Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Oregon City, Oregon, USA · 2015

State v. Hickman: Oregon Supreme Court affirms manslaughter convictions after Followers of Christ parents withheld care from a newborn

Request a correction or reply

Disposition and response

Material that narrows or disputes the record

Appellate history

2015-10-08

Convictions affirmed.

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

parents relying on church faith-healing doctrine

Organization

Followers of Christ Church

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The Followers of Christ Church relies on faith healing — prayer, anointing with oil, and the laying on of hands — and eschews conventional medicine; on that basis the parents sought no medical care for their prematurely born son, who died about nine hours after birth.

Spiritual healing or treatment
Threatened spiritual consequence

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2015-10-08 · final appeal — convictions affirmed

Oregon Supreme Court. The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed Dale and Shannon Hickman's second-degree manslaughter convictions, holding criminal negligence (not knowledge) was the required mental state and that sincerely held religious belief did not raise it.

Documented coercion mechanisms

doctrinal refusal of medical care

Cited record

Sources

state supreme court appellate opinion State v. Hickman, 358 Or. 1, 358 P.3d 987 (2015).: The Oregon Supreme Court opinion affirms the manslaughter convictions and records the Followers of Christ faith-healing practice 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/3008733/state-v-hickmanhickman/ Corpus classification: state-supreme-court; evidentiary role: appellate-opinion. SHA-256 e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

Named in this record? Request a correction, report a changed disposition, or submit a response.

Related record

Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts

Browse all 796 Christian institutions & contexts records

← Explore all cases