Yate's Trial

Andrea Yates judged not guilty, by reason of insanity. It was this case, in particular the miscarriage of justice in a judicial pronouncement of “insane, but guilty”, that prompted me towards my current research interest: “Sin and Sanity in 19th century America.” Strangely, I find this verdict (almost) as unsatisfying as the first. At first my interest in the case was stoked by the callousness of some theological commentators on the case; specifically, a discussion of the Society of Christian Philosophers over whether some one with diminished will or reason could even be considered a “person.” The conversations were carried on from the raving lunacy of the syllogism (as if one could understand such a dark mystery of human fragility through A causes B (mitigated by C only if D, E, and F). I then turned to the public debate

The National Review blamed feminism. They satirized a letter from NOW. “Stop Persecuting Andrea,” it read, “defend her liberating views on the origin of human life. Fight our culture’s war on women.” It is time that the world gets the message, “a home paid for by a man is no place for a woman.” Yates was far from a feminist. She accepted the control of her husband including his command that she only have one friend. Yet, the Review lampooned NOW in part because its members did defend Andrea Yates – donations came in to help defray her legal bills and dozens of famous women recounted their experience with post-partum depression and the rigors of motherhood. While not condoning her actions, they could sympathize.
Many implicated the Yates’s Christianity, faulting the biblical narrative of Abraham, belief in demons and hell, and the crazy itinerant preacher who convinced Andrea that bad mothers are witches. Others blamed Randy Yates, Andrea’s husband, and the “conservative Christian culture that continues to empower controlling and abusive husbands.”

Some conservative Christians, most notably James Dobson, defended the validity of Andrea’s illness on the basis that no well mother would ever do such a thing to her children. However, several other notable conservatives thought Yates was either a sinner or wickedly insane. Chuck Colson suggested that “scripture should have been the arbitrator of Andrea’s worldview” and if she had only read her bible more she wouldn’t have fallen for such malicious lies. World Magazine took a similar tack suggesting that Andrea was “guilty of not feeding truth to her conscience.” They argued, using the first chapter of Romans, that humans are culpable both for irrationality and the malicious acts which may result: “to despoil a moral compass by a history of small rejections of the light is to become more (not less) culpable for the immoral action that may result, though the subject does not feel guilty.” Yates could have resisted the suggestions of the devil just as Christ did: “when he heard voices saying ‘Throw yourself from the pinnacle of the temple…’ he rebuked them.”7

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the articles that circulated at the time of Andrea’s trial was how very much they tried to see in her actions a place for broader social commentary – motherhood is too difficult, Christianity is too oppressive, abortion is too accessible. Many mentioned post-partum depression. Few mentioned that Andrea actually was diagnosed with schizophrenia and rare post-partum psychosis. In fact, even in the articles defending Yates, mental illness played a secondary role in commentators’ explanation of her actions. She murdered because she was insane with too many children, insane and a conservative Christian, or insane and a dominated housewife. It is little wonder that the courts concluded that she was insane and guilty. It is not easy to explain insane acts without confusing them with sin.

The problem is hard to solve. Sin and insanity are difficult to distinguish. Is it possible to differentiate the environmental factors which trigger mental illness from the evil habituation which is the cause of human sin? How is the vitiated reason of fallen humans different from the impaired reason of mentally ill? What distinguishes the bound will of the cussed from the involuntary actions of the mad?

I suppose in the weeks ahead we will be treated to more commentary on these matters. I can’t say that I am looking forward to it. I have my own ideas on to theologically understand such matters. And yet, mostly I am left saying with
Augustine:

Crazy people say and do many incongruous things, things for the most part alien to their intentions and characters, certainly contrary to their good intentions and characters; and when we think about their words and actions, or see them with our eyes, we can scarcely—or possibly we cannot at all—restrain our tears, if we consider their situation as it deserves to be considered. St. Augustine, City of God.