Yates Verdict Is Not Justice

That a jury could hear all the testimony demonstrating Andrea Yates’ mental illness, suicide attempts, depression and history of hospitalization and still pronounce her guilty is unbelievable (March 13). How unjust Texas law must be not to recognize that one might be “not guilty by reason of insanity.” Perhaps the letter of Texas law should be changed so a more humane interpretation would not condemn the mentally ill.

Even more outrageous is the possibility of the death penalty. No punishment, even death, will bring back the lives of her children. Society does not need to be protected from those who suffer mental illness. Society’s obligation and responsibility are to protect those who are mentally ill and vulnerable--not to condemn them to prison or to death.

Lenore Navarro Dowling

Los Angeles

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Yates deserves to die. She deliberately, premeditatedly and methodically murdered her children. Yates wanted to die. She was unsuccessful at committing suicide, so she committed a capital crime so that the government would do the job for her. Let her have her wish before she victimizes anyone else in her quest for self-punishment.

Rose Mary Leon

Northridge

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Like countless other parents, I suppose, I’m outraged that Yates now faces a possible death penalty for drowning her own children. I do not love my own two children because I learned about love in some self-help book, or through a night-school class--I love them because I am both human and sane, which makes such love come quite naturally--no effort at all, believe me.

And so, based on my personal experience, and because Yates seems to me quite human herself, I can only conclude that she could not possibly be sane--she must certainly suffer from some form of insanity, without any doubt, to be able to commit the horrible act for which she has been found guilty. Severe punishment--and possible death--for an acute mental and medical problem such as this is not justice in any sense of that word--and especially not American justice.

James R. Beniger

Manhattan Beach

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Between the “dead or alive” frontier justice of our Texan president and the lethal judgments favored by that state’s hanging juries, I’m embarrassed that Texas is part of our union. As an American I’m proud of and enthralled by our Wild West heritage, but isn’t it time for Texas to join the rest of the civilized world and hang up its pistols?

Cynthia Berryman

Orange