Commonwealth v. Nixon: convictions affirmed after Faith Tabernacle parents used prayer for a dying diabetic teen
Request a correction or replyDisposition and response
Material that narrows or disputes the record
Appellate history
1998-09-21
Convictions affirmed.
Record class
Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
parents relying on church doctrine of spiritual treatment
Organization
Faith Tabernacle Congregation
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
The Faith Tabernacle Church doctrine that illnesses are addressed through spiritual treatment rather than medicine was the basis on which the parents withheld care from their daughter, who died of diabetic ketoacidosis; the court rejected the argument that religious preference discharged the parental duty to provide medical care.
- Spiritual healing or treatment
- Threatened spiritual consequence
Evidence structure
Proceedings
1998-09-21 · appeal — convictions affirmed
Superior Court of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed Dennis and Lorie Nixon's convictions for involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child. Sentence: 2.5 to 5 years' imprisonment plus a $1,000 fine.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- doctrinal refusal of medical care
Cited record
Sources
- appellate court appellate opinion Commonwealth v. Nixon, 718 A.2d 311 (Pa. Super. 1998).
The Pennsylvania Superior Court opinion affirms the involuntary-manslaughter and child-endangerment convictions and records the Faith Tabernacle spiritual-treatment doctrine as the basis for withholding medical care.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1908246/commonwealth-v-nixon/ Corpus classification: appellate-court; evidentiary role: appellate-opinion. SHA-256 e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
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