Key Moments in the Andrea Yates Case

A three-judge panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston has overturned Texas mother Andrea Yates' capital murder convictions for the 2001 slayings of three of her children and ordered a new trial. In its ruling, the panel cited false testimony by key prosecution witness, psychiatrist Park Dietz, who was the only psychiatrist who testified at trial that Yates -- who had a history of postpartum depression -- was sane when she killed her children.

Here is a look at the Andrea Yates case:

The Killings

On June 20, 2001, Yates drowned her five children -- Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old daughter Mary -- in the bathtub of the family's suburban Houston home. She then placed the four youngest victims on a bed and covered them with a sheet. Yates left her oldest son's body floating face down in the bathtub. When her husband, Russell, called from work, Yates told him to come home. She then called police and told them she had just killed her children.

Yates told police and psychiatrists that Satan ordered her to kill her five children to save them from eternal damnation.

Yates' Trial and Conviction

In March 2002, Yates was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison in the deaths of three of her five children, Noah, John and Mary. She had confessed and pleaded guilty to killing her other two children, Paul and Luke.

The prosecution argued Yates was legally sane -- meaning that she knew right from wrong -- at the time of the slayings, while her defense argued she was insane. Experts agreed that Yates suffered from postpartum depression and schizophrenia, but defense and prosecution witnesses disagreed over how severe her illness was and whether it stopped her from knowing the difference between right and wrong.

Prosecutors had recommended the death penalty but ultimately the jury decided on a life sentence.

Pivotal Testimony and the Appeal

On April 30, 2004, Yates' attorney appealed her capital murder convictions, questioning the testimony of prosecution expert Park Dietz and challenging the constitutionality of Texas' insanity law.

Dietz, a psychiatrist, testified at trial that Yates knew killing her children was wrong. He said he based that conclusion in part on her belief that Satan, not God, had ordered the murders.