Child murderer gets new trial

Judges seem to have a lot of tolerance for mothers, no matter how bad the behavior. Andrea Yates murdered 5 of her kids, and was convicted by a jury for 3 of the murders, but an appellate court has just ordered a new trial:

The Texas First Court of Appeals ruled that the conviction should be reversed because an expert witness for the state, Dr. Park Dietz, presented false testimony when he said Yates may have been influenced by an episode of the "Law & Order" television program. No such episode had ever aired.

Yates, now 40, apparently was a fan of the show and watched regularly.

Men get railroaded all the time based on inaccurate and speculative testimony from govt experts, and no one cares.

If a witness did indeed mischaracterize a TV episode, then the time to object should have been during the trial.

John writes:

I'm with Andy on this one. False testimony by a government expert witness should be sufficient to require a new trial for both Martha Stewart and Andrea Yates. There can be no doubt that, in each case, the false testimony was critical to the jury's conviction.

No one ever explained what was [Yates's] motive. Until that question is answered, yes there definitely is a real question of her guilt.

Yes, this crime is worse because it was rational and lacked insanity. (Alternate link here.)

These were not "honest mistakes." They were not mere inadvertent "inaccuracies." They were pivotal, decisive, intentional, and deliberate. They went to the heart of the case against these two women, supplying a missing link in the case against them.

Without the false testimony of these two experts, the government's case was insufficient and both women should have been acquitted.

No, that is not the law. It is not a crime for a physician to do an abortion (with the woman's consent), and your article quoted a Michigan criminal law prof as saying that this recent incident was not a crime under Michigan law either.

Mothers murder their kids in the USA much more than fathers do. Your message just illustrate the bias that makes excuses for mothers murdering their kids, while wanting to criminalize men's behavior that law profs say is completely legal.