Other New religious movements Scientology Clearwater, Florida, USA · 1998

Lisa McPherson: felony charges filed, then dropped, over a member's death during the Introspection Rundown

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Charged

Authority role

Church of Scientology staff administering a religious procedure, organisation exercising custodial care over a member

Organization

Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Clearwater

Spiritual nexus

McPherson was a member of the organisation, taken into its care after a traffic accident during which she undressed in the street and asked for help. She was placed on the Introspection Rundown — a religious procedure of enforced isolation and silence — and remained in that custodial religious care for seventeen days rather than receiving medical treatment. The authority that held her there was the organisation's own doctrine about how a member in her state should be treated.

Spiritual healing or treatment
Institutional obedience or isolation
Other spiritual authority or belief

Evidence structure

Proceedings

1998-11-13 · felony charges filed, subsequently dropped

State Attorney, Sixth Judicial Circuit, Pinellas County, Florida. After an eleven-month review, State Attorney Bernie McCabe charged the Church of Scientology with two felonies — practising medicine without a licence and abuse or neglect of a disabled adult — over the death of Lisa McPherson, a member who died on 5 December 1995 after seventeen days in the organisation's care. On 12–13 June 2000 McCabe dropped all criminal charges, after the Pinellas County Medical Examiner changed her finding on the cause of death from 'undetermined' to 'accident' following challenges by defence experts. A separate wrongful-death suit brought by McPherson's estate settled confidentially in May 2004 with no admission of liability.

Appellate history

2000-06-13 · undefined

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2004-05-28 · undefined

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Documented coercion mechanisms

the Introspection Rundown, a religious procedure of enforced isolation and silence
seventeen days in the organisation's custodial care in place of medical treatment

Primary record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting charges dropped report 'Charges Dropped in Death of Fla. Woman', The Washington Post, 13 June 2000.: Reports the State Attorney's decision to drop both felony charges and the medical examiner's revised cause-of-death finding.
national newspaper court reporting civil settlement 'Scientologists settle death suit', St. Petersburg Times / Tampa Bay Times, 29 May 2004.: The local paper of record reports the confidential settlement of the wrongful-death suit after seven years of litigation.

Related record

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