HOUSTON -- Andrea Pia Yates' attorney George Parnham filed an appeal Wednesday to get her out of jail for drowning her five children.

Yates' attorneys wanted to start the lengthy appeals process, which is expected to take years.

The defense based its appeal on the state's star witness, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz. He interviewed Yates last November.

Yates' attorneys said that they filed based on incorrect testimony from Dietz.

Parnham believes that appeal has merit, because Dietz incorrectly told jurors that Yates may have gotten the idea for drowning her five children from a nonexistent episode of the NBC program "Law & Order."

"Dr. Dietz's testimony is paramount simply because it's the most glaring of situations that would provide a credible basis for a reversal in this case," Parnham said.

Prosecutor Joe Owmby believed the Dietz error wasn't enough to get Yates an appeal.

"We don't think that that constituted error, certainly not reversible error, so you're concerned about everything that happens in the trial that doesn't go strictly the way it was supposed to go, but we're not overly concerned about that," Owmby said.

In the appeal, Parnham also attacked current insanity laws, which he calls archaic, hoping to take advantage of the public awareness garnered by the Yates trial.

Parnham said he talked to Andrea Yates about the possibility of getting an appeal and going back to trial. She told him that she really does not want to undergo that type of stress again so he's hoping for some type of out-of-court agreement that would place her in a better mental care facility so can receive proper care.

Yates' family is praying that the appeal is successful.

Yates, 37, was convicted of two capital murder charges in the drowning deaths of three of her five children March 12. Days later, the same eight-woman, four-man jury panel, took less 40 minutes to recommend a life sentence.

Yates had faced the death penalty after jurors rejected her insanity defense.

Yates becomes eligible for parole in 2041.