the BATTAl;
Opinion
THE BATTALION
11
Monday, March 18, 2002
ve indicated
keep them out of
o go to trial," Bi
erald for Sunda\
showed a lack of.
ended both playe
rests. They have
fter being arresie:
has since moved h
-*nt at Baylor,
tutors are conside-
'ial. Bowers mir
s testimony wook'
a problem for society
fates deserved death penalty
KELLN ZIMMER
R
i the county jail®
courthouse, call
lave established
ecently, Andrea Yates, the
Houston woman convicted
mg to show ur'JJ. 'X.on three counts of capital
•on and was rer.jnurder, received life in prison for •
hei crimes. She drowned her five
children in a bathtub because she
said she was convinced they were
not “developing correctly” and the
He for punishment had come. The
jur/ had two options: life in prison
or death by injection.
HAndrea Yates should have been
Bitenced to death for her crimes,
for no other reason than in
n pro its sir.: Anierica. crimes like hers are pun-
uerman carmj<: j s |. lb j e by death. Right or wrong,
irm to do it t j,j s j s t iie American justice system,
in the interviwuj| n thjs case the defense failed to
i. Chrysler was conclusively prove insanity. The
‘t , IS whe: ^ viltims were five children, and the
II it s just an. m l r d erer was thgj,- once mild-man-
>. This was a f nei ; d mother. Gruesome crimes like
this are punishable by the death
penalty and there is no evidence to
argue that Yates deserves anything
les^ for the unthinkable crimes she
committed.
Under the Texas death penalty, a
jury must unanimously decide two
things in a capital murder case: if
the defendant poses a future danger
tojsociety and if there are mitigat
ing circumstances to sentence them
tohife in prison as opposed to
deaih. The mitigating circumstance
in this case would have been mental
illness. The jury rejected the
defense’s attempt to prove that
Yates was mentally ill and could
not distinguish right from wrong. It
is hard to believe that anyone who
is cold blooded enough to kill five
of their own flesh and blood does
nor pose a future threat to society
or to themselves.
■ Yates’s confession is a chilling
look into the mind of this murder
ous mother. When asked about the
first time she had thoughts of
killing her children, as the murders
last year were premeditated, Yates
said she “realized it was time to be
punished ... for not being a good
mother.” The investigator asked
■ow did you see drowning your
five children as a way to be pun-
I ished? Did you want the criminal
justice system to punish you?”
Yates quickly answered, “Yes.”
gJutta Karin Kennedy, Yates’
mother, said, “I have lost seven
People in one year,” referring to her
grandchildren and husband, who
cutions since 1982, according to the
Texas Department of Criminal
Justice, and constantly is under
scrutiny for its policy and the num
ber of inmates sent to death row. It
is seen as barbaric, “rough justice”
found nowhere but Texas, by oppo
nents. But Texas is a state that is
very rigid about right and wrong.
The argument is unshakable — it is
wrong to kill and it is unthinkable
to kill one, let alone five, of your
children.
Yates made a chilling admission
of the methodical steps she took to
kill her children. There is no ques
tion this is a sick crime, but she
should not have been spared under
the pretense of being severely
depressed. She knew what she was
doing — she planned it and she
calmly turned herself in when she
had taken the last breath from her
fifth child.
She killed them because she
decided they were not good and
she was a poor mother for
them. With a life sentence,
how long before Yates
becomes dissatisfied with
another person? How long
until she takes another life,
perhaps her own? Yates
deserved no less than
the death penalty,
and the fact that
she will be eligible
for parole later in
her life should be
viewed as a break
down in American justice
Kelln Zimmer is a junior
English major.
died
a year ago, in an emotional
plea to the jury to spare her daugh
ter s life. Russell Yates, Andrea
Yates' husband, has been in the
media since the murders took place.
Condolences go to the Yates family,
but they are not on trial and their
emotional lives should not come
mto play in her sentencing.
E Texas has the most active death
penalty in the nation, with 262 exe-
Mother given proper punishment
MELISSA BEDSOLE
L ast Tuesday, it took a Houston
jury a little more than three
hours to make a decision the
entire world was waiting to hear.
Eight women and four men made up
the jury that found Andrea Yates
guilty of three counts of capital mur
der for the deaths of five of her chil
dren. While there are many arguments
and opinions surrounding the verdict,
the jury may have redeemed itself in
deciding her punishment.
On Thursday, the penalty phase of
the trial began and the decision to be
made was whether Yates deserved
the death penalty or a life sentence
in prison.
A punishment of the death penalty
would have made Yates the eighth
woman on death row in Texas, and a
life sentence ensures her to serve at
least 40 years before becoming eligi
ble for parole. The opinions surround
ing this case were set aside for this
portion of the trial and Texas death
penalty laws were understood so that
this woman’s life was spared.
The Texas laws regarding insanity
worked against Yates in the first part
of her trial. It was nearly impossible
for the jury to find her not guilty by
reason of insanity because the law
focuses solely on knowing right
from wrong. Yates knew killing her
children was wrong in the eyes of
the law, but, because of her illness,
she felt that it was her only choice
and the right thing to do. She
deserved the laws of this state to
work in her favor in deciding her
punishment.
Under Texas law, a jury must look
at two things before condemning
someone to a death sentence. The first
is whether or not the criminal would
be a danger to society, and if the jury
could not unanimously decide they
would be, then they receive an auto
matic life in prison sentence.
If the jury had decided unani
mously that she was a danger, then
the second question would be
whether there were any mitigating
factors that should prevent her from
dying by lethal injection. The impor-
The Texas laws
regarding insanity
worked against
Yates in the first
part of her trial.
tant part rests completely in the first
question that faced the jurors.Yates
killed all five of her children, but she
is not a danger to this society.
On the first day of the punish
ment portion of Yates’ trial, her
defense called an expert on post-par-
tum depression to explain to the
jurors that she should not be consid
ered a danger to society.
“Her symptoms were triggered by
the birth of her children,” said Dr.
Lucy Puryea, a forensic psychiatrist.
“If she has no more children and
stays on her medication, her symp
toms will remain under control.”
Laws must be strict and clear, but
each case is extremely different from
any other. This case is an even greater
extreme in circumstances than most.
Texas has a reputation of being a
harsh state for its death penalty laws,
and if the jurors would have seen this
woman as a blatant murderer and
condemned her to die, harsh would
not begin to describe the situation.
Yates is a sick woman, but she does
not deserve to die.
The death penalty may be the
appropriate punishment for some,
but for a woman who killed all five
of her children and will suffer the
guilty consequences of that for the
rest of her life, it is not the answer.
It is sad and appalling that jurors
did not recognize the insanity and
sickness that has overtaken her; but
at least by recognizing she is not a
threat to anyone else the jury’s small
amount of compassion and under
standing has spared the life of Yates.
RUBEN DELUNA* THE BATTALION
Melissa Bedsole is senior
psychology major.
ACLU unjustified in suits against religious expression
b
DHARMARAJ INDURTHY
nee again, the separation of
church and state clashed with
religious expression.
The American Civil Liberties
Union is suing Franklinton, La., for
Usi ng state money to post religious
^gns stating “Jesus is Lord over
Rjanklinton.” Also on the group’s
docket is a Supreme Court case
involving a 7-foot-tall, 6-ton monu
ment depicting the Bill of Rights, the
Preamble to the Indiana Constitution
and the Ten Commandments. Indiana
Governor Frank O’Bannon intended
m set it among other monuments on
me statehouse lawn, but the Indiana
Civil Liberties Union sued. These
measures do injustice to the histori
cal significance of America’s reli
gious and ethical roots.
Currently, when the courts decide
on monuments or structures that have
a religious content, the standard is the
lemon test: does it promote a certain
religion and could a reasonable person
interpret it as a state-endorsed reli
gious message? This test results in
absurdities where Supreme Court jus
tices technically are permitted to sta
ple Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto
or Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf on their
office doors, but woe to him who puts
up a verse or two of scripture.
Why is this arbitrary line drawn
between secular philosophy and reli
gious thought?
Rather than restrict the religious
expression of justices, governors and
teachers, agents of government should
be allowed to be public about their
religious views if it does not infringe
on the free exercise of other religions.
The religious bias in government
should not be judged by posted signs
or the monuments governors commis
sion, but rather by the body of law.
It has become a ridiculous truth
that to practice one religion is to
offend all others. Linton Carney, a
visitor to Franklinton, looked at the
signs and said, “Can you imagine the
hostility that Jews, Muslims, members
of other minority faiths and non
believers must feel when living in or
passing through that community?”
It is irrational to feel any hostility.
A sign expressing a popular religious
opinion should not necessarily imply
offense. The message in “Jesus is Lord
over Franklinton” is simply that the
popular religious belief in Franklinton
is Christianity, or at worst, popular
opinion in Franklinton is that a non-
Christian religion is wrong. Neither of
those statements can be rationally con
strued as offensive, particularly
because both of these implied state
ments are very true.
Even granting that government gen
erally should not promote religion, the
Indiana attorney general’s office con
tends that structures like the Indiana
Ten Commandments monument should
not be curtailed for its religious under
tones at the expense of historical pres
entation. The Ten Commandments
have played a powerful role in estab
lishing popular ethic. Since the incep
tion of the United States, the Ten
Commandments have both represented
and motivated the core moral values of
America, even secular moral values. To
exclude its presentation is to ludicrous
ly pretend that religious ethic has
played no part in the development of
American thought.
In essence, religion has become
absent from education and govern
ment, as if God and philosophy have
no intellectual or historical relevance.
Being vocal about religion does not
harm society; it is silence that enforces
divisions. Constructive discourse on
religious issues is critical to the matu
rity of the public consciousness, and
there is no place better for discussion
than schools where a variety of
thought can be represented. Religious
ignorance is profuse in our society.
Separation of church and state has
deprived people of crucial interchange
and promoted ideological disparity
rather than prevented offense. Instead
of denying government the ability to
promote religious issues, messages
characterizing ethical history and pop
ular religious inclinations should be
permitted if they do not infringe on the
free exercise of religious practice.
Dharmaraj Indurthy is a senior
physics major.