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CNN Talkback Live

Andrea Yates: A Killer or a Cause?

Aired August 28, 2001 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: Would you join the Andrea Yates support coalition?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to raise enough money for Andrea to have a proper defense.

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BATTISTA: The Texas woman is accused of drowning five children in a bathtub. And some 20 groups, including the National Organization for Women, and the American Civil Liberties Union are working to protect her from the death penalty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We believe treatment for her mental illness should take priority over attempts to punish her.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK ROSENTHAL, HARRIS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: A lot of the people who prejudge this case, and who are sympathetic to the defendant don't know the facts, don't know all the facts.

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BATTISTA: Yates claims to have been suffering with postpartum depression and other coalition wants to raise awareness and sympathy for all women affected by it. Does Andrea Yates deserve your sympathy and understanding, or does she deserve the death penalty?

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. Should a woman who admits drowning her five children get an outpouring of sympathy and support. Prosecutors say the people supporting Andrea Yates don't know the whole story. But the Andrea Yates coalition says the Texas mother should be handled with understanding, that she is mentally ill suffering from postpartum depression.

Joining us first today is Karen Johnson executive vice president with the National Organization for Women, one of the group's supporting Andrea Yates. Karen, thank you very much. Why is it that you and other organizations are going to some pretty good lengths and effort here to support Andrea Yates?

KAREN JOHNSON, N.O.W.: Postpartum depression is a condition that affects 10-15 percent of first-time mothers. And we want to educate women and families around the country about this issue in this very serious condition, but also we want to denounce putting to death a woman who is mentally ill.

BATTISTA: How do you know she is mentally ill yet? All the facts in the case haven't even begun to come out. So how do you know that you have enough information to make this decision? We know that she's been on medication, Haldol, which is an antipsychotic drug.

JOHNSON: We know that she has had hospitalizations for four suicide attempts. She has been diagnosed with postpartum depression as well as postpartum psychosis. She had been under treatment by psychiatrists as well as physicians and this is not a rare illness or disorder.

BATTISTA: Well, that's true, in fact, and unfortunately we have to say that there are other mothers have who suffered from postpartum psychosis and have also harmed or killed their children. So why Andrea Yates? Why are you picking this particular case?

JOHNSON: First of all, during our national conference in July, members of N.O.W. from Texas were very much impressed with her story and wanted to do something as an organization to support her. So we passed a resolution to talk about our opposition to the death penalty in general, and also our opposition to putting to death women who are mentally ill or men who are mentally ill -- of giving them health care instead of putting them in prison.

BATTISTA: I was going to ask you...

JOHNSON: We also want to educate the public about the issue of postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis.

BATTISTA: I was going to ask you about a couple of those things there, because if you are trying to draw attention to mental illness, people might wonder why you are not supporting, for example, Nikolay Soltys, the Ukrainian immigrant who allegedly went on that rampage and killed six members of family, again suffering supposedly or allegedly from a history of illness. So is this a gender thing or is it drawing awareness to mental illness?

JOHNSON: It is certainly a gender thing in terms of we are the National Organization of Women, advocating for women's rights and this is an issue that really affects 10-15 percent of women who are pregnant. So I think it's a very important issue for us, and therefore the gender is really an important factor in this particular issue.

BATTISTA: You want to draw attention to postpartum depression, and there are reports out there that this is actually having a backlash effect, that because there's been so much attention drawn to this condition, that women now, a lot of women are afraid to come forward and admit that they are suffering from depression and need help because they feel like they'll be perceived as being a threat to their children and may lose their children. So how do we keep it in perspective?

JOHNSON: First of all, I think we should distinguish between postpartum depression which affects 10-15 percent of the women who are pregnant versus postpartum psychosis which affects only 1 in 1,000 mothers who give birth. It's much less common to have postpartum psychosis. But postpartum depression is fairly frequent, and I think that it's important for us to acknowledge as a society that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of.

There no stigma in being mentally ill. I think the shame really comes in when you don't treat mental illness and don't have compassion for folks who are ill. Are you also supporting every other member of the Yates family, like her husband, for example, or her parents? Does this include everyone?

JOHNSON: The National Organization for Women does not take a position regarding members of the family. I believe Texas -- the Texas chapter has said that they would support Russell Yates and the family as long as they're supporting Andrea Yates.

BATTISTA: All right...

JOHNSON: But my concern is for Andrea Yates and for her defense, and for her safety, and for her health.

BATTISTA: Let me bring in Nelda Luce Blair who is a former Texas prosecutor and currently a real estate attorney. She is a regular on the show "Power of Attorney." Nelda, what is your reaction to this outpouring of support here?

NELDA LUCE BLAIR, FORMER TEXAS PROSECUTOR: Well, it is not surprising. Andrea Yates is a pitiable figure. The photos and the story that's been drawn throughout press of her life is not a fantasy life. It's a very pitiful life. But what we have to remember and we have to back away from that emotion and remember that this woman methodically killed five defenseless children, her own flesh and blood.

And she's going to have every opportunity to prove in our justice system that she did not know what she was doing was wrong at the time which would make her insane and would give her defense to the charges of murder. But nonetheless, she has murdered five children. And she must be made to stand, just like anyone else under the law.

BATTISTA: Karen, I can get your reaction to that?

JOHNSON: Yes. This was obviously a tragedy of great proportions. She did methodically murder her five children. The question is, could anybody in their right mind -- any mother in her right mind -- kill five children that calculated?

I believe she was actively psychotic. I am sure of that. I would stake my home on that. And I believe that that will be shown in court. I can't imagine any mother killing five kids in that fashion without being psychotic.

BLAIR: Bobbie, I think that is the whole problem is that the public as a whole cannot imagine a mother killing her children, because it's just something that we don't think a mother could do. But Andrea Yates did it. She not only did it, but she immediately called her husband and police to say, I have done this terrible thing.

BATTISTA: Well, you know, we were talking about it with the audience earlier, because it seems that people can be insane and still do competent things. They can still function in life and make decisions, you know, to you know, whether it's make change or make a phone call, whatever, and still be insane.

BLAIR: Well, insanity in Texas -- and again, she'll have the chance to prove this -- is that at the time she commit this conduct, because of this mental disease, she did not know what she was doing was wrong. And that's a lot different than psychosis, psychotic, postpartum depression, it's very different. It's a very narrow definition and it is the law in Texas now.

Once she attempts to prove that, if she's not successful, then she will be sent to the jury and will be asking the jury to charge her, convict her of two charges of capital murder.

BATTISTA: I've got to take a break. Let me do a couple of e- mails. Kathleen in Washington says, "My heart's first instinct is that of course Mrs. Yates should be given the death penalty after imposed upon five innocent babies. My head's rational says that if indeed psychotic, she was not in possession of her faculties."

Mary in Scottsdale, Arizona says, "Yes, she deserves the death penalty. Why didn't she kill herself?"

Karen Johnson, thank very much for joining us today. The question is, does Andrea Yates deserve the death penalty? Take the TALKBACK LIVE online viewer vote at CNN.com/talkback, AOL keyword is CNN. While there, check out notes today and send us an e-mail.

In a moment, a woman tries to drown her seven children in a bayou. Meet the attorney who got her probation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSSELL YATES, ANDREA YATES' HUSBAND: My wife, you know, is really suffering right now. Everyone is, but my wife -- she's really suffering, and you know, just ask -- say a prayer for her, because she needs it. She's suffering right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: Welcome back. Joining us now is Dick Deguerin, a criminal defense attorney in Houston. He represented a woman who attempted to drown her seven children by throwing them into the Buffalo Bayou.

Dick, I have to ask you, how did you get probation for this woman?

DICK DEGUERIN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, by the time we finally got to a disposition of the case, everybody involved in the case realized that she was crazy at the time that it happened. She had been driven that way by her husband, who was abusive of her and the children, both sexually and physically abusive of her and the children. She was destitute, she was at her wit's end, literally. She had suffered depression, although they didn't call it postpartum depression when that happened. And she was bipolar. She had been under treatment. Her husband wouldn't let her complete the treatments that she had tried to get before this happened. She saw no way out except to kill herself and her children.

BATTISTA: How do you view the Andrea Yates case, then, since it doesn't appear that Andrea's background was quite so abusive?

DEGUERIN: I think any woman or any person can tell you that desperation doesn't necessarily depend on your financial circumstances. From the outside it might look like Andrea Yates had the perfect life, but we don't know what went on inside that home and we don't know what went on in her background. That's partially because of the gag order, and it's going to be the responsibility of the lawyers in the case to bring all the facts out -- if it gets to a jury.

BATTISTA: I got this e-mail a few minutes ago from Darryl in Oregon. It says: "Our prisons are filled with men who were depressed at the time of their crimes. We cannot allow women to have a different standard of justice than men. Justice is supposed to be blind, not feminist."

DEGUERIN: Well, I agree with that. But there's all kinds of depression, and there's all kinds of postpartum depression. There are a lot of women who have postpartum depression that don't kill their kids, but obviously something happened to cause her to either snap, or maybe it was a long, slow descent into the private hell that she must have been suffering. But this is not normal, and nobody can say that it is.

So we have to, as a society, understand that if a person is insane, as the law defines it or as psychiatry defines it, then they're not to be held to the same standard as people who know and intentionally do what they do.

BATTISTA: Let me bring Nelda in on this, because that is a point of confusion amongst a lot of people, in that sometimes we have these cases where it seems common sense will tell you these people are clearly insane, whether it's Jeffrey Dahmer or Andrea Yates, even, to get to that level. But under the law, they're not necessarily so, and that's confusing to people.

BLAIR: Well, it is confusing, and part of that, as Dick said, is because there is a gag order in effect, and you nor I nor the general public know the full details of this case. For all we know, the woman did do this intentionally. We don't know that. That's why we have courts of law and that's why we have trials. A jury is going to be able to hear both sides. I'm sure this women, Andrea Yates, will be examined by doctor after doctor after doctor.

All of them will speak to the jury and tell them what they think is wrong or not wrong with her, and then she'll have the chance to say I was insane at time I did this, even under Texas law. And then a jury will have a chance to decide whether they believe her and whether they believe the evidence or not.

BATTISTA: Why do you think the jury should have been given the option of a death penalty?

BLAIR: Let me put it this way. If this woman, who is now charged with two counts of capital murder, and two more are waiting in the wings, if she is found competent to stand trial, if the jury finds that she is guilty of capital murder, and her insanity defense is not valid, what more horrific crime is it going to take to warrant the death penalty?

Bobbie, let me speak to that, if I could.

BATTISTA: Yes, go ahead.

DEGUERIN: The prosecutor keeps saying that he asked for a capital murder indictment in order to give the jury more options, but actually, what it does is give the jury less options. If she's found guilty, the only option is either death or life. If it had been an ordinary murder case -- that is where capital murder is not charged -- then a jury would have had more options: anywhere from five years probation all the way up to life in prison. So it's not a matter of giving the jury more options.

But the other thing I want to speak to is this disconnect between psychiatry and the law. What the law says is insanity is often quite different from what psychiatry says is insanity. We don't speak the same language in law as psychiatrists do.

BATTISTA: It seems to me like the law defines insanity as just being able to determine whether you knew right from wrong at the time. That's narrow.

DEGUERIN: Right. That's an outdated -- it's called a rule in McNaughton's case, and it's several hundred years old. And of course, there have been tremendous advances in psychiatry, as well as in the law, since then. But we still cling to that.

The other thing is that a psychiatric defense is very unpopular with jurors. Most people can't understand it. There is so much emotion in this case that people say so what if she's crazy, she's going to kill other kids, so we shouldn't let her off. But that's not what the law looks at. It's not what psychiatry looks at.

BATTISTA: Let me go to the audience and get some reaction.

June, comment?

JUNE: I feel that she probably was mentally ill and it's something that society doesn't recognize amongst people.

Also, when they're talking about a gender issue, women are considered nurturing people, men are considered more aggressive. This is traditionally, of course. Nowadays, you will see men just as involved in nurturing their children as women. But women take the stress of the home. And women don't always get the support of family and friends when they are mentally ill, because it's so subtle that they don't realize it's a mental illness.

BATTISTA: I've got to take a quick break. I'll come back and get your comments, Jim and Crystal, on the phone, right after this.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: In May of 2000, Christina Riggs was executed by lethal injection in Arkansas for killing her children. Riggs, a former nurse, injected her two sons with potassium chloride. Riggs' attorney tried an insanity defense, but she demanded to be put to death. The Arkansas Supreme Court allowed her execution after determining that she was competent to waive her appeals.

E-mails -- Gladys in Ontario says, "I do totally support Mrs. Yates. People need to understand what serious psychosis does to kind and decent people, like Mrs. Yates. It totally transforms a person into someone friends and family do not recognize.

Susan in Ohio: If you are too insane to be tried, then you are too insane to be rehabilitated. It is not fair to punish "normal" people for a crime and excuse "insane" people for the same crime.

Jim, your comment.

JIM: I think that, really, someone here needs to speak to the kids, and I'm really happy to hear that the district attorney is pursuing the case. I am not for the death penalty. I'm against it. But she needs to be punished. Life imprisonment would be fine with me.

But I think we're losing perspective here, to think that NOW picks this case as kind of a monument is, to me, just absurd. I think there are other issues they can pursue.

BATTISTA: And Crystal's on the phone with us, from Florida.

Crystal, go ahead.

CRYSTAL: Hello. The reason I'm calling is because what about the children in this? When the little boy walked in on his mother killing the other four children, she literally chased him around the house trying to catch him. That is premeditated. If I was to chase somebody outside and kill them, I would be tried for death. BATTISTA: Let me get reaction from Dick Deguerin on that one. People do have a hard time understanding that she was possibly sane at that moment, since she did seem to be somewhat premeditated, and she went so far as to chase this child around the house and then called the police.

DEGUERIN: That's because of the difficulty people have in understanding just what mental illness is. If you can function in a society, people think you are not mentally ill. But you can do things -- a person that is completely insane can do things that appear to be rational. But they're not rational, and that's the definition of insanity, to some degrees: These are delusional actions and thoughts that they have.

BATTISTA: I just got an interesting question from Jason in Boston, who says, If Andrea Yates were infected with a virus, became delirious, and hurt her children, would we hold her accountable for her actions? Why is the disease of depression so different?

DEGUERIN: Well, it's not. It's the ability to rationalize and to form the intent to do wrong that the law speaks to in insanity cases. An inability, on the other hand, to know that your action is wrong is what sits you in the category of insanity and excuses conduct.

It doesn't excuse it completely. You have to understand if she's found not guilty because of reason of insanity, she is going to be locked up in an insane asylum.

BATTISTA: I was going to ask Nelda getting an untainted jury pool in that area, but I will have to save that for another date, though, because we are going to lose the satellite here.

Nelda Luce Blair and Dick Deguerin, thank you both very much for joining us.

DEGUERIN: You're welcome. Thanks, Bobbie.

BLAIR: Thank you, Bobbie.

In a moment, does justice have a double standard when it comes to fathers and mothers? We'll keep pursuing that when we come back.

ANDREA: My name is Andrea, from Stony Brook University. I believe the death penalty should be used only in extreme cases, such as Timothy McVeigh. Andrea Yates was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis. The courts should allow treatment for mental illness, instead of punishment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Welcome back. Joining us now, Nancy Skinner, a WLS talk show host and cohost of the syndicated "Doug Steven's Good Day" program.

Also with us, Steve Malzberg, a radio talk show host on WABC in New York. He is also a columnist at Newsmax.com. Nancy, let me start with you. Is there something understandable yet at the same time uncomfortable about this show of support for Andrea Yates?

NANCY SKINNER, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I think if you look at it on the surface, people would be confused as to why they would be helping someone who has obviously murdered her children if they are supporters of women. But look at this a little bit more deeply here, Bobbie.

National Organization of Women work with women who have problems and postpartum depression is uniquely a woman's problem. So it's natural that they would step in and say, OK, this is a problem, postpartum depression, but also the drugs she was on. She was on Prozac, these antidepressants which now we are finding out have consequences. In a rare number of cases cause suicidal tendencies, homicidal tendencies. What better organization than N.O.W. to get behind her and really try to really flesh this out? Is this the best thing for women with postpartum depression to take these antidepressants?

STEVE MALZBERG, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: What better organization than N.O.W.? How about the American Medical Association?

SKINNER: Well, they should as well.

MALZBERG: Well, I think N.O.W. is showing really true colors and unfortunate colors by choosing Andrea Yates as a role model or some kind of person to have a candlelight vigil for. Did they have a candlelight vigil for the five dead babies? When I read about this case, the more that comes out, first of all, the National Organization of Women doesn't know if the antidepressants she was taking had anything to do with it, doesn't know if she is going to found competent to stand trial, if she was insane or not.

They don't know anything and yet they are having a candlelight vigil for her. These five babies, she coldly calculatedly, premeditated, one by one, they each struggled in the tub we are learning. She lined them up on the bed. She had to chase the last one around and then she calmly called the police and calmly called her husband.

SKINNER: Because she was sick, she was suffering from a mental illness.

MALZBERG: How do you know! That's what you say!

SKINNER: Steve, what do you mean it's not insane for a mother to do that horrific act you mentioned? That is the definition of insanity. Mothers don't kill their children when they are of right mind, Steve.

MALZBERG: Nancy, so any woman who kills her children in such a manner, or a varying manner, she is insane. So don't even consider jail, send her right to a mental institution.

SKINNER: Not every woman, but we know Andrea Yates had a history. We know she was on drugs, that she had been diagnosed. We know she tried to commit suicide two previous times. Those are all serious indicators of psychosis, of mental illness. I'm not saying every woman who does it.

BATTISTA: Nancy, would we be having the same discussion if this were her father?

MALZBERG: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

SKINNER: There is this guy Nikolay Soltys, right?

BATTISTA: Soltys.

MALZBERG: Yeah.

SKINNER: Yeah, whatever.

MALZBERG: Nobody has any sympathy for him and they shouldn't have any sympathy for him.

SKINNER: We don't know the details yet.

MALZBERG: Oh, come on. We don't know the details?

SKINNER: Nobody said whether he is suffering from some sort of diagnosed mental illness and whether he was on antidepressants.

MALZBERG: Oh, come on. I everybody on antidepressants had a license to kill and then say, oh, I have a history, I didn't know I was doing -- the drugs made me do it -- we would be in very sad shape in this country. SKINNER: I think we have to look at that. You know, Eric Harris, the killer in Columbine was on antidepressants as well. I think there is a body of evidence that suggests that there may be some side effects to these drugs.

MALZBERG: Are you a doctor?

BATTISTA: Steve, on the other hand, clearly people, whether it is Nikolay Soltys or Andrea Yates, or you know, whatever, clearly these people are not in their right minds. They're mentally ill to some degree. Why is it that we want to punish people who are mentally ill instead of help them? MALZBERG: Anybody who commits a horrific murder you could say couldn't have been in their right minds. You look at people who are on drugs and they need their next fix so they kill somebody for the money.

BATTISTA: But they had a choice to take those drugs. You don't have a choice when you suffer from mental illness. It is something that happens to you.

MALZBERG: I would argue that anybody who kills somebody, there's got to be something wrong with them. I can't imagine killing somebody. Anybody who kills somebody, I would argue, isn't in their right mind at the time. But thankfully we don't say everybody is insane.

SKINNER: Steve, are you saying mental illness doesn't exist?

MALZBERG: No, and are you a doctor that you know about the side effects of the pills and that she is psychotic and psychosis? You don't know anything, you are speculating.

SKINNER: I do know, we all know that she was suffering from postpartum depression.

MALZBERG: All right, so do a lot of women and about two or three kill their kids.

BATTISTA: I'm always amazed when we do this topic how many phone calls and people in the audience that we get who have suffered from postpartum depression. I want to talk to Maricella here, but let me take Hope on the phone first in New York. Go ahead, Hope.

HOPE: Yes, Bobbie, suffering is the word. Thirty years ago, I had five small children in the space of seven years. I came incredible close to committing the unthinkable with my children. It was a compulsive-type thing. I was always fearful of it. I was desperate. There were times I didn't know even if I had done it. So I'm just calling to say that I am in support of this defense fund, and I really appreciate this program.

BATTISTA: What kept you from -- what kept you from doing it, Hope?

HOPE: Well, eventually I -- my husband contacted our parish priest, and I was helped by a therapist. But it was a long, hard haul. And it was a desperate situation.

BATTISTA: Hope, thank you very much. Maricella, you are from Houston and you, too had a bout not as severe as that, but you had a bout with it also?

MARICELLA: I'm from San Antonio, but after my first son I had postpartum depression and it was horrible. I remember putting my son in a room, and just leaving him there and crying and just having those feelings of wanting to just not have him. And I was fortunate enough that my husband, my mother came over, and I moved in with my parents for about six weeks until I felt I was strong enough to go back out on my own.

But if you don't have that support and you don't have somebody to lead you in the right way, then I can see how you can go off course.

BATTISTA: You mentioned earlier too that there's a lot of talk in Texas about the fathers role?

MARICELLA: Exactly. And there's a lot of rumors where her husband was very critical of her. He also forced her to home-school the children, knowing that she was -- had postpartum depression, and knowing that she wasn't well, and he forced her to home-school these children. MALZBERG: I got to say something, Bobbie. This woman we are supposed to believe was forced to have all these children, was forced to home-school the kids, and was forced to kill them! This is so bizarre. I just can't fathom it.

SKINNER: No one is saying, Steve, that she was forced to kill the children. but you have to look at the circumstances, and that's what N.O.W. is doing. You shouldn't have five kids in a short period of time and take on all those responsibilities. And postpartum depression is very real, and there is there's a hormonal change, there is actually a change in your brain chemistry.

MALZBERG: In fairness then, let me ask you a couple of questions, one, should we limit the amount of children women can have without some kind of mental examination?

SKINNER: No. Obviously not.

MALZBERG: So you don't want to do that, but you want to run the risk that a woman may kill her kids and then go back and say, well she shouldn't have had that many kids it is dangerous.

BATTISTA: Let me interrupt you guys, I am sorry. I have to go to Natalie in the news desk for some breaking news -- Natalie.

(INTERRUPTED FOR BREAKING NEWS)

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