Conviction overturned in bathtub drownings

An appeals court in Texas has overturned the murder conviction of Andrea Yates, the Houston mother found guilty of drowning her children in a bathtub in 2001.

• FROM MARCH 12, 2002: Houston mother convicted of killing her five children

The Texas First Court of Appeals in Houston Thursday ordered a new trial for Yates, 40.

At her trial in 2002, Yates, who confessed to drowning her five children ranging in age from six months to seven years, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

She was sentenced to life in prison for the deaths of three of her children. She wasn't tried in the deaths of the other two.

Her lawyers argued that an expert state witness, psychiatrist Park Dietz, falsely claimed to have consulted on an episode of the television show Law & Order that centred on a woman found not guilty by reason of insanity after drowning her children.

Dietz testified that Yates based her defence on what she saw on the episode.

Lawyers and the jury later learned no such episode existed.

"We conclude that there is a reasonable likelihood that Dr. Dietz's false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury," the court ruled. "We further conclude that Dr. Dietz's false testimony affected the substantial rights of appellant."

During the 2002 trial, psychiatrists testified Yates suffered from schizophrenia and postpartum depression.