Texas prosecutors said last night they would be seeking the death penalty in the trial of Ms Andrea Yates, the mother accused of drowning her five young children in a bath tub.
Ms Yates (37) has been accused of drowning her five children, aged six months to seven years, on June 20th, then calling police and her husband moments later to admit what she had done.
Prosecutors formally indicted her on two counts of capital murder last week and her lawyers promptly gave notice they would enter an insanity defence.
Ms Yates, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, showed no emotion as a lawyer, Mr George Parnham, pleaded on her behalf during a short arraignment hearing.
Her husband, a NASA computer engineer, Mr Russell Yates, watched from the front row.
In one charge, Ms Yates is accused of killing her sons Noah (7) and John (5), which would, if convicted, meet the multiple killings standard for capital murder. In the other, Ms Yates is charged with drowning her six-month-old baby daughter Mary, which would meet the capital murder standard of killing a child under six years of age.
State District Judge Belinda Hill ordered a separate competency hearing be held to determine whether Ms Yates is mentally competent to stand trial.
If that hearing determines she is not competent, the capital murder trial will not go forward.
Mr Russell Yates publicly supports his wife and has blamed her actions on a severe form of depression that started after the birth of their fourth child and returned in full force after the fifth was born.
Under Texas law, a defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity if they had a severe mental defect that prevented them from discerning right from wrong at the time a crime was committed.
The former nurse and housewife has been held in the psychiatric wing of the Harris County Jail since the killings of the children.