defense attorney george parnham knew that his client's only chance was to plead not guilty by reasonnity. but as the details emerged, the public outrage grew. >> give us some room. >> get back. get back. >> the public opinion of andrea was obviously negative to say the very least. people did not understand the issue of mental illness. >> overwhelmingly, people were very harsh in their assessment. the community of psychiatric workers, doctors were horrified that we would prosecute someone who had a legitimate mental illness, but that was a minority. >> andrea yates' actions were certainly incomprehensible. but did that mean she was insane? >> you can be mentally ill and the standard under the law is that if you know right from wrong, that's not a medical standard. that's a legal standard. >> there's no legal definition for what's right or wrong, and the law tells us that if there's no legal definition, then a juror is able to use the common, everyday meaning of those words. >> whatever the legal arguments, the public ire was also stoked by the way rusty yates was reacting, both to the

defense attorney george parnham knew that his client's only chance was to plead not guilty by reasonty. but as the details emerged, the public outrage grew. >> give us some room. >> get back. get back. >> the public opinion of andrea obviously was negative, to say the very least. people did not understand the issue of mental illness. >> overwhelmingly, people were very harsh in their assessment. the community of psychiatric workers, doctors were horrified that we would prosecute someone who had a legitimate mental illness, but that was a minority. >> andrea yates' actions were certainly incomprehensible. but did that mean she was insane? >> you can be mentally ill and the standard under the law is that if you know right from wrong, that's not a medical standard. that's a legal standard. >> there's no legal definition for what's right or wrong, and the law tells us that if there's no legal definition, then a juror is able to use the common, everyday meaning of those words. >> whatever the legal arguments, the public ire was also stoked by the way rusty yates was reacting, both to the

. >> george parnham and i and the mental health association of houston and some other people startedhildren's memorial fund in honor of the five yates children who are the real tragedy of the story. >> ours is an extreme case. you know, we lost our family, and andrea was charged with capital murder, and it was a big case because she didn't get adequate mental health care treatment, so from that facet of my life, you know, i'm doing my best to try to redirect and move in that direction to where i can help mentally ill people. >> hello. >> hi. >> how old are you today? how many is that? >> four. >> four? >> one, two, three, four. >> i think if we can take the andrea yates -- the generic andrea yates, the whole story of her kids, and we can move forward in the area of mental health care, i think we will have accomplished a lot. >> not everyone agrees. >> one of the things i wanted to do was every june 20th i wanted to send her a postcard of her kids, wherever she was, but i said what does that solve? that doesn't do anything for me, and it certainly doesn't do anything for that woman. i

. >> george parnham and i and the mental health association of houston and some other people startednor of the five yates children who are the real tragedy of the story. >> ours is an extreme case. you know, we lost our family, and andrea was charged with capital murder, and it was a big case because she didn't get adequate mental health care treatment, so from that facet of my life, you know, i'm doing my best to try to redirect and move in that direction to where i can help mentally ill people. >> hello. >> hi. >> how old are you today? how many is that? >> four. >> four? >> one, two, three, four. >> i think if we can take the andrea yates -- the generic andrea yates, the whole story of her kids, and we can move forward in the area of mental health care, i think we will have accomplished a lot. >> not everyone agrees. >> one of the things i wanted to do was every june 20th i wanted to send her a postcard of her kids, wherever she was, but i said what does that solve? that doesn't do anything for me, and it certainly doesn't do anything for that woman. i didn't do that. i wished i h