Courts face new challenges in faith healing cases

Google News - Associated Press June 30, 2009

By ROSE FRENCH

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Though most states have child abuse laws allowing religious exemptions for parents who shun medicine for their sick children, recent cases have raised the thorny legal issues for parents following less-recognized faiths.

Historically, many of the parents addressed by the laws have embraced faiths like Pentecostalism and Christian Science, while others are Jehovah's Witnesses — all established denominations that the law has gradually taken into account.

It's harder for judges to decide cases involving parents who don't belong to a well-known denomination, yet also don't believe in using medicine for their kids. Legal and religious scholars say it's becoming more difficult for courts to decide when to honor the religious beliefs of parents and when to order conventional medical treatment for extremely sick children.

The manslaughter trial of an Oregon couple who claim they were following their religious beliefs in the 2008 pneumonia death of their 1-year-old daughter was to begin Monday. Carl and Raylene Worthington are members of Followers of Christ Church, which has been investigated for past child deaths.

In Tennessee, Jacqueline Crank and her minister Ariel Sherman face child neglect charges in the death of her 15-year-old daughter Jessica, who died in 2002 with a basketball-sized tumor on her shoulder. Prosecutors say based on Sherman's advice, the girl's mother relied on prayer instead of medicine.

Sherman has been accused of being a cult leader whose Universal Life Church is not a legitimate religion. He has denied such charges and says the church is Christian-based and embraces the Bible.

Believers in faith healing point to a Biblical verse in the Epistle of James, which describes how church elders should be called in to pray over the sick. There's no mention of doctors, and literalists interpret it to mean medical treatment should be eschewed over prayer.

Gregory P. Isaacs, an attorney for Crank, who's out on bond, argues that Tennessee's religious exemption law is untested and too vague.

"It really has a tremendous amount of problems," Isaacs said. "What is an organized religion and what is an ordained minister? What illnesses can you attempt to heal by faith? Those are the two pitfalls in the statute. That's not what's really clear."

Jim Dwyer, a William and Mary Law School professor who's written articles about and participated in litigation on the topic, said it's often more complicated for courts to discern cases with unaffiliated religions because judges and juries aren't as familiar with them and are skeptical of their legitimacy.

"The Supreme Court has adopted a very broad definition of religion," Dwyer said. "But ... you have to show sincere religious beliefs. Some judges might be skeptical of sincerity if it's something they've never heard of, if the person says, 'I don't belong to a certain church. I just have some beliefs that I saw on the Internet,' or 'In our own home, we've developed this set of beliefs.'"

Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, a pediatrician and co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University, says when treatment for an illness is very toxic and the prognosis is dire, courts tend to rule parents don't have to pursue medical treatment. If that's not the case, courts are likely to order the treatment.

"Until medicine became effective, there was no push to say we absolutely have to do medical treatment. There wasn't this notion of deference (to religion) until medicine began to work and to become institutionally powerful."

Besides the states that have religious exemption laws, five states — Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska and North Carolina — have repealed such laws.

Many of the exemption laws were enacted in the 1970s. Rita Swan, director of the Sioux City, Iowa-based advocacy group Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty, which lobbies states to repeal such laws, said that since 1975, there have been at least 274 known cases of U.S. children who have died after medical care was withheld on religious grounds.

She says the majority of such cases are still associated with established denominations like Pentecostalism, though "the Internet has opened up some more possibilities than it did before" and there have been some cases involving unaffiliated denominations.

At least two recent high-profile cases involve parents whose beliefs were drawn from Internet-based religious groups.

Authorities in Minnesota convinced a judge to force 13-year-old Daniel Hauser into chemotherapy, prompting his mother Colleen to skip a court hearing and — with her son in tow — go on the run for nearly a week in May.

They headed to Southern California, where they considered a trip into Mexico for alternative cancer treatments, before eventually returning to the Hausers' home in Sleepy Eye, Minn., about 100 miles southwest of the Twin Cities. The boy has since received chemotherapy treatments, which appear to be working.

The family prefers natural healing practices suggested by an Internet-based group called the Nemenhah Band, which says it follows American Indian beliefs.

In Wisconsin, a jury convicted Leilani Neumann, of Weston, Wis., of second-degree reckless homicide in May for failing to rush her 11-year-old daughter Madeline Kara Neumann to a doctor. She died of untreated diabetes in March 2008.

Prosecutors argued she killed the girl by ignoring obvious symptoms — she couldn't walk or talk and was believed to be in a coma — until it was too late. The mother testified she didn't realize her daughter was so ill and did all she could to help, in line with the family's belief in faith healing.

Neumann sought the spiritual assistance of the online evangelical Christian ministry Unleavened Bread Ministries.

In the wake of the Wisconsin case, Swan said legislators there are considering a bill that would repeal the state's religious exemption to its child abuse and neglect law.

"In the U.S. under the First Amendment, we're not supposed to be establishing religion or carving out any preferences for prestigious religions," Swan said. "The courts should not be giving any kind of deference to established denominations and making any distinctions."

On the Net:
Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty: http://www.childrenshealthcare.org/

This article was found at:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gkyYSNeqc0m2TjRjNoVWy0IMQWRgD994SLQ01

Update on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Perry Bulwer

She says the majority of such cases are still associated with established denominations like Pentecostalism, though "the Internet has opened up some more possibilities than it did before" and there have been some cases involving unaffiliated denominations.

At least two recent high-profile cases involve parents whose beliefs were drawn from Internet-based religious groups.

Those comments from the article above concerning dangerous Internet-based religious groups caught my eye in relation to a recent article posted here on the Children of God/The Family International cult. Here's an excerpt from and link to that article:

"The Family has made a decision to begin constructing a more public profile," he said. "It plans to enhance its Internet presence and adapt its message to the cultures in which it lives.

http://religiouschildabuse.blogspot.com/2010/11/family-international-aka-children-of.html

The cult apologist lawyer who made that comment seems to think that the Family cult's Internet presence is benign. The Family's website is most definitely not harmless. One of that cult's doctrines, Deceivers Yet True, urges them to deceive outsiders. It is based on a perverse interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6:8. They also like to cite Jesus' instruction in Matthew 10:16 to be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves. Well, they've got the first part down pat, but not the second. They "wisely" lie through their teeth when evangelizing, recruiting, fund-raising, etc., by concealing who they really are, what they really believe, what abuses and crimes their dead false prophet, David Berg, committed, and that the current leaders enabled and participated in those abuses and crimes. In other words, you will not find the truth about this destructive religious group on their website, which is designed to conceal the ugly truth in a cloak of Christian righteousness. But as Berg was fond of repeating ad nauseum to his followers, their righteousness is as filthy menstrual rags. I just now looked that verse up, which is Isaiah 64:6. It is a verse that Berg and other leaders used often to brow-beat and intimidate members. But reading it now, I see it in a whole new light as being perfectly applicable to The Family International cult.

Here's my paraphrase of the King James version of Isaiah 64:6

But The Family International is as an unclean thing, and all their righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and they all do fade as a leaf; and their iniquities, like the wind, have taken them away.

And here's some KJV scripture that I don't need to paraphrase, as it describes perfectly this deceitful and destructive cult underneath their cloaks of Christian righteousness.

2 Corinthians 11:13-15

For such are false prophets, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

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Debate over faith as health care begins in Tennessee courtroom

Knoxville News Sentinel
January 13, 2009

by Jamie Satterfield

LOUDON - A mother accused of neglecting her dying daughter by turning to prayer instead of medicine took to the witness stand Monday clutching her defense in her hands.
"I decided to turn to Jesus Christ, my lord and savior, for her healing, believing in this word," Jacqueline Crank testified as she held up the Bible she brought with her to Loudon County Criminal Court.
She expects to carry that same Bible all the way to the state Supreme Court, where nearly everyone involved in this landmark Tennessee case of prayer versus medicine agrees it will wind up.
Crank and her two children, including 15-year-old Jessica Crank, were living communal style with Jessica's self-professed "spiritual father," Ariel Ben Sherman, and other members of a branch of the Universal Life Church in Loudon in May 2002 when Crank took her daughter to a clinic because the girl had a large tumor on her shoulder.
Clinic personnel advised Crank to take her daughter to the University of Tennessee Medical Center. She didn't. Jessica later died from a rare form of bone cancer known as Ewing sarcoma.
Crank and Sherman wound up charged. Much legal wrangling followed. The case now has been whittled down to its core issue: Is Tennessee's law allowing parents to put their faith - and their children's health - in God's hands too vague to be valid?
Defense attorney Gregory P. Isaacs and Sherman's attorneys, Donald A. Bosch and Ann Short-Bowers, contend the law is silent on when a parent relying on faith can be held criminally responsible for that decision.
"Our state does not delineate whether you can try to heal your child of the common cold through prayer alone but you cannot try to heal your child of Ewing sarcoma through prayer," Isaacs argued.
Assistant District Attorney General Frank Harvey tried to steer the argument toward wording in the law that allows parents to follow the tenets of a "recognized" church headed by a "duly accredited practitioner."
Harvey contends Sherman is not a minister but a cult leader, an allegation Sherman has faced for decades in a host of states where he has set up house with followers but has steadfastly denied.
"The religion in question is Christianity," Bosch countered.
Isaacs echoed that argument with a reference to Christ and his disciples.
"I wonder if 12 people having supper with someone they consider to be the messiah who were not part of the establishment, the Sanhedrin, would that be considered a cult?" he said.
Judge Eugene Eblen declined Monday to dismiss the charges but is allowing an emergency appeal to the state Court of Criminal Appeals. In his view, it will take a decision from the state's highest court to determine whether Crank and Sherman can be tried under Tennessee law.
The pair now live in South Carolina with Crank's teenage son and at least four of Sherman's parishioners.
Jamie Satterfield may be reached at 865-342-6308.
This article was found at:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/jan/13/faith-as-health-care-debate-
begins-in-loudon/

Court reverses ruling in death

Knoxville News Sentinel - July 13, 2007

Charges reinstated against cult leader, mother of sick girl who died in 2002

By Jamie Satterfield


Alleged cult leader Ariel Sherman did not have to marry his follower to be responsible for the care of her teenage daughter, an appellate court has ruled.

In a stunning ruling by the state Court of Criminal Appeals in a high-profile case pitting religion against the law, a Loudon County judge has been deemed wrong in his decision to toss out charges against Sherman and follower Jacqueline P. Crank in the death of her daughter, 15-year-old Jessica Crank.

“Because the trial court erred we reverse as to both defendants and remand the case to the trial court,” appellate Judge James Curwood Witt Jr. wrote in the opinion made public Thursday.

Jessica died in 2002 from a rare form of bone cancer. Both she and her mother lived with Sherman and were followers in his Universal Life Church. Sherman has been dubbed in national publications as a cult leader. Jessica and her mother counted him as a “spiritual father.”

Jessica’s mother actually sought treatment for her daughter when the girl developed a basketball-sized tumor on her shoulder but did not follow up with recommendations to take the girl to a Knoxville hospital. Court testimony would later indicate that Sherman urged the mother to rely on prayer instead. Jessica died. Loudon County authorities charged Sherman and Crank with failing to get care for the girl.

Defense attorneys Donald A. Bosch, who represented Sherman, and Gregory P. Isaacs, who represented Crank, insisted the pair did nothing wrong. Isaacs insisted Crank exercised her religious freedom in relying on prayer to cure the girl. Bosch insisted Sherman had no legal duty to the girl because he was not married to Jessica’s mother.

Both lawyers managed to convince Loudon Judge Eugene Eblen to pitch an indictment against the pair.

In its ruling, the appellate court disagreed, turning aside both Bosch’s contention and an argument by Isaacs that a change in the law three years later should have applied retroactively to his client.

“Although the absence of a marital union is uncontroverted, the inference is inapt and unavailing,” Witt wrote. “Ultimately, the question is: When does a potentially neglected child fall within a person’s scope of duty? In the present case, we start with the insight that the absence of a marriage between defendants Sherman and Crank does not per se equate to an absence of duty of Sherman to the victim.”

It’s not clear, however, whether Sherman or Crank remain in Tennessee. Sherman has a history of moving from state to state with his flock. Bosch could not be reached for immediate comment. Isaacs was unsure of Crank’s current whereabouts, but he was certain of the ultimate outcome of the case.

“We plan to ask for an immediate hearing and once again, on the basis of Ms. Crank’s exercise of her religious freedom under the spiritual healing exception to child abuse and neglect that existed at the time, we expect these misdemeanor charges to be dismissed,” Isaacs said.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/jul/13/court-reverses-ruling-in-death/

For updates to this report see the comments section on the following page in this archive:

Oregon parents guilty of criminal mistreatment of baby daughter for relying on faith healing instead of real medical care