Capital Punishment: The case of Andrea Yates

Last week Andrea Yates drowned her daughter and four sons.  There is no way for anyone to understand how this happened.  There is no way for anyone to ever comprehend such a horrific act.  And regardless of the excuses that are made to try to explain this tragedy, we will never be able to reconcile it with our morality or our spirituality.

The questions will shortly focus on the execution of Andrea Yates.  The woman has allegedly admitted that she did in fact drown her babies and if this is so, the issue of guilt is not up for consideration.  The only question now is whether her lawyers can find a way to stop her execution.  The question is whether there are some mitigating circumstances that would not require the termination of her physical existence.

I believe that if Ms. Yates shortly enters a guilty plea, she should be afforded the option of a life sentence.  If she does not chose to plead guilty and requires us to endure her trial, to no doubt severely traumatize all those who will participate in her trial, then the death penalty should be imposed if she is found guilty and the courts and/or jury so determine.

I am sure that I will be governor when the day of Ms. Yates' execution arrives and it is my intention to allow her to die if she in fact murdered her children.  It is a fact of life that each of us will die after we have lived for approximately seventy years.  Everyone is sentenced to death by his or her individual biology.  In truth, one the day we are born, we begin to die.  So the question is: what is really happening when someone is condemned to die?  All it really means is that the condemned's life is going to be shortened.  Most human beings believe they possess an immortal soul.  We are not discussing the death of the God given soul.  We are considering the shortening of the life span of a murderer's physical body.

I believe that killing another human being is the ultimate civil wrong.  I believe that life in society is a privilege and not a right.  I believe that as children of God, as members of the human society, we have the collective right to determine whether certain individuals should be put to death:  whether certain individuals by their actions have forfeited their right to live.  I believe that we have a God given right to return souls to God under certain circumstances.  It is then up to God to determine what to do with that soul.  In truth, only God can disintegrate a soul.

As governor, it will be my job to make sure that the application of the law to the facts is just;  not only for those who murder, but for those who allegedly commit any crime.  If the criminal justice system is just and fair, then the governor has the obligation to take one last look at the individual case and determine if there are mitigating circumstances that require the governor to override the death sentence.  If there are in fact mitigating circumstances, the governor has the authority and the discretion to commute the death penalty to a lesser punishment.

Andrea Yates apparently murdered her children.  We can never completely understand why even though we may come to better understand some facets of her actions.  And we can never justify what she did.  And we can never turn back the clock and bring back her children.  Andrea's five babies have been forever murdered. 

It was determined that because Timothy McVeigh confessed to the Houston Chronicle that he in fact set off the bomb that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City, that it did not matter that the FBI withheld documents from his attorneys.  All that mattered was that he had admitted to killing all those people and for that he should and did die.

In the case of Andrea Yates, if she did in fact confess to murdering her children, and the justice system determines that she should die, I, John WorldPeace, as governor of Texas will not stop her execution.  I will follow United States v. McVeigh and ignore the fact that Ms. Yates rights of due process may have been violated and place more weight on the fact that she said she murdered her babies.  Ms. Yates' life will be shortened and it will be then up to God to judge her soul.

John WorldPeace

June 26, 2001