Re: Judge Delays Andrea Yates' Retrial


Bo Raxo wrote:
"ronniecat" <ronniecat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:pf7u12hsi7kf48fjan0heuvtktvphcec38@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 19:49:15 GMT, "Kris Baker"
<kris.baker@xxxxxxxxxxxx> promised to tell the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth but instead wrote:

"ronniecat" <ronniecat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ct0u129a9tfimhhnag45hnpcvqe904l8vf@xxxxxxxxxx

That reminds me of something I wondered this morning while watching a
news story about the new trial - did we ever find out a motive or a
reason for Park Deitz's outrageous falsehood?
<snip>
ronnie

No one's been able to figure out what happened (or if they did, they're
not saying). A grand jury looked into it, but didn't indict Dietz.

I did some googling and found this article:
Controversial Psychiatrist in Yates Case Speaks Out
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=391997&page=1

The whole article is interesting but the bombshell is on page two:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=391997&page=2

"Dietz said that prosecutors first told him there was a 'Law & Order'
episode dealing with postpartum depression in a conversation before
the trial. He said he made notes during the conversation and that he
confused his memory of the notes with the memory of the show. However,
prosecutors told ABC News that they never mentioned the episode to
Dietz."

So he *says* he got it from the prosecution. If they believed there
was a L&O episode it would explain why they wanted Deitz, who's a
consultant on the show, to testify in particular. Either way it's
Deitz's fault but that allegation kind of blew me away.


Well, here's a different version:

http://www.courttv.com/trials/yates/010705_dietz_ctv.html
[Excerpt]

In the letter, dated March 14, 2002, addressed to prosecutors and furnished
to Court TV by Dietz, the doctor states he erroneously meshed two different
Law & Order episodes, leading to his inaccurate answer on the stand during
cross-examination.

One episode was based in part on Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother who
killed her two young sons by driving her car into a lake with them strapped
inside. Instead of drowning, the cause of death was suffocation. The 1995
episode was rerun approximately five months before the June 20, 2001,
drownings.

The other episode dealt with a young woman whose secret pregnancy resulted
in the baby's death, similar to the cases of "Prom Mom" Melissa Drexler and
Amy Grossberg, both teens charged with discarding newborn babies. That
episode aired about three weeks before the Yates deaths.

http://community-2.webtv.net/stigmanet/YATESARTICLES/#book
From the New York TImes 01/08/05:

Dr. Dietz testified in 2002 that an episode of "Law & Order" depicting
a mother who drowned her children in a bathtub and was found not guilty
by reason of insanity had been broadcast shortly before the Yates
children were murdered.

There was no such show. But in the five months before the Yates
children were killed in 2001, two episodes of the show did center on
mothers who killed or were thought to have killed their children. Mrs.
Yates frequently watched "Law & Order," a fact prosecutors mentioned in
suggesting that she saw "a way out," thinking she could get away with
murder by pleading insanity.

But Dr. Dietz said yesterday that he never thought such a television
show could have prompted a mother to drown her children. He said he was
simply "being defensive on a challenge to my credentials" by Mrs.
Yates's lawyer when he invoked the show, wrongly confounding the facts
of three child-murder cases on which he had worked and the two "Law &
Order" episodes based on them.

snip

Dr. Dietz, who has consulted on more than 200 "Law & Order" episodes,
said that when he learned that he had made a mistake, he sent a letter
to prosecutors in the Yates case outlining the two episodes he had
mistakenly conflated. One, titled "Denial," was based in part on two
cases - involving Amy Grossberg, a New Jersey teenager who gave birth
in a hotel room and then, with her boyfriend's help, dumped the baby in
a trash container, and Melissa Drexler, a New Jersey girl who killed
her baby after giving birth in a restroom stall at her prom.

That episode was originally broadcast in 1997, and again about three
weeks before the Yates killings.

The other episode, "Angels," was modeled on Susan Smith, who sent a car
with her children inside into a lake. The episode, first broadcast in
1995, was repeated in January 2001, five months before the Yates
killings, and again two days after them.

In "Angels," the mother said that God had told her to kill the
children, and she entered a plea of insanity. But she was convicted of
murder.

In Dr. Dietz's testimony, he said the character in the show he was
thinking of was successful with an insanity defense, and the
prosecutor's closing statement expanded on the assertion. His discovery
of his mistake came too late, however. The jury had already voted,
rejecting the insanity defense.

"At no time have I ever believed or told anyone that I thought 'Law &
Order' or any other television show gave Andrea Yates the idea to kill
her children," Dr. Dietz said. (On CNN's "Larry King Live" on Thursday,
Mrs. Yates's estranged husband, Russell, called Dr. Dietz's disavowal
"too convenient.")

So why did Dr. Dietz bring the subject up in the trial?

"I was being defensive," he said. A defense lawyer for Mrs. Yates had
raised the question of whether his consulting on the television show
ever dealt with postpartum depression or women's mental health. Mrs.
Yates's postpartum depression was diagnosed before the killings.

Dr. Dietz, who does not practice psychiatry but rather acts solely as a
forensic consultant, said he viewed that as a challenge to whether he
was professionally qualified to render a judgment on Mrs. Yates.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Dietz testifies: Yates not grossly psychotic before killings
    ... who had written scripts for Law & Order and knew the ... As she explains in her gripping book on the Yates trial, ... In his competitive eagerness to win, his brain apparently made up a Law ... & Order episode. ...
    (alt.true-crime)
  • Re: Dietz testifies: Yates not grossly psychotic before killings
    ... testimony that caused the mistrial in the first place. ... Actually I don't think it was Dietz who notified the courts. ... and Melissa Drexler) and two "Law & Order" episodes on which ... but that episode did not air shortly before Yates had killed her ...
    (alt.true-crime)
  • Re: Judge Delays Andrea Yates Retrial
    ... "Dietz said that prosecutors first told him there was a 'Law & Order' ... episode dealing with postpartum depression in a conversation before ...
    (alt.true-crime)
  • andrea yates update
    ... park dietz had testified that yates had seen an episode of "law and ... episode existed. ...
    (alt.true-crime)
  • FMA 51 - Laws and Promises
    ... Episode 51 Laws and Promises ... She shoots back as the guards attempt to restrain Archer, saying ... Having broken the law of equivalent exchange, after the break, the ... "You mind telling me why?" ...
    (rec.arts.anime.misc)
Loading