Convicted Of Relying on Prayer

By Alain L. Sanders

The jury forewoman was trembling. After she announced the verdict, several of the jurors began to sob loudly. The defendants held hands but showed no emotion upon hearing the guilty pronouncement. Climaxing a dramatic and closely watched trial that pitted church against state, David and Ginger Twitchell were convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a Boston courtroom last week. Their crime: letting their sick 2 1/2-year-old son Robyn die because they chose to follow their religion and rely on prayers rather than call a doctor. "This has been a prosecution against our faith," lamented David Twitchell, a lifelong Christian Scientist. No, countered prosecutor John Kiernan, it was a "victory for children."

| The conviction was the fifth in two years against Christian Scientist parents who failed to seek medical treatment for their children -- a record that the Boston-based church interprets as a crusade against its teachings. The Twitchells' sentence followed the pattern set in the previous cases. The parents were given ten years of probation, and they were ordered to submit their three other children to regular medical exams and take them to a doctor whenever signs of serious illness develop.

The two-month trial turned on the question of whether the Twitchells were guilty of "wanton and reckless conduct" in not seeking medical help for Robyn, who died in April 1986 of a bowel obstruction, after five days of illness. The parents, who had summoned a "spiritual healing" practitioner, maintained that their son had shown only intermittent flulike symptoms and seemed to be recovering just before taking a fatal turn. But medical experts testified that the child would probably have been feverish, vomiting and in obvious pain before his death. Had he been taken to a doctor, they asserted, the boy would still be alive. In one poignant moment at the trial, David Twitchell sadly voiced his misgivings: "If medicine could have saved him, I wish I had turned to it."

The eight-woman, four-man jury deliberated for 14 hours before delivering its verdict. The Twitchells' attorney, Rikki Klieman, promptly announced plans to appeal. Her primary argument, she says, will be that Judge Sandra Hamlin misinterpreted a 1971 Massachusetts statute on child abuse and neglect, which creates a legal exemption for those who believe in spiritual healing. Some 44 states provide some sort of religious exemption. In the Twitchell case, the first to test the Massachusetts law, Hamlin ruled that "a subjective belief in healing by prayer" is no excuse for not obtaining medical help when a child is seriously ill.

Defense attorney Klieman also questioned the judge's rejection of her request to poll the jury members, a practice sometimes used to ensure that a verdict correctly reflects the views of the jurors. "The fact that the jurors were weeping," she said, "shows every single reason they should have been polled."

Several Massachusetts legal experts believe the Twitchells' claim of a statutory exemption will prevail on appeal. Says Harvey Silverglate of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers: "It's virtually impossible to convict the parents in the face of that exemption." Silverglate and others think the Twitchell conviction -- particularly if it is overturned -- could ultimately prompt nationwide efforts to repeal legal exemptions for spiritual healing. While that would be a tremendous blow to the Christian Scientists and other religious groups, it would, say child-advocacy groups, be an important step toward granting the nation's children a fundamental human right. Says Jetta Bernier of the Massachusetts Committee for Children and Youth: "No individual should have to suffer and die because of the religious beliefs of another."

With reporting by Robert Ajemian/Boston