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Legal Analyst, Trial Psychologist Discuss Yates Trial

Aired March 12, 2002 - 10:02   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Defense attorneys for Andrea Yates make a final plea for mercy today. Closing arguments will soon get underway. By midafternoon, jurors will likely begin their deliberations. The life and death question, was the mother legally insane when she drowned her five children?

Our Gary Tuchman joins us from outside the courthouse in Houston.

Gary, good morning.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, good morning to you.

The jury will get the case today in the Andrea Yates capital murder trial. Each side has been given 45 minutes for its closing argument, so by this afternoon, the jury will have the case.

There are some facts that both sides acknowledge. They do say that Andrea Yates's five children suffered greatly when she drowned each and every one of them, on June 20, 2001. The first child she drowned, 3-year-old Paul, came into the bathroom after being summoned, and said to his mother, looked at her very innocently, and said, Mom, are we going to take a bath?

Her last child to be drowned, Noah, was 7 years old. When he came into the bathroom, his 6-month-old sister, Mary, was in the bottom of the bathroom. He came in and looked at her -- and this is from Andrea Yates herself, on videotape -- and said what's wrong with Mary? And Andrea Yates started to drown her 7-year-old son, and he started muttering, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No one is disputing that fact.

There is also no disputing that there are severe mental problems affiliated with Andrea Yates. But that's where the difference comes. This is an insanity trial. The defense is trying to prove this woman was so insane she didn't know the difference between right and wrong. That is the Texas law: Not only must you be insane, you must not know what you did was wrong. However, the prosecution is saying that while she did have mental problems, she did know the difference between right and wrong.

The prosecution says not only did she know it was illegal, but she knew it was wrong in the eyes of God and society. However, the defense is saying she had such severe psychosis that she thought what she was doing was right. She says she was doing this because she did not want her children to spend an eternity in hellfire. She thought by killing them, they would go to heaven. She thought she had the devil inside of her and that she would be killed by capital punishment because she killed her kids, and therefore, the devil would be killed. So that is the difference here.

Thirty-eight witnesses came to the stand, more than 300 exhibits. This trial has lasted more than three weeks.

This is very important, although it's complicated to explain. There are two counts against her of capital murder. The reason is this: One of the counts is for the deaths of two oldest children, Noah and John. The reason for that under Texas law, you have to kill more than one person to get the death penalty -- that's why it's wrapped up in one charge -- or you have to commit a felony and kill a person. She didn't commit another felony; that has to be one charge to get capital murder.

The other charge is for the death of Mary, 6-month-old, because under Texas law, a child under 6, if they are killed, that's also a capital murder case eligible for the death penalty.

You may be wondering why the two other children aren't involved in this, Paul and Luke, 3 and 2 years old. The reason is -- and this is technicality and also part of strategy -- that the prosecution has the right to try her on those two children's charges later. Of course, that might be an argument in court. The defense might say it is double jeopardy, because their names have been raised a lot during this case.

So now you understand that two counts will come back, of capital murder when the jury comes back.

Usually, we don't go into the business of predicting what a jury will do. We are not going to do it this time. We can tell you this: It's a very complicated case because it's kind of up to the jury to decide if she knew right from wrong. In other words, there are some prosecution witnesses and some defense witnesses who agree that she may have known it was illegal, but then the defense says but she thought it was the right thing to do. So does that mean she knew right from wrong. It would be a very tough call for the jury. This could take a long time.

Daryn, back to you.

KAGAN: Gary, interesting compromise here on the camera in the courtroom issue. We saw the cameras, we were able to see what was taking place in the courtroom during opening statements and now for closing statements, but for the middle part of the trial, all we saw was sketch artists.

TUCHMAN: This judge made the decision before the trial started, despite the fact the news media very strongly argued for the camera to be in the courtroom the whole time, this judge said the camera could be in for opening statements and closing statements, but not for the middle of trial. One other thing very quickly I want to mention to you that I neglected to talk about was Russell Yates -- and this is very important -- Andrea Yates's husband. Russell Yates is supportive of his wife, wants his wife to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. He hasn't been allowed in the court because he has been a witness. That's the rule: He couldn't be in the court, but he's been in the courthouse every day, sitting in the hallway outside of the courtroom, talking with family and friends during this entire 3 1/2 week trial.

KAGAN: Gary Tuchman, in Houston, thank you very much.

Because there are cameras in the courtroom, when those closing arguments begin, you will see that live right here on CNN. Thank you very much.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: While we're waiting for that to get underway, lets's get some legal perspective this morning on the Yates trial.

For that, we turn to our guest this morning, Cynthia Alksne. She is a former federal prosecutor who has been following the case and has been joining us from time to time to talk about it. She is in our Washington bureau. You see her there.

And at the Houston courthouse this morning, we are joined by attorney and psychologist Dr. Robert Gordon.

We thank you very much for your time this morning as well, Dr. Gordon.

Cynthia, let's start with you first of all. Let's talk about the case to be made here about right versus wrong. You have been following this so far. What do you think about the way that issue has been argued here?

CYNTHIA ALKSNE, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, I think the problem is that there isn't really one answer. The defense is that she missed -- even though she understood right and wrong in terms of illegality, the whole concept of right and wrong is topsy-turvy for her. And that is the problem. I think that, ultimately, this will be almost a gut check for the jury. Do they believe that a sane person drowns their children one by one, taking six minutes to kill each child, in a methodical way.

There's a lot of psychiatric testimony on both sides. Classically, when there is so much psychiatric testimony, it gets thrown out the window, and jurors look for factual testimony to support whatever their theory is.

But this is really a gut-check kind of case. Do you really believe a person is sane if they kill their five children. And we'll see what they do. It is certainly a case that could hang up.

HARRIS: Let's talk about that with Dr. Gordon. What do you think about that, and specifically with the way the law is in Texas? Do you think it'll play out differently here than it would in any other state?

ROBERT GORDON, TRIAL PSYCHOLOGIST: There is a cries of confidence in psychiatry and clinical psychology, and that is at nexus and at the core of this problem. In other words, if you have two or more brilliant experts who are one reaching one conclusion that she is insane, and the other saying that she was not, then the jury has to rely on their own sense of conscience and morality to determine what is best.

HARRIS: Cynthia, let me ask you this one -- and Dr. Gordon, I want to ask to you to weigh in on this one as well. What also we have at play here is the idea of a religious angle being worked in, because Andrea Yates has told all the experts that she has talked to that the devil was involved here. She was trying to save her children from the devil. She probably did know that killing her children -- as she said this later, five months later -- was the wrong decision to make, but she knew -- or she thought at the time -- she was saving them from the devil.

ALKSNE: Right. When the state punished her, she was Satan; the state would kill Satan.

HARRIS: Exactly. So it seems as though in this society, we make so many allowances for religious belief. You have people here that go to college for teaching classes that have no problem believing some guy talked to a burning bush a couple thousand years ago, and no one thinks that is unreasonable or crazy or whatever. Now, in this case, you get the religious angle tied into, interwoven in here, with the schizophrenia issue. I'm wondering exactly how a lay person could look at this.

GORDON: I think there are a lot of people who believe they communicate with God and they aren't crazy. We all know that in our lives. But when you add the type of information she was receiving from this minister that she and her husband had a long relationship with, and you add that to her mental illness, it was obviously a recipe for disaster, and these children paid the price.

HARRIS: How about that Dr. Gordon?

GORDON: I agree. I think there will be no way that the jury will see this in religious terms in terms of demonology or cultism. The real crisis is that the jury doesn't have a third choice, and that is guilty and insane. If they had that choice, their work would be simple, and they could go on home. So what have you is both a crisis in psychiatry and also a crisis in the mental health law of Texas.

ALKSNE: Leon, this jury doesn't know that if they find her not guilty by reason of insanity that she goes to an institution. They don't know what that outcome is.

HARRIS: Exactly.

ALKSNE: If they really don't know in the jury room, if the judge has been successful in keeping them sequestered from that information, that could also play an important role in the discussion. HARRIS: You were shaking your head, Dr. Gordon.

GORDON: I agree. I would like to say that jury does make certain assumptions and inferences. So even though they don't know, they believe that they know. And they believe that if she is, in fact, found not guilty by reason of insanity, then she can gain her freedom, and that will be unacceptable to them.

HARRIS: Dr. Gordon, let me ask you: Have you seen the movie "Beautiful Mind"?

GORDON: Yes, I have.

HARRIS: How close do you think that is, in your expert opinion, to what a schizophrenic might be going through, because I must say that I have been watching this case unfold on our coverage for the longest, but it is not until I saw that movie that I guess I had a different sense for what this woman might have been going through.

GORDON: In that fabulous movie, of course, the pathology of the professor was not violent and was not angry and was not hostile. And in this case, it is being used in such a way as to destroy one's children, which violates all of the laws of evolution and spirituality that our Western civilization is founded on.

We can feel compassion for a person who is mentally ill and harmless, but if a person is mentally ill and also dangerous, then we take a very dim and critical view.

HARRIS: Robert Gordon, Cynthia Alksne, thank you very much. Appreciate the insight right now. Hope to talk with you after we get through the closing arguments today.

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