March 13,2002
Unjust Rules for Insanity
By Jennifer S. Bard
GALVESTON, Tex.- Andrea Yates attempted suicide twice in 1999 and reported suicidal impulses again not long before the
day last June when she drowned her children in a bathtub. She was hospitalized several times for mental illness; the last time her
psychiatrist had threatened to force her commitment in court. Both the prosecution and the defense in her murder trial in Texas
agree that she is severely mentally ill. Yet under Texas law all this was insufficient to produce a verdict of not guilty by reason of
insanity, and yesterday Andrea Yates was found guilty of capital murder.
The Yates case exposes serious flaws in how Texas -- like most other states -- determines criminal responsibility. Under an
insanity defense, Mrs. Yates was required to prove in her trial not that she was sane at the time of the killings, but that she did not
know she was committing a crime or doing wrong.
The insanity defense has long been controversial. In 1843, when Daniel M'naghten was acquitted by reason of insanity in the
murder of the English prime minister's secretary during an attempted assassination, Queen Victoria called for a reappraisal of the
law. The result was a standard, adopted not only in England but in American courts, which can be summarized in a single question:
Did the defendant know his conduct was wrong at the time he committed the crime? Unless a person was so out of touch with
reality that he didn't know he was committing a crime, he could be found criminally responsible despite suffering from severe
mental illness.
In the 19701s,a more realistic standard was adopted by many states, including Texas. Even if the defendant knew the conduct was
wrong, he would not be found guilty if he had been "incapable of conforming his conduct" to the requirements of the law. This
standard recognized that as a result of mental illness an individual might know he or she is doing wrong but lack the ability to keep
from doing it.
Then John Hinckley, trying to murder President Ronald Reagan, shot and wounded the president and three other men in 1981. Mr.
Hinckley's acquittal by reason of insanity in 1982 shocked the nation. The next year Texas dropped the element of "conforming
conduct" and reverted to a strict "knowledge-based" standard almost like the old M'Naghten rule.
In the case of Andrea Yates, the prosecution focused narrowly on the question of what she knew at the time of the killings. Her call
to 91 1 and her admission to police officers that she expected to be punished by the criminal justice system were pivotal evidence
for the prosecutors. The details of her knowledge were important; her mental illness at the time was not.
Mrs. Yates has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, not just postpartum depression. Her family apparently never realized the depth
of her delusions; her doctors failed to see that she was a danger to others, and one took her off her antipsychotic medication. She
told police that she had been a bad mother and told later interviewers that the only way to save her children from the devil was to
kill them. Her plea of not guilty by reason of insanity would have been highly persuasive if the standard were her ability to
conform her conduct to the law. By the prevailing legal standards, however, how she felt and her ability to control her behavior
could not be taken into account.
One way a prosecutor might describe this standard to a jury is to ask whether the defendant would have committed the crime if a
police officer had been present in the room. Putting the issue that way makes the burden on the defense a heavy one. Mrs. Yates
waited until she was alone to drown her children, one by one. When she finished, she called the police. As a matter of law, it
appears that she knew she was drowning her children. And that's the standard in Texas: knowledge.
That a person as mentally ill as Andrea Yates could face the death penalty -- as she does now -- shows how desperately flawed the
knowledge-based insanity defense is. If, as is the case here, it is widely agreed that a defendant suffers from a severe mental illness,
shouldn't such a disability diminish that person's legal responsibility?
Drawing (Bill Russell)
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