Multiple-murderer Andrea Yates gets another trial because the psychiatrist who testified that she was mentally sound when she killed her five children mistakenly hypothesized that she might have gotten the idea to do so from an episode of Law & Order.
Andrea Yates, who was convicted of murder in the drownings of her children, will have to be retried, Texas' highest criminal court ruled today.The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that threw out Yates' murder convictions because of mistaken testimony by a prosecution psychiatrist. ...
The First Court of Appeals in Houston overturned the convictions last January because of testimony from prosecution psychiatrist Park Dietz, who said Yates was healthy enough to know what she was doing.
Dietz also suggested that Yates got the idea for the murders from an episode of a television show for which he consulted. However, it turned out no such episode existed.
Who cares where she got the idea from? What does that have to do with anything? How ridiculous.
