It would have been rather shocking if this had been a murder conviction, but it wasn't. Murder requires intent to do injury, and obviously, the parents--if their testimony was accepted--had no such intent. This was in effect negligent homicide, which is quite bad enough, and certainly consistent with the Christian Science cases. A related thought: although prevention of death or serious bodily injury to third parties is about as compelling an interest as one can imagine, even outside the Smith zone, overriding religious-freedom objections, at what stage does the government interest fade sufficiently to bring the interest in religious freedom to the forefront? Social or psychological injuries? Minor bruising? For example, it seems fairly uncontroversial now for religious parents to home-school children despite any putative social isolation, while corporal punishment is either in a gray area or actively persecuted. I can imagine a degree of purely verbal browbeating intended to inculcate personal humility, a virtue in many religious traditions, that would offend outsiders. Are there any objective standards that can be brought to bear here, or do the mores of the chattering classes always prevail?
Vance On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Steven Jamar <stevenja...@gmail.com> wrote: > Some time ago the mother was convicted of murder, and now the father has > been convicted as well. Their daughter had undiagnosed diabetes and when > she could not walk, talk, eat, or speak, they still did not take her to the > hospital, but prayed instead. He describes himself as a born-again > Christian and had studied to become a Pentacostal minister. > AP story this morning in the Washington Post: > > *WISCONSIN* > > *Treatment by Prayer Results in Conviction* > > A Wisconsin jury Saturday found a father guilty of killing his daughter by > praying instead of getting her medical care. > > Dale Neumann, 47, was charged with second-degree reckless homicide in the > March 2003 death of his 11-year-old daughter, Madeline, from undiagnosed > diabetes. Prosecutors say he should have taken the girl to a hospital > because she couldn't walk, talk, eat or speak. > > Neumann testified during his trial that he expected God to heal his > daughter and didn't believe she would die. He has described himself as a > born-again Christian who once studied to be a Pentecostal minister. > Neumann's wife, Leilani, was convicted on the same charge in the spring and > is scheduled for sentencing Oct. 6. Both face up to 25 years in prison. > > > -- > Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017 > Associate Director, Institute of Intellectual Property and Social Justice > http://iipsj.org > Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8567 > http://iipsj.com/SDJ/ > > Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger > at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way > they are. > *-- Augustine of Hippo.* > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see > http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw > > Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as > private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are > posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or > wrongly) forward the messages to others. > -- Vance R. Koven Boston, MA USA vrko...@world.std.com
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
