HOUSTON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Prosecutors have hired a noted psychiatrist to examine Andrea Yates, the Houston mother accused of drowning her five children last June.
Dr. Park Dietz, who was involved in the O.J. Simpson case among others, is scheduled to examine Yates next week, according to motions filed with the court Tuesday.
Yates has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to capital murder charges. In September, a Houston jury found the 37-year-old mother was mentally competent to stand trial. The case is scheduled to go to trial Jan. 7.
During his career, Dietz has also been involved in the cases of John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Reagan; Susan Smith, who drowned her children; and Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
Under a gag order, attorneys in the Yates case cannot comment but veteran Houston defense attorney Dick DeGuerin told The Dallas Morning News that the prosecution may be planning an aggressive attack on the defendant's insanity plea.
"He (Dietz) shows loyalty to the side that calls him, which is usually the prosecution," DeGuerin said. "It's kind of curious they'd go all the way to wherever Dietz is located. It suggests to me they're scrambling to find somebody willing to say that this woman wasn't crazy."
In the competency hearing last month, the jury was asked to determine if Yates understood the charges against her and could assist her lawyers at this time. The jury in the criminal trial will be asked to determine if she was legally insane at the time of the crime.
In another motion filed Tuesday, Yates' attorneys asked State District Judge Belinda Hill to declare unconstitutional a provision of state law that prevents jurors from being told what happens to a defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity. In Texas, that defendant can be committed to a mental hospital for the criminally insane for as long as life.
Prosecutors have said they will ask the jury to consider the death penalty if Yates is convicted.
Yates has been under treatment in the mental health wing of the Harris County Jail since her arrest last summer.
Yates called police to her home June 20 and said she had drowned Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul 3; Luke, 2; and Mary, 6 months; in the bathtub. The next day, her husband revealed that she was under treatment for postpartum depression and had attempted suicide twice.
