there's nothing more i can say

today, i got my very first parking ticket. the meter i had fed coins into at 9:15 this morning ran out of time way before i came out to check on it at 11:30. but i didn't dare leave the courtroom before it was recessed, for the judge is a notorious hardass and probably wouldn't have let me back in.

when i see things on tv or hear about awful happenings from others, it's not real to me. but as i sat in that room, 30 feet from andrea pia yates, and 2 rows directly behind her ex-husband, there was nothing surreal about it. the state and the defense presented their closing arguments today. the prosecution decided to take the bottom-feeder approach and show the jury pictures of the dead children, their actual dirty pajamas, and a detailed description of how andrea probably struggled with 10 year old noah to overpower him long enough to lose consciousness. they've seen it all before. they needed to see it during the trial. but today, no one needed to be exposed to the indignity of those photographs. if not out of respect for the defendant, then how about the father of the children, their grandmother, or even the memory of the children themselves? i hope the jury saw through this tactic for what it was - shock value.

another interesting thing was that the prosecution kept contradicting themselves. joe owmby even tried to tell the jury that the legal definition of insanity contains the word "illegal," as in "the defendant knew what she did was illegal." the word here is "wrong." there's quite a difference. i could break into an experimental lab and steal a drug that would save my husband's life because i couldn't afford to pay for it and know that what i was doing was illegal. but i would still feel i was doing the right thing by my husband and by my own conscience.

kaylynn williford tried to paint a picture of andrea as this horrible, bloodthirsty person, who had been planning the killings for over 2 years. the evidence clearly shows a different profile; one of a mentally ill woman, who was thrust into fundamentalist religious practices, had to homeschool 4 children, lost her father, was hospitalized multiple times, tried to commit suicide twice, and truly believed that satan indwelt her. so let's have another baby! many delusions revolve around religious themes - God speaking to me, satan directing me, etc. [though the prosecutors would disagree] anyway, the "prophecy" in andrea's delusion directed her to send the kids to heaven by killing them while they were still innocent and then required that she herself be executed under the supervision of gov. george w. bush [who was not even governor of texas in 2001]. so, yeah - she knew it was illegal...but did she think what she did was wrong?

unfortunately, this question has to be answered by 12 human beings with no medical or psychiatric training whatsoever. i pray that they do the right thing, not the easy thing.

for the first time in my life, even since 2001, i looked at my daughter in a different way while washing her hair in the bath. it had never occurred to me that i could take her life...just like that. but i would never do it, and neither would any other sane mother on the face of the earth.

think about it. especially if you are part of the overwhelming majority that would like to see her get the death penalty, though that's not possible this time around. andrea pia yates didn't ask to become psychotic - it just happened. if you want accountability, try looking at the treating physicians, those people closest to andrea who say that she was "fine" the day before the drownings, the husband who insisted on having as many children as the Lord would give them. these people failed andrea big time. all i can do is hope that one day, more of the public will come to understand this and the nature of mental illness in general.