A Texas appeals court today ordered a new trial for Andrea Yates, who is serving a life sentence for drowning her children in a bathtub. The Houston Chronicle says the court noted that the state's expert psychiatric witness testified that Yates had patterned her actions after a Law & Order television episode that never existed. The court said the trial judge should have granted a mistrial.
The expert, Dr. Park Dietz, later said he had confused the show with others and wrote a letter to prosecutors saying, “I do not believe that watching Law & Order played any causal role in Mrs. Yates’ drowning of her children.”
Link: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory/2980420