Houston ? A jury spared Andrea Yates’ life Friday after prosecutors stopped short of demanding the death penalty for the tormented mother who drowned her five children one by one in the bathtub.

Yates, 37, was sentenced to life in prison and will have to serve at least 40 years before she is eligible for parole.

The jury took just 40 minutes to bring an end to the case that had angered family members, women’s groups and others who said prosecutors had shown no mercy in bringing a capital murder case against a mentally ill woman overwhelmed by the demands of motherhood.

“It would have been worse if she’d been given the death penalty, but not that much worse,” said Yates’ husband, Russell Yates. Referring to family members, he added: “Most of us were offended that she was even prosecuted.”

Yates learned her fate with her attorney’s arm around her, and at one point turned to a member of her defense team and smiled. She later looked back toward her mother and siblings as she was led out of the courtroom.

“She was trying to figure out what the verdict was,” defense attorney Wendell Odom said. “I think Andrea is relieved, of course. But Andrea is not a vocal person. She is medicated.”

The jury of eight women and four men took less than four hours to reject Yates’ claim of insanity and convict her of murder Tuesday. It decided on her sentence almost as quickly after prosecutors made a less-than-forceful push for the death penalty, offering no new evidence or witnesses during the penalty phase.

Afterward, prosecutor Joe Owmby said that he didn’t think “the facts and the evidence warranted me recommending a death sentence in this case.”

In closing argument, prosecutor Kaylynn Williford told jurors that Yates’ children “never had a chance and you need to think about those children.” But she also said: “Whatever decision you make, the state will accept.”

Defense attorneys pleaded for Yates’ life, saying that she is no longer a danger and that she will be 77 before she becomes eligible for parole.

“She will live the rest of her life knowing what she’s done,” Odom told the jury. “When it comes to punishment, there can be no greater punishment.”

The jury had only two choices: life in prison or lethal injection.

To impose the death penalty, the jury had to decide unanimously that Yates poses a continuing danger and that there were no mitigating circumstances against executing her. The jury answered no to the first question and therefore did not have to consider the second.

Afterward, at the hotel where they had been sequestered for four weeks, jurors refused to speak with reporters.

Texas is by far the nation’s most active death penalty state, with 262 executions since 1982. Harris County, where the case was brought, has 157 convicted killers on death row, more than any other Texas county.