Justice not for court of public opinion 6.22.01

Like most upstanding, moral Americans, I was horrified Wednesday to hear the news of Andrea Yates murder of her five young children in Houston. It struck me as well to learn she lived in the same small suburb of Houston I once dwelled in briefly as though the possibility of a brief past encounter meant I had come too close to evil. It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up in a fit of irrationality.
It is hard to comprehend how anyone, especially a mother, could drown her children in a bathtub. Andrea Yates's husband Russell has made a public plea for his wife saying she suffers from postpartum depression and attempted suicide after the birth of the couple's fourth son in 1999, according to a CNN report.
Depression or not, it is a hard nut to swallow. Most of us are not wired to kill under any circumstances let alone commit an act as vile as infanticide.
When we hear of such horrors, we begin instantly trying to make sense of the crime as if that could make us feel better. Our minds like to create order when none exists. Sometimes, it is just not possible and we have to rely on old standbys. Our instinct is to see Andrea Yates as evil and deserving of the harshest punishment because then can we say to ourselves, "now everything is back to normal, justice has been served."
Unfortunately, it just isn't that easy.
Putting Andrea Yates to death would only serve to make a horrific act all the more tragic. This is not a woman who killed her children because her new boyfriend wanted her to. This is not a woman whose children died of neglect. What Andrea Yates is is much more fundamentally frightening because while her actions were as shocking as any that can be conceived, she may not be that much different from most of us. It is likely she is not evil at all, only deeply disturbed. And if we allow ourselves to believe she did this thing because of medical reasons, then what means it could not happen to us?
Arguably, no one is suffering more from this crime right now than Russell Yates. It would be arrogant for us to judge him harshly for asking authorities to treat his wife as a sick woman.
Russell Yates has every reason to be scared. His wife is up on a capital charge and no state in the Union is as death happy as Texas. In the brief time I lived there, a Scottish foreign exchange student was shot and killed when he knocked on a door in a good neighborhood and asked to use the phone because his car broke down. Houston rallied around the homeowner as though he were Sam Houston protecting Texas from hated Scottish invasion. The boys parents retrieved their son amidst what looked to them like insanity. It did to me.
In my estimation, Russell Yates has less than a week to make his case before the court of public opinion before prosecutor Joe Owmby decides this case will make his career. Owmby has wasted no time cautiously showing his horror in public for the press. "This is the most horrendous thing I have ever seen," he said. I am certain the moment the public decides they want to see Yates dead for her crime, all ethical and moral considerations will fly straight out the door.
Yates's Defense attorney Bob Scott has wisely asked for a gag order to prevent attorneys in this case from talking to the press, according to CNN. He knows how the system works. Justice in America is a sound bite away from meaning anything. One year it means a slap on the wrist for a first-time offender, the next it means making and example of that offender. One month it means getting revenge for the victim, the next it means getting closure for victim's families.
The truth is, justice should not be this malleable. Flexible, yes, but not amorphous and unpredictable.
What is SUPPOSED to be reliable and comforting about justice is that it is even-handed and fair.
Justice is an ancient concept. Flavius Anicius Julianus Justinianus was emperor of Rome from 527 to 565 A.D. (Catholic Encyclopedia). His great contribution to the world was "Corpus Juris Civilis," a four-volume work from which modern civil law descends. It contained all the laws of Rome in one easy-to-read collection making the law available to all and their execution consistent. His name is where we get the word "justice." Not a bad legacy to leave the world when one considers the option is virtual chaos.
Of course, Justinian, as emperor, did not have to worry about getting elected either. If he had, our justice system today would no doubt look more like "American Gladiator" than it already does.
Public opinion is no place for crime and punishment to be decided. The average person, possessed by fears, memories and wildly oscillating opinions, is not capable of deciding guilt or innocence in front of a TV news camera. That is why we have a code of law.
In the case of Andrea Yates, removal from society and intense medical treatment is the least we can do, not just for her, but for ourselves.
-Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. He can be contacted at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com