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A court overturned the conviction of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five children in 2002. Why? Because the her defense team successfully showed that a prosecution witness gave false testimony:
The Texas First Court of Appeals ruled that the conviction should be reversed because an expert witness for the state, Dr. Park Dietz, presented false testimony when he said Yates may have been influenced by an episode of the "Law & Order" television program. No such episode had ever aired.Hello! The imagined episode was one where a woman was "found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children"; it also turns out that Dr. Dietz had been a consultant on the show. When the defense contacted the producers, the truth was discovered. This must be a first: Using a TV program to get a woman convicted, only to later realize the TV program never existed! The prosecution can still ask a higher court to reverse this ruling.Yates, now 40, apparently was a fan of the show and watched regularly.
While it's not the most comprehensive, if you do a simple "Find" search on the Law & Order episode guide at TV Tome, no "drownings" appear. And the Washington Post looked at how Law & Order makes it hard for convictions, way back in 2003.
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OK, so this is life-imitating-art-imitating-life-imitating... My head hurts.
This really struck a bell because Icould have sworn I've seen a L&O based on the Susan Smith case (very similar to the Yates case.) I'm pretty sure it was the season 6 episode Angel
http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-180/epid-9579/
I can't find a better discription but Entertainment Weekly mentioned a Susan Smith inspired story.
http://wolfstories2.tripod.com/id142.htm
Did I imagine this episode or is the Texas prosecutor really this inept?
What do you want to bet that next season we see an L&O episode where somebody gets off because an expert witness says he advised on a show where a similar crime took place and then Fontana discovers there was no such show because he's a big fan of the show... ah, the mind reels!
This is actually soooo sad. It's amazing for all the misplaced attention we pay abortion in this country, nobody takes postpartum depression seriously. Andrea Yates' husband was warned that if she had any more kids she could harm herself or the kids. Dude, put a f***ing condom on! I always thought the husband shared a good deal of culpability in the deaths of those five kids.