Psychiatric Lies Factor in Andrea Gates Case

An appeals court in Texas has overturned Andrea Yates' capital murder conviction for drowning her children. The Texas First Court of Appeals in Houston ordered a new trial in the drownings of her children. Yates had been serving a life sentence on convictions in the 2001 drownings of three of her five children. She was not tried for the deaths of the other two children. A three-judge panel found that the Harris County jury may have been prejudiced by the false testimony of a prosecution expert.

Yates' lawyers had argued at a hearing last month before a three-judge panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston that psychiatrist Park Dietz lied when he said he consulted on an episode of the TV show "Law & Order" involving a woman found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children. After jurors found Yates guilty, attorneys in the case and jurors learned no such episode existed.

As reported in many places