After a football game, it would be unseemly to hear commentators discussing how the rules might be changed to allow the losing team to win next time. Yet that is exactly what’s going on in the Yates post-trial phase. Virtually all the discussion is how we can change the rules so that the next Andrea Yates can be acquitted by reason of insanity. Most of the discussion is along these lines: The knowledge – of – right – and – wrong standard is too cut and dried because it’s too easy to conclude from the defendant’s behavior that he knew that his acts were wrong. So let’s ditch that standard and switch to some variation of the “irresistible impulse” standard. After all, if someone says, “I couldn’t help it,” how can that be disproved? It’s irrefutable!
