*refresh* Good question, Stilly. What can we learn from it? I hope we learn something about the symptoms – and the prevalence – of post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis.

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My cynical side says another lesson might be: "If you're going to attempt to use an insanity defense, do not make a statement in your confession or at any other time that jurors might interpret as an admission that you knew what you did was 'wrong'." News reports today quote a juror as saying that the verdict was based on Yates's confession and on the crime-scene photos of the children. I understand the shock value of the photos, but I've read the confession and found no explicit statement there to the effect that Yates knew she was doing something "wrong". However, here are a couple of excerpts that might have influenced the jury:

(Officer) MEHL (taping the confession): Um, how long have you been having thoughts about wanting, or not wanting to, but drowning your children?
YATES: Probably since I realized I have not been a good mother to them.
MEHL: What makes you say that?
YATES: They weren't developing correctly.
MEHL: Behavioral problems?
YATES: Yes.
MEHL: Learning problems?
YATES: Yes.

....MEHL: OK, you had told me earlier that, that you'd been having these thoughts about hurting your children for up to two years. Is that, is that about right?
YATES: Yes.
MEHL: OK, is there anything that happened two years ago that, that made you, that you believe led you to have these thoughts?
YATES: I realized that it was time to be punished.
MEHL: And what do you need to be punished for?
YATES: For not being a good mother.
MEHL: How did you see drowning your five children as a way to be punished? Did you want the criminal justice system to punish you or did you...
YATES: Yes.
MEHL: OK, we were also talking earlier and there was one other time when you filled the tub with water and were going to do this and did not do it. Is that correct?
YATES: Yes.
MEHL: How long ago was that?
YATES: It was two months ago.
MEHL: OK, were all the children at home that time?
YATES: Yes, Rusty was there too.
MEHL: Rusty was there too? Do you think Rusty would have stopped you?
YATES: Yes.
MEHL: So you filled the tub with water that time. What is it within yourself that stopped you from, from doing it that time?
YATES: Just didn't do it that time.


Apparently the jury thought this was evidence of premeditation, rather than of an ongoing mental problem. Also, they may have thought that Yates's desire to be "punished" meant she wanted to be punished for murder, whereas to me it sounds as if she felt she needed to be punished for doing a poor job of mothering before the murders.

It would have been better if Yates had not made a confession, or any statement at all, without the presence and advice of an attorney. But is a mentally ill person able to make that sort of reasoned decision to call an attorney instead of speaking???

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Something else that concerns me about this trial is the testimony of Park Dietz, forensic psychiatrist and expert witness for the prosecution. He claimed that Yates got the idea for drowning the kids from an episode of the TV show "Law and Order" (and the prosecutor mentioned this claim in closing arguments). Well, it seems that no such episode exists, and defense tried to have the judge declare a mistrial because the misinformation might have persuaded the jury on the premeditation issue (defense's motion for mistrial was denied).

Park Dietz seems to have an agenda to rid TV of certain programming, and has used cases of serial murderers to prove (or to manufacture proof) that watching sex and violence on TV influences some people to commit the same acts. That may or may not be true but, according to an article in a Johns Hopkins University magazine, studies have not borne out his claims. "He concedes that he has no quantitative research to back his assertions about sex and violence in the media, but he dismisses studies that claim to find no link between portrayed and actual violence. Too much of this research, he claims, is funded by the companies that profit from the media in question. Besides, he says, a typical study of the effects of violent imagery uses psychology students as test subjects, screening out those with psychological abnormalities--but the responses of normal people to such stimuli are not the issue. Psychologically normal people watch enactments of sex and violence, then go about their normal lives. It's the psychologically abnormal who respond adversely. "If you want to do a scientifically meaningful study," Dietz says, 'show Body Double to a group of sexual psychopaths the day before you release them.'" [Again quoting from the article:] "Dietz, however, believes that many serial killers, though genuinely disordered, are in control of themselves when they kill and are thus legally responsible. They are not psychotic: they know what they're doing, they know it's wrong, and they could stop themselves if they wanted. They are like other criminals.... they rationalize their crimes, he says, or feel entitled to trample others for their personal gain."

The article also states that "Dietz almost always appears in court as a witness for the prosecution. Defense attorneys have sniped at him in the press for being a hired gun, who for $300 an hour will walk into a courtroom and convince a jury of whatever the prosecution wants him to say. ....Some forensic psychiatrists question the way he presents information to a jury; they say he portrays mere informed opinion as solid fact, and that his standard of criminal responsibility is harsh and unforgiving of mentally ill defendants."

So what better "expert" for the prosecution in the Yates case to put on the stand to counter the insanity defense? Unfortunately for Yates, the jury bought into Dietz's agenda and believed his lie about this "Law and Order" episode that he dreamed up to "prove" his point.

Here's a link to that Johns Hopkins article: http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/1194web/dietz.html