Prayer Healing Faces Court Test in Girl’s Death

On Feb. 21, 1984, 4-year-old Shauntay Walker developed a fever, began vomiting and showed other signs of what seemed to be the flu. Her mother kept her home from the Happy Time Pre-School in Sacramento but did not call a doctor--even when the girl’s condition grew worse and she finally appeared comatose.

Instead, Laurie Walker followed her religious beliefs and summoned an accredited Christian Science practitioner to pray for the girl’s recovery. But on March 9, in the 17th day of her illness, Shauntay Walker died of what an autopsy found was acute bacterial meningitis.

As a result, Laurie Walker was charged with involuntary manslaughter and felony child endangerment in a rare criminal prosecution of a parent who chose prayer healing over conventional medical care for a sick child.

On Tuesday, the California Supreme Court will hear arguments in the Walker case in what has become an unusual and far-reaching test of religious freedom and child-protection laws.

Lawyers for Walker argue that a 1976 state law bars criminal prosecution of parents who choose spiritual treatment for a child in accordance with the tenets of a recognized religion.

“The Legislature never contemplated that such a novel proceeding would take place,” said Thomas A. Volk of Sacramento, one of Walker’s attorneys. “She could go to state prison (for up to 10 years). . . . This is something the law never intended.”

The Christian Science Church, backing Walker, contends that the prosecution interferes with her constitutional right to free exercise of religion. And the American Civil Liberties Union argues that her right to due process of law is being violated by vague and possibly conflicting statutes.

On the other side, lawyers for the state attorney general reply that the 1976 law was not intended to protect parents from criminal liability.

The Legislature would not have passed a bill, by the collective vote of 87 to 1, to “permit parents to sacrifice children to their religious beliefs,” state attorneys argue.

And in an unusual twist, they are raising a constitutional claim of their own in the case.

Religious Preference

Briefs filed by Deputy Atty. Gen. Clifford K. Thompson Jr. say that if the court finds that the law is aimed at protecting certain groups--such as Christian Scientists--it should be struck down for impermissibly granting a religious preference, violating the constitutional ban on government establishment of religion.

The court’s ruling, expected later this year, could have wide effect. Although the exact number of adherents are uncounted, there are more than 300 Christian Science churches in California alone. Other religious groups that believe in some form of faith-healing, such as the Worldwide Church of God and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, also could be affected.

“This case is going to have an impact not only on Christian Scientists but a lot of other faiths as well--particularly if the court allows prosecutions,” said Robert C. Vanderet of Los Angeles, one of the attorneys representing the Christian Science Church.

“Hopefully, the court will recognize that the Legislature intended that in these circumstances, Christian Scientists should be allowed to practice their religion without being prosecuted.”

Different Interpretation

Church officials also say that the Walker case is being wrongly portrayed as a conflict between a parent’s right to religious beliefs and a child’s right to treatment.

Nathan A. Talbot, a spokesman at the church’s Boston headquarters, said that although members are not required to do so, they choose spiritual treatment over medical care because they see it as more effective. Spiritual care should not be seen as blind “faith-healing,” he said, but rather as an intelligently considered choice.

“We believe every effort should be made to bring healing to the child. We don’t leave it to ‘God’s will,’ as has been claimed,” Talbot said. “We believe healing involves not only physical restoration but spiritual and moral blessing as well.”

But different concerns are being raised by the 33,000-member California Medical Assn., which is supporting state officials in the case.

Child Protection

While taking no position on Walker’s criminal liability, the medical association is urging the court to make sure that its ruling does not jeopardize other laws that allow authorities to intervene to provide medical care for children over parental objections.

“We don’t want the court to declare parental rights so sweeping that a child would be left helpless under the law,” said David E. Willett of San Francisco, an attorney for the medical association. “A parent is entitled to religious beliefs--but a child is entitled to care.” Prosecution of parents who rejected medical aid for seriously ill or dying children on religious grounds have been rare in the United States, authorities say.

California, like other states, has long had a child-support law that provides criminal penalties for failing to provide food, clothing, shelter or medical care for a minor. In recent years, however, most states have enacted statutes that provide at least some type of recognition of prayer healing.

In 1925, the Legislature revised an 1872 child-support statute with an amendment that appeared to protect parents who provided an ill child with “remedial care” other than medical attention.

Manslaughter Prosecution

But 42 years later, the state Supreme Court, ruling in the case of a member of the Church of First Born prosecuted for manslaughter in the death of her 13-year-old daughter, held that despite the amendment, the law still did not recognize prayer as a valid substitute for medical care and thus could not be used as a defense in a manslaughter prosecution. (The mother’s conviction was overturned on other grounds.)

In 1976, the Legislature changed the law again, saying that if a parent provides “spiritual” treatment by prayer in accordance with religious beliefs, such treatment would constitute the “other remedial care” required under the law. But the precise effects of the amendment remain unclear.

In the first tests of the 1976 law’s application to prayer healing, prosecutors brought charges in three cases in which children died after their parents shunned conventional care in favor of spiritual treatment.

Two Other Cases

In a case pending in the state Court of Appeal, Eliot and Lise Glaser of Culver City, both Christian Scientists, were charged with second-degree murder after their 17-month-old son, Seth, died of meningitis.

In a case awaiting action before the state Supreme Court, Mark Rippberger and Susan Middleton, both Christian Scientists, were charged in Sonoma County with involuntary manslaughter in the meningitis death of their 8-month-old daughter, Natalie.

The outcome in those two cases will likely depend on the court’s eventual ruling in the Walker case.

The justices agreed to review the case in March, 1986, after a state Court of Appeal in Sacramento refused to bar Walker’s prosecution.

Walker, a state employee who is divorced and has two other children, remains free on bail. According to court records, Walker was distraught over Shauntay’s death, but told a family member afterwards that if another of her children became ill, she still would not take that child to a doctor.

Walker’s attorneys argue that the 1976 law, finding validity in prayer treatment for children, effectively bars prosecutions under separate manslaughter and child-endangerment statutes.

The 1976 law, backed by the Christian Science Church, was specifically meant to clarify the 1967 court ruling to ensure against further criminal prosecutions, the lawyers contend.

‘Caring and Loving’

Further, they say, Walker cannot be fairly accused of the “disregard for human life or indifference to consequences” required in a manslaughter prosecution because she conscientiously chose what she thought would be the best care for her daughter. Her actions, say her lawyers, were those of “a caring and loving mother.”

Numerous laws and regulations recognize the validity of spiritual treatment, Walker’s attorneys say. Among other things, they note that the Internal Revenue Service allows a medical expense deduction for payments to such Christian Science practitioners.

The church, in a “friend of the court” brief, argues that the state cannot punish parents for not seeking medical treatment when doing so conflicts not only with what they believe are the best interests of their children but also with a central tenet of their religious beliefs.

Such prosecutions, the church contends, violate the First Amendment guarantee of free exercise of religion.

Right of Due Process

In another supporting brief, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union argue that the parents’ constitutional rights to due process of law are violated when they are told under the 1976 law that spiritual treatment is protected but also told under other statutes that they may be prosecuted if their child dies.

But the state’s lawyer, Thompson, contends that although the 1976 law may grant some limited recognition to spiritual treatment under the child-support law, the Legislature had no intention of barring prosecution when a child suffers physiological harm or death from a lack of medical care.

“It is not the law in California that the child may suffer or succumb so long as the parent is sincere,” Thompson’s brief observes.

The state also takes the position that if the law is interpreted as protecting parents in such circumstances, it must be overturned for advancing a particular religious practice in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Thompson contends that the manslaughter and child-endangerment prosecution rightfully upholds secular values in protecting the lives and well-being of children.

In Walker’s case, the mother’s personal belief that prayer was a better cure than medicine is not sufficient to protect her from prosecution when her daughter’s condition was life-threatening, he says.