Faith-Healers Won’t Go to Jail in Child’s Death

A faith-healing Christian couple will not go to jail for denying medical care to a dying daughter, but they will have to schedule regular checkups for their remaining children, a judge has ruled.

James and Ione Menne, members of the northern Indiana-based Faith Assembly sect, were given suspended sentences and put on probation.

Kosciusko Superior Judge Robert Berner told the couple last week that as a condition of their probation they must submit their two surviving underage children, Melissa, 11, and Susan, 3, to medical examinations by a licensed doctor twice a year.

The judge, on the recommendation of Prosecutor Michael Miner, also ordered the Mennes to ensure that the children receive the usual childhood inoculations. The couple said they will adhere to the judge’s terms.

“We abide by the law, because the word of God requires us to,” James Menne said.

Last month, the Mennes were acquitted of child-neglect charges but convicted of criminal recklessness in the death of their daughter, Pamela, 15, in September. She received no medical care during a three-month kidney illness that included severe abdominal swelling, fainting and seizures.

James Menne, who was also convicted of reckless homicide after the two-day trial, testified that he had administered spiritual treatment to Pamela through prayer and faith in God, as dictated by their religious beliefs.

Both parents also testified that the girl had believed in the teachings of Faith Assembly’s late founder, the Rev. Hobart Freeman, and had refused offers of traditional medical care.

Berner suspended a 5-year prison sentence for James Menne, 3 1/2 years less than the maximum term he could have set for reckless homicide and criminal recklessness. Ione Menne received a 180-day suspended term for criminal recklessness.

The judge warned both parents that he could revoke their probation and send them to prison if they violated his terms and said he could impose additional requirements later, if necessary, in consultation with probation officers.