"Blair couple's faith healing appeal denied "
by Tom Gibb ("Post-Gazette," May 1, 2001)
HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. -- The U.S. Supreme Court said yesterday that it won't hear the appeal of a Blair County couple who spurned medicine, put their trust in faith healing and lost two of their 13 children to treatable illnesses.
Barring a last-resort appeal, Dennis and Lorie Nixon will go off sometime in the next 30 days to spend 21/2 to five years in state prisons, leaving behind their Hollidaysburg-area house and 10 children still living at home.
Thus would begin the penalty phase in a social enigma. The Nixons oversee a near-model of the all-American family -- well-scrubbed, tightly bound and straitlaced. But they break the law, prosecutors say, by defiantly holding to their church code, rejecting medicine as an affront to God's will, even when it costs their children's lives. "It's a very nice family for all intents and purposes," Blair County District Attorney David Gorman said
yesterday, an hour after getting the court decision. "But the fact that they did nothing is an abdication of
parental responsibilities."
"It's something you leave in God's hands," Dennis Nixon said of the prospect of going to prison. "If it's
something he allows, you go with it."
Dennis Nixon, 45, is vice president of a 75-employee Altoona company that manufactures doors. His wife is 49 and, following church practice, a housewife. They are among 140 members of Faith Tabernacle
Congregation in Altoona, a discreet, half-century-old congregation of which Dennis Nixon's father is the pastor.
The Nixons and Faith Tabernacle thrived largely in obscurity until 1991, when son Clayton Nixon, 8, died
of an ear infection that doctors said could have been cured by antibiotics. Dennis and Lorie Nixon pleaded no contest to endangering the welfare of a child and were sentenced to 125 hours of community service.
The case the Supreme Court rejected yesterday involved the death of daughter Shannon Nixon, 16, in 1996 of diabetes acidosis, a treatable condition that sent her blood sugar levels soaring more than 12 times above normal levels. Her family fasted, prayed over her and anointed her. The teen-ager told her parents: "I feel I had my victory." But she lapsed into a coma and died, never seen by a doctor.
In 1997, as Lorie Nixon was pregnant with the couple's 13th child, a Blair County jury convicted them of
involuntary manslaughter and endangering children. The jury rejected defense arguments that Shannon
Nixon, three days short of her 17th birthday when she died, was old enough to make her own decisions.
Judge Norman Callan delivered the sentence, writing: "They are good, family people. Except they endanger the well-being of their children by failing to seek medical treatment when their children need it."
"Religious freedom cannot shield criminal conduct," Callan said.
Pittsburgh lawyer Sally Frick carried the case to the Supreme Court, hoping to convince justices that Shannon Nixon had the right to refuse care and that prosecution was an impingement on religious liberty.
There remains a chance that she could argue an issue such as whether the Nixons' previous attorneys offered inadequate counsel, Frick said.
"Parents who relied on faith healing are cleared in baby's death"
("Rocky Mountain News," August 18, 2000)
GRAND JUNCTION — No charges will be filed against the parents of a 2-day-old boy who died of
complications from a heart defect without ever seeing a doctor, though the district attorney suggested their
refusal to seek medical care was "a remnant of the Dark Ages."
Billy and Barbara Reed of Clifton chose prayer over doctors to heal their son, Billy Ray, when his color started to worsen and he had trouble breathing. He died July 9.
"I strongly favor the right of individuals to pray for the sick and infirm," Mesa County District Attorney Frank Daniels said Thursday. "But the use of prayer to the absolute exclusion of medical care is a remnant of the Dark Ages. This practice endangers children."
Mesa County Coroner Rob Kurtzman ruled earlier this month that the manner of death was undetermined, saying the evidence did not warrant a ruling of homicide.
Daniels agreed with Kurtzman that the death could have been prevented had Billy Ray received routine medical care or been monitored by doctors. But both said the boy's caregivers may not have known how severe Billy Ray's problems were before he died.
"They clearly wanted to do the best for their child," Daniels said in a written statement.
Barbara Reed, 23, said the family did not want to comment.
The Reeds belong to the General Assembly Church of the First Born, a close-knit Christian sect that believes
God has the sovereign power to heal.
Billy Ray was born and died at home with church members praying around him.
The Reeds could have been charged under Colorado child-abuse law, but an exception can be made for members of faith-healing sects.
However, that exception also includes a clause saying a parent's religious rights should not limit a child's access to medical care in life-threatening situations.
Daniels has lobbied to repeal the faith-healing exception and has called the statute unclear.
"In my opinion, the current statutory scheme is seriously flawed and should be changed," he said Thursday.
August 18, 2000