Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Yates Trial Begins; Interview of Dick DeGuerin, Defense Attorney

Aired February 18, 2002 - 09:04   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.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning: Is she a murderer, or is she insane? It's the central question for the jury in the Andrea Yates murder trial. Opening statements in that trial, the mother accused of drowning her five kids, gets under way this morning.

Let's go first to CNN's Ed Lavandera who is outside the courtroom in Houston for, arguably, one of the most watched trials of this new year so far -- hi, Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jack. There are only three possible outcomes that can come from this trial. Andrea Yates will either be sent to a mental hospital in Texas for the foreseeable future if she is found not guilty by reason of insanity. If they jury in this case does find that she is guilty, she will be sent to prison for life, which means she wouldn't be eligible in at least -- until 40 years, or she will be sent to death row.

That is the issues that are -- will be facing this jury of eight women and four men. Most of the jurors on this panel are parents, and the two of the -- two jurors are -- female jurors, also have degrees in psychology, and they've also been getting -- have been talked about recently as well.

We've had several opportunities to speak with Russell Yates over the last week. He took the week off from work last week to get ready for what -- the next three or weeks will be a very difficult situation for him.

He says he visits Andrea Yates twice a week at the county jail, visits with her for about 15 minutes at a time. Her family says that she is starting to do a lot better, because she has been taking -- she has been put on the right medication, has been undergoing treatment.

She's been in the psychiatric wing of the Harris County jail. She is still under suicide watch. Her -- Russell says that every night, she sleeps on a mattress away from other inmates on the floor, so they can see her. They also say that she has trouble remembering things, that even in the course of a conversation, she tends to forget what she's talking about and that her memory from June 20th of last year is also shot.

But the prosecution, in this case, thinking that because there are five dead kids in this case, that she deserves the death penalty -- Jack.

CAFFERTY: Ed, tell me out the web site that Russell Yates has put together -- yateskids.org.

Apparently we lost -- Ed can't hear us anymore. Ed Lavandera -- we've lost the -- he's live outside the courthouse in Houston, Texas. So, we will move forward. The question is , how do you go about convincing a jury that a mother didn't know right from wrong when she methodically drowned her five young children? We're going to talk about that with a lawyer who successfully defended a woman who tried to kill seven of her children, succeeded in killing two of them. That story is coming up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAFFERTY: The Andrea Yates murder trial begins the morning in Houston, Texas. The question is, how do you go about convincing a jury that a mother didn't know right from wrong when she methodically drowned all five of her young children.

Attorney Dick DeGuerin successfully defended a woman accused of killing two of her seven kids, and he joins us now from Houston to talk about the possible strategy on the part of Andrea Yates defense lawyers in this upcoming trial.

Mr. DeGuerin, nice to have you with us.

DICK DEGUERIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Thanks, good morning.

CAFFERTY: From a legal point of view, severe case of postpartum depression, severe enough to justify the murders of five children. Is that a long shot in the courtroom for her lawyers?

DEGUERIN: I don't think the lawyers should concentrate only on postpartum depression. That's only a very small part of the picture. This women had a long history of descent into insanity, and what they have got to do, what the lawyers have to do, is portray, through facts, through people around her, through the medical records, what happened to her.

CAFFERTY: What is it in her background, in your opinion, that might be strong enough to overcome the impact on the jury of the deaths of five innocent children?

DEGUERIN: Well, first, you have to understand that most people would say right off the bat that this women must have been crazy to kill her children. So, they have got a leg up on that. It's going to get into a battle of the experts, there are paid experts on both sides, and what the defense has to do is portray a woman that, not only because of her medical condition, but also because of her circumstances, did not know that her conduct was wrong, by showing that she was delusional, by explaining what delusions were -- what they are, and how strong they can be.

CAFFERTY: She has a history of apparently portraying herself as a bad mother, obviously something that the defense lawyers could use to begin to shore up the kind of a case that you're talking about here.

DEGUERIN: Well, she has a history, also, of attempted suicide, of hospitalization, of being heavily sedated, and then not taking her medication. In fact, just two weeks before this happened, she was taken off her anti-psychotic medicine. It was a great mistake on the part of the doctors.

CAFFERTY: You successfully defended a woman, as I mentioned in the introduction, who had apparently set about the task of killing all seven of her children. Two of them did ultimately die, but at her trial, you were her lawyer, and she wound up getting probation. Tell us a little about your strategy in that case, and how it might or might not apply in the case of Andrea Yates.

DEGUERIN: Well, I think it is very similar because what we did was we established the factual background. We showed how she had been mistreated by her husband. She and the children had both been sexually and physically abused by her husband. She was destitute. She had no place to turn, and in addition, she had been diagnosed with -- not postpartum depression, but with a split personality, paranoia, schizophrenia. And -- so she had a history of severe mental illness, as well as a factual basis for it.

CAFFERTY: The jury in this trial upcoming will not doubt be shown pictures of the crime scene. Each of the children drowned in the bathtub. How do you -- how do you deal, as a defense attorney, with the impact those kinds of horrific images are likely to have on a jury?

DEGUERIN: Well, it is going to be terrific, and that's why -- probably the prosecution is going to start off with that. There's a videotape that the officers took when they first arrived on the scene. There will be still pictures, and the prosecutor will describe how she must have held her children under water while they struggled until they died. It is going to be a terrible, prejudicial picture that the jury is going to have right out of the box, and that's why it is going to be so difficult for the defense to overcome.

CAFFERTY: Do you think there's any chance that -- that her defense will prevail? Can she win this trial, do you think?

DEGUERIN: Yes, I think she can. It is going to be very difficult, and it's really too close to call right now, but the truth is that no mother in her right mind would have done this. That's a simple fact that is going to be hard for the prosecution to overcome. But then again, they have got a hired gun, a paid expert, that is going to come in and testify, goes all over the country testifying, who was able to convince the jury that Jeffrey Dahmer, who ate his victims, was sane. So, that guy is going to be pretty persuasive.

CAFFERTY: What about the strategy, and we hear that this may be a part of the defense's case to bring her husband, Russell, into the trial and to suggest that, perhaps, she is not entirely culpable in the deaths of the kids, that perhaps there's something more that he might have been able to do. He could of or should have seen this coming, that based on his knowledge of her past and her past medical history that, perhaps, he didn't do enough. Is that something you might expect to see during the trial, and how successful a ploy might it be?

DEGUERIN: Oh, I don't think it's a ploy at all. I think the lawyers need to show the factual background, not only of the husband, and what went on in their home, and very few people know what goes on behind closed doors, but also all of the people around her. Her friends, her relatives, those who should have noticed how crazy she was becoming.

CAFFERTY: So you expect that he and other family members will be -- will be brought into this as well, right?

DEGUERIN: Oh, I think so. I think clearly he'll be a witness, and others that were close to her who saw what was going on, saw her descent into madness.

CAFFERTY: All right, Mr. DeGuerin, we are going to have to leave it there. I appreciate you joining us on "American Morning." Thank you for your time. Dick DeGuerin, an attorney, joining us from Houston, Texas at the start of the Andrea Yates murder trial. You can see live coverage of the opening statements of that trial here on CNN. That is scheduled to happen at 11:30 Eastern time this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com