Ripped from the Headlines

Andrea Yates, the mother who drowned her five children and received a death sentence for three of the killings, got a new trial today, courtesy of the Texas Court of Appeals. Seems that the government's psychiatrist at her trial said she was malingering in part because the crime was a copycat of a crime she may have seen on a "Law and Order" episode... but the episode did not exist.

Whoops. The Court of Appeals held that without the erroneous testimony, jurors might have found her not guilty by reason of insanity and spared her the death penalty.

Fret not; the prosecutor assures us he will pursue the capital charges again and put Yates back on death row.