Law and Psychology Commons^™

The Andrea Yates Case: Insanity On Trial, Phillip J. Resnick

Cleveland State Law Review

On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned each of her five children in her bathtub. The nation struggled to understand how a loving mother could systematically kill her children in apparent cold blood. No crime evokes more intense feelings than a mother killing her own children. There was extraordinary media coverage of her trial in Houston, Texas in 2002. Her defense attorneys, George Parnham and Wendell Odom entered a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) to multiple counts of first degree murder with death penalty specifications. The 2002 trial jury verdict of guilty was overturned on appeal. …

Who Is Andrea Yates? A Short Story About Insanity, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her four children in a bathtub. At Andrea’s trial, in Harris County, Texas, the prosecution’s star expert, Patrick Dietz, appeared particularly adept at persuading the jury to accept the prosecution’s assertion that Andrea was sane and acting intentionally when she killed her children. This Article analyzes the problematic aspects of Dietz's testimony in an effort to contribute some balance to the Andrea Yates story. Despite the long history of expert witnesses in criminal trials, the justice system should question the fairness and efficacy of such an unregulated storytelling process. Part I of this …

Prostitution Policy: Legalization, Decriminalization And The Nordic Model, Ane Mathieson, Easton Branam, Anya Noble

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Mental Incompetence In Indiana: Standards And Types Of Evidence

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Ask Versus Tell: Potential Confusion When Child Witnesses Are Questioned About Conversastions, Stacia Stolzenberg, Kelly Mcwilliams, Thomas Lyon

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

Children’s potential confusion between “ask” and “tell” can lead to misunderstandings when child witnesses are asked to report prior conversations. The verbs distinguish both between interrogating and informing and between requesting and commanding. Children’s understanding was examined using both field (i.e., Study 1) and laboratory (i.e., Studies 2-4) methods. Study 1 examined 100 5- to 12-year-olds’ trial testimony in child sexual abuse cases, and found that potentially ambiguous use of ask and tell was common, typically found in yes/no questions that elicited unelaborated answers, and virtually never clarified by attorneys or child witnesses. Studies 2-4 examined 345 maltreated 6- to …

Mommy Dearest?: Postpartum Psychosis, The American Legal System, And The Criminalization Of Mental Illness, Allison Dopazo

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Children are often regarded as the most sacred beings in all of society—appealing to our collective sense of human dignity and protecting the most vulnerable. Mothers fiercely protecting their young children from perceived dangers is ostensibly a natural and moral response. This notion of the loving mother is in stark contrast to filicide, or the act of a parent murdering their child. It is a bedrock principle of the American criminal-justice system that a defendant is not responsible for their actions if the defendant was “laboring under such a defect of reason, from a disease of the mind, as not …

The Punishment Of Suicide - A Need For Change, David S. Markson

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Inextricably Bound: Strip Clubs, Prostitution, And Sex Trafficking, Dan O'Bryant

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

11. Report Of The Apsac Task Force On Attachment Therapy, Reactive Attachment Disorder, And Attachment Problems., Thomas Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

Trends In The Efficacy Of Parental Alienation Allegations In Child Custody Cases And Their Implications For Tortious Action

Bruce L. Beverly

As the second of a series, this paper attempts to further explore the phenomenon of parental alienation in domestic relations cases by exploring the often frustrating position that many courts take with regard to blatant and obvious violations of the fundamental rights of parents to raise and know their children. Ofttimes, where courts have found the most blatant interference and harmful manipulation by one parent of the other parent's formerly close relationship with a child, the court either forces a detrimentally aligned child into the custody of the wrongfully vilified parent, thereby harming possible the child and that injured parent, …