Yates asks for leave to attend church

KERRVILLE, Texas, March 28 (UPI) -- Andrea Yates, initially convicted in 2001 of drowning her five children, has requested a weekly leave from a Texas hospital to attend church, her lawyer said.

"We're now going to be asking for a pass for two hours," from the Kerrville State Hospital in Kerrville, Texas, the psychiatric facility where Yates has been confined since 2006, said her lawyer, George Parnham, adding, "I think she's ready for outpatient care."

Yates, a Houston-area nurse and mother with a history of psychiatric hospitalizations and suicide attempts, was convicted of capital murder in 2002 in the bathtub drownings of her children, ages 6 months to 7 years, but was acquitted by reason of insanity in a second trial in 2006.

Parnham said Yates requested membership in an unidentified local church, and that he expects her doctors to ask the state district court in Houston to allow a weekly two-hour pass to attend services, referred to as a "therapeutic pass."

The Houston Chronicle said Wednesday hospital physicians consider a patient's possible risk to the community before recommending a short-term pass, regarded as a first step toward rejoining society.