An Indiana couple who chose to pray over their dying newborn daughter rather than seek medical care for her were sentenced Friday to six years in prison for reckless homicide.
But a judge suspended most of those prison terms for Dewayne and Maleta Schmidt, instead ordering the couple to serve about a year each at a work-release center.
Their daughter, Rhianna Rose Schmidt, died in August 2003, less than two days after she was born at the couple's home, from an infection typically treated with antibiotics.
The Schmidts' church, the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, advocates prayer and faith healing over medical intervention but does not require members to shun medical care.
The Schmidts' probation includes a directive to seek medical help for their two other children should they suffer life-threatening health problems.
Rhianna was the third child of parents attending the Schmidts' church to die since 1998 after family members refused medical treatment, according to published reports. The church is in Morgantown, about 30 miles south of Indianapolis.
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Emphasis mine - not only are brain-damaged imbeciles allowed to breed, but they're allowed to keep their other children and undoubtedly continue the horrific, future-ruining child abuse that is religious indoctrination into cults, perpetuating the cycle and producing YET MORE "I'm incapable of critical thought AND I VOTE" yahoos.
The judge needs to be kicked in the nads. Repeatedly.
But a judge suspended most of those prison terms for Dewayne and Maleta Schmidt, instead ordering the couple to serve about a year each at a work-release center.
Their daughter, Rhianna Rose Schmidt, died in August 2003, less than two days after she was born at the couple's home, from an infection typically treated with antibiotics.
The Schmidts' church, the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, advocates prayer and faith healing over medical intervention but does not require members to shun medical care.
The Schmidts' probation includes a directive to seek medical help for their two other children should they suffer life-threatening health problems.
Rhianna was the third child of parents attending the Schmidts' church to die since 1998 after family members refused medical treatment, according to published reports. The church is in Morgantown, about 30 miles south of Indianapolis.
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Emphasis mine - not only are brain-damaged imbeciles allowed to breed, but they're allowed to keep their other children and undoubtedly continue the horrific, future-ruining child abuse that is religious indoctrination into cults, perpetuating the cycle and producing YET MORE "I'm incapable of critical thought AND I VOTE" yahoos.
The judge needs to be kicked in the nads. Repeatedly.
