by Suruthi Bala
After Tom ended their relationship, Susan became depressed again and went back to sleeping with David, her abusive stepfather Beverly Russell, and even Tom’s dad (her boss). October 1994 was a rough month for Susan Smith and it was the beginning of the end. She was desperate to get Tom back so she tried everything she could think of. She told him that Russell had been sexually abusing her since she was a teenager, and when Tom didn’t seem to care, she told him that she was going to tell everyone about her affair with his father. Unsurprisingly, this threat also failed to win Tom’s love, and he told Susan it was never going to happen.
It was later revealed to police, and exposed at trial, that during this time Susan had casually mentioned to a friend, “I wonder what my life would be like if I didn’t have kids…” If this had been a thought on Susan’s mind, she wouldn’t have to wait long to find out. On October 25, just 10 days after Tom Findlay had ended their relationship, Susan drove her two sons into John D. Long Lake.
After having lied for over a week that a Black man had hijacked her car, Susan had finally confessed everything. When divers found her car at the bottom of the lake with Michael and Alex’s bodies in the backseat, the breakup letter from Tom Findlay was discovered in the glove compartment.
Much to everyone’s surprise, at first David Smith stood by Susan. He told everyone she must have been out of her mind. He knew about her difficult childhood, the sexual abuse, the depression, and the multiple attempts she had made on her own life. But any sympathy David had for his former wife would soon vanish.
Insane, or Just Crazy?
Before we get to the trials of Andrea Yates and Susan Smith, let’s talk about insanity. As we said at the start of this chapter, insanity is a legal term, not a clinical one. Not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) is a defense used by a person who is claiming that they are not criminally responsible for their crimes. To understand what that actually means in the eyes of the law, we’re going to have to throw some real legal definition grenades at you, so pull on your smart pants and pay attention.
The law uses the term insane to refer to a very specific set of conditions under which some seriously mentally ill people are deemed not responsible for having committed criminal acts. We have to say again (and guys, we’re going to keep banging on about this) these conditions only apply to some mentally ill people. Mental illness and insanity are not synonymous. To be found NGRI, you must have a mental illness, but that alone is not sufficient. Therefore, not all seriously mentally ill people who commit crimes are legally insane at the time they did whatever they did.
Why? It’s all about intent. In a court of law, you have to show that the accused had intent, or the ability to form intent, for there to be a crime. Without evidence of intent, even if the outcome is the same (someone was killed, for example), the case can’t be tried in the same way as if there had been intent.
Essentially NGRI means that the person either did not know what they were doing, or did not know that what they were doing was wrong. The problem is, as we’ll see when we analyze the cases in this chapter, wrong is a very subjective word. Wrong by whose standards? Wrong is a very philosophical idea; what if someone’s mental illness skews their perception of reality to the point that they have a definition of right and wrong that is no longer aligned with our societal sensibilities? Tricky, right? Don’t worry, it gets worse.
Generally speaking, if the defense wants to go with an NGRI plea at trial, there are two requirements:
1 They need expert testimony to show that the defendant is mentally ill.
2 They need to be able to prove how this mental illness removed the defendant’s ability to reason, their ability to understand what they were doing, or their ability to have intent.
For a defendant to be declared insane, their mental illness needs to have skewed their perception of reality to the extent that (1) they did not know what they were doing was illegal; (2) they didn’t know what they were doing at all; or (3) they were being compelled to act by an irresistible force (like voices or visual hallucinations). Proof of one of these factors is absolutely central to this defense. Precisely which of these conditions needs to be proven will depend on the state—and don’t worry, we’re getting to that!
If someone is mentally ill but that mental illness did not remove their ability to understand what they were doing, and if they still had intent to commit the crime, they cannot be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Because, say it with us: mental illness alone is not sufficient for an NGRI defense. So, having a mental disorder doesn’t make you a killer or violent, and having a mental disorder also doesn’t automatically make you “insane” and therefore not responsible for your actions. Got it? Good.
Now let’s talk about the rules and specific conditions one has to meet in order to be found insane in a court of law. These conditions are not uniform; they differ from country to country, and within the US, from state to state. This zip code lottery is important to remember, because it means that someone found insane in one state may not have been able to successfully claim NGRI had their case been tried elsewhere.
About half of the states in the US, and the UK and Canada, use what’s known as the M’Naghten Rule. The other half of US states use the Model Penal Code. (Except New Hampshire, which decided to do its own thing and follows the Durham Rule. Live Free or Die indeed.)
MINI HISTORY SIDEBAR!
The M’Naghten Rule is the oldest of these conditions for NGRI. It dates all the way back to 1843 in jolly old England, when a Scottish wood turner named Daniel M’Naghten tried to assassinate the then prime minister of the UK, Robert Peel. But he ended up shooting and killing Peel’s secretary, Edward Drummond, instead. At trial M’Naghten was found to be totally delusional, as he was convinced that he was being spied on and that the government was conspiring against him. It was a watershed moment in British legal history when he was found not guilty on the grounds of insanity.
Daniel M’Naghten was sent to a mental institution for the rest of his life, but people were pissed. They felt like he got away with it. Even Queen Victoria tried to get involved and have the decision changed, but it was a no-go.
So what is the definition of the M’Naghten Rule? It is probably what most of us think of when we think of the insanity defense—it is the argument that the defendant did not know what they were doing at the time of committing the offense, or if they did know, they were unable to discern right from wrong because of a defect of reason brought on by a disease of the mind.
Today, states that use the M’Naghten Rule can choose to do so with or without the addition of another rule, the Irresistible Impulse Test, which was introduced in the 1960s in the US. This test was created to help courts in situations where a defendant understood that what they were doing was wrong at the time they committed the crime, but due to a mental disease, they were unable to control themselves from doing said wrong thing.
Neither of these rules are perfect, not by a long shot. And they get super messy, so let’s clarify the issues with each of them before we move on:
1 The M’Naghten Rule is based upon the idea of “wrongfulness,” but there is disagreement on whether this difference between right and wrong is a legal one or a moral one. (Put a pin in this because it becomes very important later.)
2 The Irresistible Impulse Test’s main issue is that there is little scientific evidence to back up the claim that mental illnesses (even when severe and genuine) can inhibit self-control to the point that the person had no other choice.
The other half of US states that allow the insanity defense use the Model Penal Code, which is actually much broader, and therefore a little more lenient than the M’Naghten Rule, because it allows for the nuances of morality and what is “wrong” to be taken into account.
So, how does all this apply to Andrea Yates and Susan Smith? Let’s find out.
The Trials
ANDREA YATES
Andrea Yates was tried in Texas; Texas uses the M’Naghten R
ule with the Irresistible Impulse Test, and the burden of proof of insanity is on the defendant.
Yates’s stance from the start was that she needed to be punished. She wanted to plead guilty because she believed that she was a terrible mother. She also thought that when the state punished her for the murders, Satan himself would be destroyed. Of course, on hearing her plan, Yates’s defense attorney Wendell Odom convinced her to plead not guilty by reason of insanity instead.
During her police interviews, Yates told officers that she loved her kids, but that she kept hearing voices that told her she was the devil. And because of her evil all of her children were destined for hell and eternal damnation. Yates felt that this was all predetermined—there was nothing she would be able to do to correct the path of sin her children were certain to follow. In her mind, the only way she could save the souls of her children was by sending them to heaven while they were still pure.
The defense’s psychiatrist diagnosed Yates with cacodemonomania, the belief that one is possessed by evil spirits. But Yates told him that she wasn’t just possessed by any old garden-variety demon—she was possessed by the “one and only Satan.”
On February 18, 2002, Andrea Yates was finally deemed fit to stand trial; her defense team had prepared for an insanity defense while the State prosecution was getting ready to go after Yates hard—they were seeking the death penalty. The State decided that the best way to win their case was to try and keep the jury focused completely on whether Yates knew right from wrong as she killed her five children, one by one. They did not want the jury to be “distracted” by Yates’s long history of mental illness. The State claimed that Yates knew what she was doing, because she was prepared, and they focused on the physical evidence.
One of their major points was that they could prove that Noah, the eldest child, was killed last. They claimed that this was because Yates knew he would put up the biggest fight and that might have alerted the other kids to what was about to happen. The prosecution was trying to show that Yates was aware of what she was doing and making reasoned decisions. (But you could also argue that if you were going to commit mass murder because God needed you to, you’d take out the biggest threat first.)
The defense had also an issue of optics to contend with; when Yates had first been arrested, Odom, her defense attorney, said that she was the “sickest woman he’d ever seen,” but after months of medication and care she was looking much better. Of course, the jury was meant to be focusing on the defendant’s state of mind at the time the offense was actually committed—but with Yates now looking almost “normal,” how this came across at trial was definitely a factor to consider. And so, the defense showed the jury all the videos of Yates seeming totally unhinged just after her arrest. She was shown talking about cartoon characters speaking to her through the TV, telling her to kill her children to save them from hell.
Obviously both sides had their own expert psychiatric witnesses; the defense had Dr. Phillip Resnick and the prosecution had Dr. Park Dietz. (Dr. Dietz is arguably one of the most high-profile forensic psychiatrists in the world; he’s worked on cases like that of Joel Rifkin, Jeffrey Dahmer, and the Unabomber, and he even works as an advisor for TV shows like Law & Order.)
During their assessments, both Dr. Resnick and Dr. Dietz agreed that Yates was indeed sick. Check one! We have the first necessary condition met. Both doctors also agreed that Yates knew what she did was against the law. After all, Yates had called 911 straight away, turned herself in, and immediately confessed. But Dr. Resnick argued that although Yates knew what she had done was legally wrong, she thought it was morally right. Although she had a conceptualization of right and wrong, Yates was so plagued by religious delusions, her beliefs so manifest, that essentially the two had been flipped.
Dr. Dietz disagreed. He told the court that Yates knew what she did was wrong in the eyes of the law—and crucially, in the eyes of God. Dr. Dietz also gave the court his opinion on how Yates had come up with her plan to commit murder. He claimed that the same week she had killed her children, an episode of Law & Order had aired that featured the storyline of a woman who drowned her child to escape her responsibilities. He said that Yates must have seen this show and been inspired, and he knew it was a great and inspiring storyline because he had of course consulted on that particular episode.
After three weeks of testimony and videos of Yates talking about demons, the jury deliberated for just three and a half hours and returned with a verdict of guilty—but at sentencing they decided to spare her life.
Under the rigid M’Naghten Rule that Texas applies, there is no room for discussions about the difference between morally wrong and legally wrong. But had Yates been tried in a state that used the Model Penal Code, it’s very likely that she would have been found not guilty by reason of insanity. Under this rule, her defense team could have successfully made the case that although Yates knew what she had done was criminal, and that society would condemn her acts as wrong, that society wouldn’t think she was actually a criminal if only they understood what she was “aware” of (i.e., that God had told her that she had to kill her kids to save them from burning in hellfire for all eternity).
We must not forget the victims: Noah, John, Luke, Mary, and Paul—the five Yates children. But we do believe that Yates is also a victim. She had needed help for years, and tragically, her mental condition directly interfered with her seeking the necessary medical care. We believe that Andrea Yates should have been found not guilty by reason of insanity. If you agree, hold on to your hats. Because the story isn’t over yet…
After the trial, questions quickly arose about Dr. Dietz’s testimony—not about his assessment of Yates’s mental illness, but about the episode of Law & Order he had cited. Yates’s defense team pored over every single script of the show, and they couldn’t find any episode like the one Dietz had described. The defense also found 19 points of error from the first trial, and finally on June 26, 2006, Andrea Yates got her retrial. After a month of testimony, the jury spent 13 hours deliberating before delivering their verdict.
Five years after the murders, Andrea Yates was finally found not guilty by reason of insanity. In the years between Yates’s original conviction and her retrial there had been a huge shift in people’s understanding of postpartum psychosis, and this definitely played a large part in her getting a new verdict—what we believe was the right verdict—the second time around.
Yates was sent to Kerrville State Hospital for treatment; she is still there today and there is no timetable for her release. The only way for her to ever be released would be to pass a psychiatric review that would assess if she was likely to be a danger to herself or anyone else, but Yates has refused every opportunity to do so because she still believes that she should be punished.
Now, stop splashing your tears on this book, get a tissue, wipe your face, and let’s get on to Susan Smith’s trial.
SUSAN SMITH
Just as with Andrea Yates, across the country there was a palpable sense of rage toward Susan Smith in the wake of her children’s drownings, so the prosecution in South Carolina went after the death penalty.
The trial kicked off on July 17, 1995, and Smith pleaded NGRI. It should have been a relatively easy case for the prosecution; after all, like Texas, South Carolina also uses the M’Naghten Rule and the burden of proof for insanity is on the defendant. Smith had also confessed in writing to murdering Alex and Michael.
But the prosecution majorly fucked up when they decided to try and show why Smith had killed her kids. There was no need for them to show a motive; they just had to prove that she had done it. Perhaps this decision was down to the prosecution wanting to undermine Smith’s insanity defense by pointing out a sordid and very practical motive. Whatever the reason, they ran with the theory that Smith had killed her sons so that she could get back together with Tom Findlay. After all, Findlay had dumped her because of her kids—the letter found in the car proved that.
This
attempt to show motive allowed the defense an opportunity to make a much stronger argument than they could have otherwise. David Bruck, Smith’s defense attorney, wanted to show the jury that Smith wasn’t evil. She didn’t kill her kids to be with Tom Findlay; she was a loving mom. She was just sick, depressed, and suicidal.
He claimed that Smith had been in the car and drove it halfway down the ramp into the lake before stopping and getting out. Then something terrible happened and the car rolled into the lake and killed the boys. Smith had been out of her mind at the time of the killings; she wasn’t thinking straight. Bruck then told the jury about how Smith’s father had killed himself when she was six years old and how her stepfather had started to sexually abuse her from the age of 15, with the last incident occurring just three months before the boys had drowned. Smith was battling alcoholism as a result of her extensive traumas and Findlay’s breaking things off had pushed her into another severe bout of depression.
This narrative moved the case away from being an open-and-shut, cold-blooded, premeditated cash-grab. Susan Smith was now a sympathetic character, and the case was more complicated than completing the New York Times crossword with a hangover. But, as we said, South Carolina uses the M’Naghten Rule, and the prosecution could easily show that Smith had known what she had done was wrong. Right from the start, within minutes of the killings, Smith was lying to everyone, including to the police.