The story of Andrea Yates is sad. It is hard to comprehend a mother who drowns her five children in the bathtub. She was later convicted of murder in spite of her insanity defense.  The Texas appellate courts have now reversed the conviction becasue the state's expert inaccurately testifed that Yates had patterened the killings after a non-existent TV episode on post-partum depression.

At her trial, the issue was whether she was legally insane or criminally psychopathic.

Of course, the state called a psychiatrist as an expert witness.  This expert had al lot of experience testifying in high profile cases on defendants’ insanity.  He testified in the John Hinckley case, for example.  At Yates’ trial, in line with all of his previous opinions, he testified that Yates was legally sane.  In fact, he testified she was a fan of the TV show "law and Order" and that a month before she killed her children, Law and Order had an episode about a mother suffering from postpartum depression who drowned her kid in a bathtub.  The state, armed with the expert’s opinion and factual testimony, suggested that Yates patterned her crime after the TV episode to engineer her own insanity defense.

Unfortunately, the Law and order episode never existed.  This situation highlights the seriousness of handling experts correctly and why expert testimony should be carefully controlled by the judge.

Dealing with experts is made more difficult in criminal cases where pre-trial expert discovery is limited.  Generally, there are no depositions or required detailed expert reports in criminal cases.  The defense was limited to in-court cross examination, where the expert testified he specifically remembered the Law and Order episode because he acted as a consultant on that episode.  The truth was he had consulted on other Law and Order episodes, but there was no post-partum drowning episode.  This factual error undoubtedly played a role in the jury's verdict and was the basis for the reversal in the lower courts. 

The courts did the right thing.  That’s what courts of appeal are for.  Nevertheless, the whole case demonstrates that expert testimony must be handled carefully to prevent injustice.

Posted by Joseph R. McFaul on Tuesday, November 15, 2005 at 00:00 Comments Closed (0)

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