Controversy of Mental Illness in Court

Controversy of mental illnesses in the courtroom

Have you ever heard of a trial where the defendant had a mental illness? While many mental illnesses are legitimate illnesses, there are some people who use an “illness” defense to persuade the system to ease up on their sentencing. If someone were to use a defense in attempt to have the charges against them lessened or even dropped completely, would you consider this move fair? Or just? I can think of one case that exemplifies these questions. The case I want to discuss is Texas v. Yates.

On June 31, a Houston grand jury indicted Andrea Yates for capital murder in the cases of Noah, John, and Mary. Because she killed someone under the age of six and more than one person, she was judicially eligible for the death penalty. Some speculated the prosecutors held off with charging her with the murders of her other two kids to use as fallback in case the jury didn’t convict her of the first three. The prosecution claimed that Andrea Yates had knowingly drowned her five children and knew it was illegal and wrong. There were plenty of obvious signs in support of that. The prosecuting attorneys wanted to keep the jury focused on whether she knew right from wrong at the time of the offense. Her “mental illness” they would insist, was not relevant. Andrea had a background of reoccurring mental illnesses which required medication.

Yates was born in Houston, TX. She was very bright as a young woman. She graduated valedictorian in High School. She later graduated from the University Of Texas School Of Nursing in Houston in 1986 and worked at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center until 1994 (Kalson). In 1989 she met her to be husband Russell “Rusty” Yates. They married in 1993 and announced they “would seek to have as many babies as nature allowed.” After the birth of their fourth child, Luke, Andrea became depressed. Her condition may have been brought on by the extremist sermons of Michael Peter Woroniecki,...