HOUSTON – A Texas appeals court on Thursday overturned the conviction of Andrea Yates in the drowning deaths of her five children.

The Texas First Court of Appeals reversed today the capital murder conviction of Clear Lake mom Andrea Yates, who's serving a life sentence for drowning her children in a bathtub. The three-member appeals court granted Yates’ motion to have her conviction reversed because, among other things, the state’s expert psychiatric witness testified that Yates had patterned her actions after a Law & Order television episode that never existed. In ordering a new trial, the appellate court said the trial judge erred in not granting a mistrial once it was learned that testimony of Dr. Park Dietz was false.

Andrea Yates, who is serving a life sentence for drowning her children in a bathtub three years ago, has been hospitalized in Galveston because she is refusing to eat, her attorney said Tuesday night.

Incorrect testimony about a nonexistent episode of a popular TV drama -- and new questions about the innocence of the mistake -- may be grounds for a new trial for Andrea Yates.

HOUSTON - Nearly two years after Andrea Yates' conviction for drowning her children in the family's bathtub, her husband continues to assert his mentally ill wife never should have been prosecuted.

Rusty Yates shifted his inscrutable gaze from an empty patch of grass to the children at play.