"With either verdict, Andrea Yates will be a prisoner"
DALLAS (AP) — Whether she's convicted of murder in the bathtub drownings of her young children or acquitted by reason of insanity, Andrea Yates will likely spend the rest of her life as a prisoner.
If jurors agree with her plea of innocent by reason of insanity, Yates would be sent to a state-run, maximum-security mental hospital that would in no way resemble a country club.
Patients at Vernon State Mental Hospital in north Texas, where Yates would be initially sent, spend their days under orders, allotted only a small amount of daily free time, just like inmates in the state prison where Yates would spend the rest of her life if convicted.
The hospital campus is encircled on all sides by a 17-foot-high fence dotted with guard towers.
"I would say that anyone who thinks it too cozy, go up there and spend two nights," said David Haynes, attorney for Dena Schlosser, who was acquitted by reason of insanity in the death of her infant daughter and has been at Vernon since spring.