The Oregon City parents charged with criminally negligent homicide in the faith-healing death of their teenage son will ask a judge to dismiss the charges because they followed the advice of state child welfare workers.

Attorneys for Jeff and Marci Beagley also contend the law is unconstitutionally vague.

The Beagleys belong to the Followers of Christ, an Oregon City church that relies solely on spiritual healing and rejects doctors and medicine. The hearing today in Clackamas County Circuit Court will preview some of the prosecution and defense arguments but won't delve into medical evidence.

Attorneys also will revisit issues that arose during the Carl and Raylene Worthington case. The Worthingtons, also Followers of Christ, were accused of manslaughter in the death of their 15-month-old daughter, Ava.

Raylene Worthington, who is the Beagleys' daughter, was found not guilty after a 12-day trial in July. Carl Worthington was convicted of criminal mistreatment and sentenced to 60 days in jail.

Both cases involve questions about the rights of parents to treat their children with faith healing and allegations that church members are targeted for prosecution because of their beliefs.

Greg Horner, Clackamas County chief deputy DA, declined comment. Prosecutors said in court filings that the Beagleys' bias claim was unfounded.

The Beagley and Worthington cases differ in a couple of significant ways. Neil Beagley was 16 years old when he died. State law gives children over age 15 the right to independently seek and receive medical treatment.

Oregon law, however, does not permit a juvenile to refuse medical treatment, prosecutors said.

Neil Beagley had never been to a doctor, did not know the severity of his condition and could not make an informed decision, according to prosecutors.

The actions of the Oregon Department of Human Services will play a role in the Beagley's defense. Child welfare workers did not have contact with the Worthingtons.

Following Ava Worthington's death on March 2, 2008, Human Services workers met twice with the Beagleys to discuss the medical condition of Neil and his younger sister. The Beagleys said the indictment should be dismissed because they relied on statements by state employees, who told them Neil Beagley was legally permitted to decide whether to seek a doctor's care.

Prosecutors say the Beagleys are free to make an entrapment claim during the trial and let a jury decide.

The Beagleys said the state is prosecuting them because of their religious beliefs and that non-church members in similar circumstances have not been charged with crimes. Prosecutors noted that the Beagleys offered no examples to back up the discrimination charge.

The Followers of Christ -- a congregation that reportedly has about 1,200 members, mainly in the Oregon City area -- gained notoriety in the late 1990s after news reports that a large number of congregants' children died from medically treatable conditions. Shortly after that, the Legislature eliminated the faith-healing exemption in some manslaughter and criminal mistreatment cases.

Oregon law regarding the rights of parents to treat their children with faith healing changed several times over the decades. The Beagley defense team maintains that Oregon's criminally negligent homicide statute is confusing and so vague that it violates the couple's constitutional rights.

Defense attorneys will argue that "a reasonably intelligent person would have no way of knowing that a parent who chooses to provide treatment to his or her child through spiritual means alone constitutes a violation of the duty of a parent."

They claim the state wrongly treats spiritual healing as "nothing more than fatalism." Prayer, the laying of hands and anointing with oil -- the chosen practices of the Beagleys and their church -- are treated as "nothing more than throwing your hands in the air and saying 'Let nature take its course,'" according to one of the defense motions.

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