has been damaged beyond repair. by Judith Haney USNEWSLINK/January 8, 2002 Why should we care that Andrea Pia Yate's Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial by an impartial jury have been undermined and damaged beyond repair? After all, the crimes she committed were heinous. They were unthinkable. For most of us, her crimes stressed and traumatized us. They were crimes that few people ever hear or read about, much less commit. They were the kind of crimes that none of us ever want to hear or read about again. From all accounts, on the morning of June 20, 2001, Andrea Pia Yates waited for her husband to leave the house to go to work. What happened next is unclear, but evidence shows that sometime between 9:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., Andrea Yates methodically murdered each of her five children. She took each trusting child into the bathroom and held them underwater in the bathtub until they were dead. When she killed the last child, she picked up the telephone and called the police. When the police arrived she confessed to murdering all five of her children. While the police were in her house arresting her, reporters and television film crews arrived and began feeding live shots of the house and details of the five murders to network news organizations. By the time Andrea Yates was led out of her house in handcuffs, her hair and clothing still wet from the drownings, the whole world was glued to their television sets in fascination that they were seeing the expressionless face of a brand new murderer. The fact that the live shots were fed so quickly following the murders of the Yates children seemed to this viewer to take on an artificial sensation of actually being there standing on the lawn with Russell Yates, the father, as he waited outside his house with reporters, photographers, neighbors, emergency workers and others. Having declared his house a crime scene, police prevented Yates from entering his house, or seeing or talking to his wife, or viewing or touching his dead children's bodies. He was shut out of the process of what was going on inside of his house. And while he waited, those of us watching the coverage on TV waited with him, feeling a profound sense of loss, shock, and sadness. Fast forward to Monday, January 6, 2002. This week, the death penalty trial of Andrea Yates is unfolding in a Houston, Texas, courtroom. Prosecutors and her defense attorneys are interviewing 100 potential jurors in an effort to seat an impartial jury of 12 regular and 6 alternate jurors. And as the jurors respond to attorney's questions, it is fast becoming apparent that Judge Belinda Hill's worst nightmares are coming true. Because, thus far, every potential juror queried has revealed that he or she knows something about Yate's case. Sensational murder cases like the Yates case have sparked an ongoing debate between legal scholars regarding the inherent constitutional conflict between the First and Sixth Amendment guarantees. Both constitutional guarantees ensures and safeguards essential elements of American democracy, i.e., free speech and a fair trial. When Judge Hill Imposed a gag order on June 26, 2001, seven days after the crimes were committed, she employed the only viable tool she had at her disposal to protect Andrea Yates constitutional safeguards to a fair trial by an impartial jury. But on December 9, 2001, Russell Yates, and Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, both appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes to talk about the case. In the interview on 60 Minutes, Yates said he blamed the doctors and hospitals for not properly treating his wife. Rosenthal used his appearance on the news show to explain why he thought seeking the death penalty is appropriate in Yate's case. Following the airing of the 60 Minutes segment, Houston lawyers not associated with the case offered opinions that the gag order had been violated and the potential pool of jurors in the Houston area had been tainted as a result of the television appearances. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the gag order or the actions of Russell Yates and Chuck Rosenthal, there is no doubt that Andrea Yates Sixth Amendment rights have been permanently, irreparably, harmed as a result of aggressive media coverage, and the acts of the prosecutor and her husband, and the failure of the court to take remedial action to ensure Yates Sixth Amendment constitutional guarantees. The judge in the Yates case has many options to restore the tone of impartiality for the balance of Yate's trial including, but not limited to, barring Rosenthal from further representation of the state of Texas against Yates, and by putting Russell Yates in jail for the purpose of sending a clear message to potential jurors that Andrea Yates has a constitutionally protected right to a fair trial by an impartial jury and that the court intends to see that she gets one no matter what it takes. And while conscientious citizens familiar with the Yates case may harbor feelings of anger toward her for the crimes she committed, the fact remains that if the Yates case is allowed to progress even one more day given the egregious, unlawful, acts of her husband and her prosecutor, justice will not be served. Rather, justice, due process, and the rule of law will be undermined, and our constitutional guarantees will suffer irreparably as a result of the legal precedent(s) the Yates case is establishing. ADDITIONAL READING ADDITIONAL READING: |
