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December 11, 2010
"Pa. couple who only prayed for dying tot convicted"
The title of this post is the headline of this notable local article about a real case that reminds me a bit of the Williams case from our casebook. Here is how the article starts:
A fundamentalist Christian couple who relied on prayer, not medicine, to cure their dying toddler son was convicted Friday of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment. Herbert and Catherine Schaible of Philadelphia face more than a decade in prison for the January 2009 pneumonia death of 2-year-old Kent.
"We were careful to make sure we didn't have their religion on trial but were holding them responsible for their conduct," jury foreman Vince Bertolini, 49, told The Associated Press. "At the least, they were guilty of gross negligence, and (therefore) of involuntary manslaughter."
The Schaibles, who have six other children, declined to comment as they left the courthouse to await sentencing Feb. 2.
Experts say about a dozen U.S. children die in faith-healing cases each year. An Oregon couple were sentenced this year to 16 months in prison for negligent homicide in the death of their teenage son, who had an undiagnosed urinary blockage.
Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore will ask the judge at sentencing to put the couple's other children under a doctor's care. She was not yet sure if she would seek prison terms for the two felonies.
Kent Schaible's symptoms had included coughing, congestion, crankiness and a loss of appetite, although his parents said he was eating and drinking until the last day, and they had thought he was getting better. The lone defense witness, high-profile coroner Cyril Wecht, testified that a deadly bacterium could have killed him in hours.
Herbert Schaible, 42, teaches at a school affiliated with their church, First Century Gospel Church. His wife, 41, previously taught there, but now stays at home with the couple's children, from an infant to teenagers.
The Schaibles grew up in the church and have never received medical care themselves, not counting the help of the 84-year-old lay midwife who attends home births, according to pastor Nelson A. Clark.
December 11, 2010 in Notable real cases | Permalink
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Comments
Hmmmmmm. Not sure how to feel about this case. At some point, it seems like the prosecutor would have had to prove that the parents did not exercise reasonable care in treating their child. Is that too torty? If they prayed for the child, who is to say that that itself is not reasonable care? Both parents are in their 40's and neither has ever received medical care. Sounds like they could argue that prayer has worked fine so far in their lives. Furthermore, how do you argue that prayer is unreasonable treatment without prosecuting their religion? It's sad that they lost a child, but it's also sad that the prosecutor chose to charge them and then a court convicted them. Does the prosecutor think that a criminal conviction will convince Christian Scientists to start going to the doctor?
Posted by: Keith Edwards (student) | Dec 11, 2010 7:18:57 PM
Coincidentally, I, too, had pneumonia in January 2009...and it was the worst illness I've had thus far in my life. I felt like I was dying. This case troubles me for many reasons, but, having had pneumonia not too long ago, I can vividly remember how awful it was, and I feel even worse for the poor kid, knowing how much he must have suffered.
I would seriously question how the parents could have honestly believed their kid was 'getting better.' When you have pneumonia, you generally have a really high fever, and chills so severe that you're shaking. I wasn't able to breathe without sounding like I was on a ventilator. I don't think I was eating or drinking anything. Obviously, every case is different, but in my view, the parents' failure to perceive that something was terribly wrong could constitute 'gross negligence.'
I doubt that the parents knew that their kid actually had pneumonia, but if it could be proven that they *did* know that, then that'd be even more evidence of gross negligence, I think. Along with the elderly and people with compromised immune systems (i.e., AIDS patients), kids are among the most likely to actually die from pneumonia.
Their expert witness' statement that a deadly bacterium could have killed the kid in the final hours is interesting, because pneumonia itself is a deadly bacterium! Is pneumonia the "deadly bacterium" to which he's referring?
Re: Keith: maybe the prosecutors actually *are* hoping that this couple's convictions would deter other similarly-minded folks from forgoing medical treatment? Maybe it actually could?
Posted by: Katie Zeitler | Dec 11, 2010 8:06:02 PM
Politically, this may be a difficult case for the prosecutor. Obviously, the ability to chose one's religion and how they practice it is held in high regard in the US; however, I do not think that one should be able to use religion as an aegis against prosecution for their (gross) negligence. Whether or not they knew that the child had pneumonia, if the evidence shows that they should have known then they ought to still be culpable. While it is perfectly fine to pray for their child, I do not think that a reasonable person would consider that to be adequate treatment per se. In response to Katie's statement, I would hope that this would deter parents like the one's in this case. If they chose to not seek medical treatment themselves for whatever reason, that is perfectly acceptable. When they endanger their children, however, I think it is a completely separate issue entirely. It is definitely a difficult question, and one that really questions parents' prerogative in determining treatment for their children.
Also, I found the statement"a deadly bacterium could have killed him in hours" to be appear somewhat questionable. The use of the word "a" bacterium would seem to insinuate that he had not yet come into contact with such a bacterium, but if he had he may have easily died due to his weakened immune system. If anything, this would seem to strengthen the argument that the child's condition was so severe that it necessitated treatment.
Posted by: Brandon Frank | Dec 11, 2010 8:58:38 PM
Re: Brandon--yes! That is what I was trying to communicate--that, given the typical severity of pneumonia, the parents *should have known* that something was very wrong w/their child. If they knew/should have known that their child was terribly ill, then they should have obtained medical treatment for him, and their failure to do so would therefore constitute gross negligence. But...it's hard for me to make this argument w/out suspecting that I'm implicitly judging the parents' religious beliefs as pertaining to conventional medical treatment. Maybe there's a more sophisticated/non-judge-y argument out there?
Posted by: Katie Zeitler | Dec 11, 2010 9:46:30 PM
What scares me about this case is the symptoms that the Dr says the child would have demonstrated. Coughing, congestion, crankiness, and loss of apatite?? That sounds like every tot I've seen. Since this was a toddler that makes these symptoms more serious, but by kid #7 I think that parents have to be somewhat immune to these kinds of problems. However, I'm not a parent (can not imagine how those of you who are parents are doing this whole finals things) so my perspective is probably the least informed
Posted by: JT | Dec 12, 2010 9:54:55 AM
I tend to agree with Keith with the belief that it will be very difficult for the prosecutor to keep religion out of this trial, considering that the case turns on the religious beliefs of the Schaibles. The prosecutors are in a tough position because while we do respect the religious freedoms of citizens of the United States, there is a strong interest in protecting children from unnecessary harm.
I read a very interesting book this past summer called "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down", about a Hmong family that recently immigrated to the United States and had a daughter who suffered from severe epileptic fits. The family wished to treat her through traditional Hmong prayer and sacrifice, but a local hospital went to great lengths to treat the child, including having her removed from the home of her parents and placed in foster care, so that she could receive western medical treatment. I believe that the case of the Schaibles, as well as the Williams case, are very similar to this book because the families obviously cared very much for their children, but they all had their own religious or cultural beliefs that prevented them from seeking medical treatment. In many ways, I think that the fact that the Schaibles lost one of their children is punishment enough, though I am not sure everyone shares that belief.
I know that this is not a time of year where you all are thinking of pleasure reads, but I found the book insanely fascinating, frustrating and eye-opening. Winter break is fast approaching and I would definitely recommend reading this book if you get the chance.
Posted by: Paia LaPalombara | Dec 12, 2010 10:53:35 AM
I think whether or not the parent's "knew" that their child had a serious illness is beside the point; parents should be encouraged to err on the side of seeking medical care for their children. When parents aren't doctors, they can never really "know" how serious their children's illnesses are. For the sake of those children, those who do know should be consulted.
As far as judging religious beliefs goes, I think such judgment is, on the part of society, justified when those beliefs result in dead children. Religious tolerance has never (nor should it be) extended to violent or grossly negligent criminal acts, and we as a society have a duty to protect innocents and outsiders from the repercussions of potentially dangerous beliefs.
People with such beliefs are still free to abstain from seeking medical treatment for their children, and perhaps the strength of their faith can help them see past the potential criminal liability if they are, in fact, mistaken in those beliefs. If this results in many more such convictions, then some may be forced to re-evaluate their worldview. I think religious tolerance is a beautiful thing, but we should have no duty to shelter any believer from the real world consequences of their belief.
Posted by: Erik Schumann | Dec 12, 2010 11:30:15 AM
What would happen if we flipped the script? For example, what if a child were taken to a doctor and ended up dying and the parents had no prayed for the child? Could the Christian Scientists come forward with evidence that prayer has often worked wonderous results for the sick and injured? Then, would the parents be held negligent for not taking reasonable measures to care for their child by praying for her? Of course not. It seems like this all boils down to whether belief in the power or prayer to heal is a reasonable belief. If we say it is not reasonable, then we can convict the parents but the price of this conviction is a rejection of their religious freedom. If we say that it is reasonable, we can't convict. Tough call.
As to whether this conviction would deter other parents in this position, I would say the answer to that is a resounding "no". If people hold a strong belief that they should put their lives and safety in God's hands and trust His decisions, I doubt that a criminal court in a morally bankrupt country will alter their beliefs or their behavior. However, there is an aspect of specific deterrence here that comes into play. While conviction may not act as a general deterrent, future negligent harm by these parents to their other children can be prevented.
Posted by: Keith Edwards (student) | Dec 12, 2010 12:01:16 PM
Keith, I don't know if that's fair. If Christian Scientists could come forward with scientific (not anecdotal) evidence of prayer as a viable medical alternative, then the medical community would certainly feel different about it and the definition of "reasonable" practice under the circumstances would change. The reality, though, is that there is no such evidence
We let doctors and legitimate researchers set standards of care in this area for a good reason - the past two hundred years has shown us that the scientific method works in an understandable, reproducible way. People have always had faith to varying degrees, but only in the era of hand washing, NyQuil and dumping your poop downstream from your drinking water have they stopped dying of disease in appalling numbers.
Sorry to ramble, I'm just trying to say that there are objective reasons for the criminal law to stand behind one standard and not the other.
As i tried (and perhaps failed) to express in my above post, I don't think punishing people for subjecting helpless children to ineffective treatment is a curtailment of religious freedom. If these parents, or their pastor, or whoever, could demonstrate in a statistical, non-anecdotal, non-emotional way that children who underwent their "treatment" were no worse of than those who were more conventionally treated, then there would be no negligence. If we accept treatment (or set any standard of care) on personal belief alone, the door us just too wide open. If I am a landlord of a sect who believes God won't touch any of my property with fire (because mighty Poseidon watches over me) and fail to install fire escapes, am I less liable to my burned up tenants because of this belief? What if there are 5 other people in my sect? What if there are 5,000? What if the fire escape I failed to install was in my children's bedroom? Where do we draw the line when belief rather than objective, shared experience sets the standard? It just seems too messy to me
Posted by: Erik Schumann | Dec 12, 2010 12:58:54 PM
completely unrelated.. a little humor/ castle doctrine???
http://www.switched.com/2008/11/14/why-you-should-never-try-to-steal-a-law-students-laptop/
Posted by: Christina Heithaus | Dec 12, 2010 3:50:32 PM
Erik, I don't think you and I really disagree on much here. I take my kids to the doctor when they get sick and find it kinda silly that some people don't. However, I also eat cows and pigs and find it kinda silly that some people don't. I'm not debating whether the Christian Scientists are right or wrong just like I wouldn't debate the correctness of anyone's beliefs. I am, however, debating that our Constitution allows people to have those beliefs.
You said, "I don't think punishing people for subjecting helpless children to ineffective treatment is a curtailment of religious freedom." Can you please explain this? If I understand your argument, you believe that Christian Scientists should be given the following three choices:
1) Don't have children.
2) Have children and abandon your religious beliefs if they get sick.
3) Have children, remain faithful to your beliefs, and be subject to criminal sanctions if your child dies.
Under the system created by the conviction in this case, this seems to be the only choices that Christian Scientists have. You are claiming that this is not a curtailment of their religious freedom?
Let's imagine that a new disease began spreading aroung the country ("the pig flu"?) and it had a 20% mortality rate. Then let's imagine that the only known protection against this disease was to eat bacon. How should Muslim's respond in this situation? And should the criminal law prosecute them if they don't feed their children bacon? And if so, would the government be curtailing their religious freedom?
Our society in the majority (myself included) feels like providing medical care for sick people is a better idea than prayng for them. However, Christian Scientists believe that protecting the immortal souls of themselves and their children by obedience to God's word (as they understand it) is more important than saving their mortal lives. As silly as this seems to us, our Constitution protects their free exercise of religion. I know that our modern courts have tried to transform the concept of "freedom of religion" into "freedom from religion", and this case is another example of this shift. Characterizing this case as anything other than a curtailment of religious freedom is confusing to me.
Posted by: Keith Edwards | Dec 12, 2010 6:46:34 PM
Keith, I don't think we are disagreeing on much either.
When I said "I don't think punishing people for subjecting helpless children to ineffective treatment is a curtailment of religious freedom," I was operating under an assumption that constitutional religious freedom has limits, and I was expressing my view that the case in point falls beyond those limits. Under your interpretation, yes I a am consenting to a limit to religious freedom.
I don't however, think this is an out of the ordinary view, I just think I draw the line a bit higher up than you might. For example, in your delicious bacon flu hypothetical, I certainly wouldn't force bacon down the throats of consenting adults (as long as their refusal wasn't unreasonably exacerbating the epidemic and putting others in harms way) but I would have no problem, considering a 1 in 5 mortality rate, with forcing children to be bacon protected.
But there are a tremendous number of real world examples of this too. Should, for example, the criminal law step in (as it seems to when the issue crops up) when a religious group marries underage girls to adult men? Or, do you really believe in absolute religious freedom under the constitution?
I don't believe in calling other beliefs "silly" or trying to judge them right or wrong either. I do think that the criminal law should enforce a number (perhaps a very limited number) of secular values which we as a society have seemed to agree on. Religious belief shouldn't be a free pass, for example, to commit murder, theft or child molestation - to name a few.
I think you and I have wandered on to dangerous ground and I have a feeling we might have found the limit of what we will agree on (and I certainly don't want to create any bad feelings, and hope I haven't so far!), so I can let you have the last word unless you want me to respond further. I have to go get some study bacon...
Posted by: Erik Schumann | Dec 12, 2010 8:51:41 PM
Erik: What an awesome response! Your posts on this thread have been incredibly lucid and well written. The phrase "forcing children to be bacon protected" is a classic. You don't have to worry even a little about creating bad feelings (at least with me) as I am impossible to offend. I like to sprinkle some inflammatory language into my posts on blogs in order to get a rise out of people, but I have almost no strong beliefs that I dogmatically cling to. A good argument can always change my mind!
I tried to bait someone into an argument about whether this case puts a limit on religious freedom, and you steered the discussion of a more important question: "Are all limitations on religious freedom bad?" We both agree some limitations are just fine: human sacrifices, ritualistic sex with children, etc, etc. Going full circle back to my original post, my questions boil down to:
1) "Where on the spectrum of limited religious freedoms should faith healing fall?" Faith healing is not human sacrifice, but it is also not as benign as Catholic confession. It's in the gray area where I find it harsh to make it criminal.
2) "When the prosecutor said that this case is not about prosecuting someone's religion, is there any other way to characterize this case?" I still think this case is about that, but as you've pointed out, that is not always a bad thing.
3) "Will this criminal conviction serve any utilitarian purpose?" Other than specific deterrence, I doubt it. People with strongly-held beliefs will probably continue to put their trust in God.
Anyway, you can respond or not as you see fit, but I really enjoyed all of your arguments in this thread.
Posted by: Keith Edwards (student) | Dec 12, 2010 9:30:23 PM
Keith, you have flattered me to the point that I now feel compelled to respond once more despite my previous promise not to. I am also enjoying this discussion immensely and am glad that you are as impossible to offend as I like to think I am (though I hope someone in our class is getting at least a little offended or it hardly seems worth the trouble).
Anyway, I think the questions you ask are the really important ones. To throw my two cents in:
1) "Where on the spectrum of limited religious freedoms should faith healing fall?" Here, I think we may continue to disagree. I can see were you might call faith healing a grayer area than either confessional or human sacrifice. However, I think there are clear factors which make it closer to the latter. To me, these are 1) The potential risks to the child and 2) the child's inability (as a child) to truly consent to these risks because of their age, lack of experience, influence of parents etc.
2) "When the prosecutor said that this case is not about prosecuting someone's religion, is there any other way to characterize this case?"
Here, I agree with you wholeheartedly. While the discussion on this board clearly shows why a prosecutor might want to characterize their case as "not about prosecuting someone's religion," I can't see what else they would be prosecuting here and trying to be politically correct about it is just plain unhelpful.
3) "Will this criminal conviction serve any utilitarian purpose?"
Here I disagree with you, though not on the particulars. I agree that the threat of prosecution alone is likely to have little impact on an individual with this level of faith. However, I think the awareness created by such prosecutions may be very helpful. There is a difference between being afraid of criminal prosecution and being aware, through the intrusive, public nature of such prosecutions, of the real possible consequences of one's actions. Maybe some other couple, when their child experiences "coughing, congestion, crankiness and a loss of appetite" will remember the Schaibles and experience just enough momentary doubt to get their kid some antibiotics in time.
Anywho - good discussion and I hope the exam doesn't break my spirit to the extent that we can't continue it if necessary
Posted by: Erik Schumann | Dec 12, 2010 10:53:36 PM
As a utilitarian matter, I agree with Erik that this may not necessarily deter individuals with such strong beliefs from acting in such a way. But perhaps it once a certain point has been reached in the child's symptoms it may create incentive, or for lack of a better word, pressure to seek medical attention when it is absolutely necessary. This may strike a somewhat better balance between a case such as this and from barring religious beliefs altogether in such a case
Posted by: Mallika Reddy | Dec 13, 2010 8:41:04 AM
the medical treatment received was administered negligently by the Doctor or relevant healthcare professionals and in turn that this negligence caused, in whole or in part, the injury or illness.and the plaintiff must show that his or her injury was the consequence of negligence on the part of someone who owed a duty of care to them at the time of the accident. Clearly, a doctor owes a duty of care to his patient.
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Posted by: yoyo | Mar 29, 2011 4:58:18 AM
convicted people is not actually and consider that they are really bad people. they are those willing to change.
Posted by: marietta traffic lawyer | Apr 11, 2011 5:43:54 AM
I agree with the freedom of religion. But we must also protect the children. Most religions know that the higher power does use modern medicine.
Posted by: Randy | Dec 27, 2011 7:44:14 PM
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