An Oregon City couple who tried to heal their gravely ill son with prayer will appear in court today in a case that could test Oregon laws on religious freedom, parental responsibility and the rights of teenagers to make their own medical decisions.

Jeffrey Dean Beagley, 50, and Marci Rae Beagley, 46, surrendered to Clackamas County authorities on Thursday, a day after they were indicted by a grand jury on charges of criminally negligent homicide.

The Beagleys could not be reached for comment.

Their son, 16-year-old Neil Jeffrey Beagley, died June 17 of complications from a urinary-tract blockage. A deputy state medical examiner said the boy apparently suffered for years from the intensely painful but medically treatable condition. The blockage ultimately caused kidney failure, uremic poisoning and heart failure, according to autopsy results.

When Neil Beagley died at his grandmother's Gladstone home, he was surrounded by dozens of church and family members. Some of those present told police that Neil Beagley, despite his prolonged suffering, chose faith healing over medical care.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Gregory D. Horner declined comment on the case.

If it goes to trial, the case is likely to draw national attention, said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor and author of the book "God vs. the Gavel," which explores conflicts between society and the laws intended to protect religious freedoms.

"Increasingly, prosecutors and grand juries are becoming less willing to turn a blind eye to child suffering or death when it is religiously motivated," said Hamilton, who teaches at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City. "We are in the midst of a coming civil rights movement for children. The willingness to prosecute for the death of a child in a religious circumstance is part and parcel of that."

Beagley's death came less than four months after his 15-month-old niece, Ava Worthington, died in similar circumstances from treatable bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection that could have been cleared up with antibiotics.

Her parents, Carl and Raylene Worthington, go to trial Jan. 26 on charges of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.

Before taking the Beagley case to a grand jury, prosecutors spent months researching the tangle of Oregon laws relevant to the case.

Under a law passed in 1971, children 15 and older have the right to seek medical care independent of their parents. The law was intended, in part, to give girls access to birth-control information, contraceptives and abortions. It was later expanded to cover treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, mental health and substance abuse.

While not expressly stated in state statutes, some legal experts believe the right to seek medical care also grants the right to refuse medical care.

Oregon law also offers some religious-defense protections for parents who try to heal their children with prayer, but those exemptions have changed over time.

In 1995, lobbied by the Christian Science Church, Oregon legislators introduced a religious defense to Oregon's homicide statutes. In 1997, they extended religious protections to cases of first- and second-degree manslaughter.

Then in 1999, after a series of faith-healing deaths involving the Followers of Christ, legislators eliminated Oregon's "spiritual-healing defense" in certain cases of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.

According to a 1998 analysis by The Oregonian, at least 21 of the dozens of children buried since the 1950s in the Followers of Christ church cemetery south of Oregon City could have been saved by medical intervention. None of the deaths from that era resulted in prosecution.

Oregon law gives parents the right to determine their children's religious upbringing.

Prosecutors will have to prove that reasonable medical care was withheld, and the defense may have to show that Neil Beagley made an independent decision to forgo medical treatment, said Jenny Cooke, an Oregon City defense attorney who has handled numerous homicide cases.

The maximum penalty for criminally negligent homicide in Oregon is 10 years in prison, although sentencing guidelines call for a lesser penalties, ranging from probation to 18 months in prison.

-- Steve Mayes; stevemayes@news.oregonian.com

