and
psychosis, confessed to the police in 2001 that she had drowned her 5
children, ages 6 months to 7 years. A Houston jury convicted her of murder
the next year for 3 of the drownings, rejecting her insanity defense. The
case ignited a national debate about mental illness, postpartum depression
and the legal definition of insanity.
Yesterday's ruling was narrow and novel. It turned on testimony by Dr.
Park Dietz, a psychiatrist who was the prosecution's sole mental health
expert. Dr. Dietz testified that Ms. Yates was psychotic at the time of
the murders but knew right from wrong. The latter conclusion meant that
she was not insane under Texas' unusually narrow definition of legal
insanity.
On cross-examination, Dr. Dietz was asked about his work as a consultant
on "Law & Order," a program Ms. Yates, the appeals court said, "was known
to watch." He was asked whether any of the episodes he had worked on
concerned "postpartum depression or women's mental health."
"As a matter of fact," he answered, "there was a show of a woman with
postpartum depression who drowned her children in the bathtub and was
found insane, and it was aired shortly before the crime occurred."
That statement was false: There was no such episode. The falsehood was
discovered after the jury convicted Ms. Yates.
Dr. Dietz, who did not respond to several messages seeking comment
yesterday, said at the time that his testimony had been based on a
mistaken recollection.
The trial court denied a defense request for a mistrial, but the jury was
told about the false testimony during the sentencing hearing. The jury
rejected the death penalty and sentenced Ms. Yates to life in prison.
Yesterday, the Court of Appeals for the First District of Texas ruled that
the motion for a mistrial should have been granted.
"The state used Dr. Dietz's false testimony to suggest to the jury that
appellant patterned her actions after that 'Law & Order' episode," the
decision said. "We conclude that there is a reasonable likelihood that Dr.
Dietz's false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury."
Dr. Dietz did not explain the supposed significance of the "Law & Order"
episode at the trial. But prosecutors returned to the subject in a
separate cross-examination and in closing arguments, suggesting that she
had copied the program in a way that implied lucid planning and
premeditation.
Dr. Lucy Puryear, a psychiatric expert for the defense, was questioned
about the nonexistent episode. In an interview yesterday, Dr. Puryear said
the questions to her conveyed a powerful impression to jurors.
"Had she seen that show and gotten ideas from it," she said, "it would say
that she had the ability to think in an abstract way and come up with a
plan. That would mean she could tell the difference between right and
wrong."
The appeals court said that there was no evidence that prosecutors had
knowingly offered or discussed false testimony.
Joseph Owmby, one of the prosecutors, said his office would ask the
3-judge panel to reconsider. If that fails, he said, prosecutors will ask
the entire appeals court and then the state's highest court for criminal
matters, its Court of Criminal Appeals, to reverse the panel's decision.
"It wasn't material," Mr. Owmby said, meaning that Dr. Dietz's testimony
about "Law & Order" was not a significant factor in the jury's decisions.
"It didn't affect her fair and just trial rights at the trial level."
He said no decision had been made about whether to retry Ms. Yates should
the appeals fail.
At a televised news conference yesterday, George Parnham, one of Ms.
Yates's lawyers, said she was not seeking an immediate release from
prison. Ms. Yates "was surprised and not unpleased" by the decision, Mr.
Parnham said. "She understands what's happening."
Deborah W. Denno, a law professor at Fordham University who has studied
and written extensively about the Yates case, was critical of other
aspects of Dr. Dietz's testimony, too. He testified, for instance, that
Ms. Yates's delusions that her thoughts were coming from Satan indicated
that she must have known they were wrong.
"He interpreted everything she did as evidence of premeditation and
intention," Professor Denno said. "He is a hired gun in the worst sense."
In an interview with The New York Times a month after Ms. Yates was
convicted, Dr. Dietz said he had found the case troubling.
"It would have been the easier course of action," he said of his own
testimony, "to distort the law a little, ignore the evidence a little and
pretend that she didn't know what she did was wrong."
(source: The New York Times)
*********************
Weighing in on Yates case
Guilt or innocence never issue
The justice system baffles me.
The emphasis is never on guilt or innocence - even when the guilt is
unquestioned.
They call it trial errors, but why aren't errors caught beforehand? Now we
have a completely guilty woman [Andrea Yates] about to be granted a new
trial [for drowning her children], probably sent to a mental hospital and
then granted parole at some later date.
God help any children she could have in the future.
DIANE SMITH----Baytown
--
Maternal instinct now horror
I find it outrageous that Andrea Yates' capital murder conviction for
drowning her children was overturned on appeal. In this very high-profile
case, a witness for the prosecution lied. Will the psychiatrist Park Dietz
go to jail now?
It's obvious that Yates was guilty and most likely insane. But some news
services are now saying that Dietz was "wrong in his testimony." He wasn't
wrong! You can't be "wrong" on something like this; you either tell the
truth or you lie.
EDIE MILLER----Virden, Ill.
---
Some ignored her screams
Andrea Yates' fate should be shared with those who relentlessly crowded a
woman on the edge of madness. Her demons were real: five children in seven
years; severe recurring postpartum depression; thoughts of suicide and
anti-psychotic drugs; homeschooling her children and nursing her dying
father; and a husband who said he didn't want his wife to "work." Andrea
Yates didn't cry for help, she screamed and no one listened. The
"caretaker syndrome," which tethered her to pills, blind obedience and a
selfishness that ignored her fragile mind and body, was to everyone's
advantage except her and her five children. The vacancy of God is not in
the actions of a distraught mother, but in the hearts of those who ignored
her plight or judged her.
The nape of an infant's neck, fresh with the scent of milk and powder, is
a sweet place to kiss and also part of the intimacy between parent and
child that strengthens love's protective bonds (unbreakable bonds,
according to Mother's Day cards), but not when you read Yates' confession.
When the limelight fades, maternal instinct will remain in question not
its tenderness, but its horror.
MARY ALICE ALTORFER----New Braunfels
--
Thank God for sanity at last
Thank God sanity has at last prevailed in the Andrea Yates case.
REN KARPAS----Houston
(source: Letters to the Editor, Houston Chronicle)
****************************
Gun, 3 bullets to be retested in woman's murder case----Frances Newton was
hours from execution when Perry granted her a 120-day reprieve
Frances Newton was scheduled to die by injection Dec. 1 for the slayings
of her husband and children.
A gun and three bullets from a 1987 murder case that sent a Harris County
woman to death row will be retested, a judge ruled Thursday.
Frances Newton, 39, came within hours of execution last month when Gov.
Rick Perry granted a 120-day reprieve after questions were raised about
the evidence used to condemn her.
Thursday, state District Judge Jim Wallace ordered the alleged murder
weapon, a .25-caliber handgun, and 3 bullets taken from the victims to be
tested at the Harris County Sheriff's Office firearms lab. It's unclear
when the tests will be completed.
"We'll get the testing done as soon as we can," said David Dow, one of
Newton's attorneys and founder of the Texas Innocence Network.
Dow also wants the skirt Newton wore the night of the shootings tested.
Records show that original testing found traces of possible gunpowder on
the skirt, but her attorneys say that may have been garden manure, which,
like gunpowder, has nitrates and can trigger a false-positive test result.
Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson agreed to the ballistics testing
but said tests on the skirt would be "inconclusive" because it was
contaminated in storage after the trial.
Newton was scheduled to die by injection Dec. 1 for the slayings of her
husband and children in their northwest Harris County apartment.
Prosecutors said she killed her family to claim $100,000 in insurance
money.
In her petition to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, Newton, who
claims she is innocent, raised questions about ballistics tests by the
Houston Police Department crime lab. The lab has faced criticism in recent
years for unreliable work.
In granting the temporary reprieve, Perry said he saw no suggestion she is
innocent but cited the need to retest evidence with new technology,
particularly for gunpowder residue.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
