Oregon Live.com Everything Oregon A judge's vote for the rule of reason By Tom Wolfe, The Oregonian January 15, 2010, 5:58PM Starting tomorrow, prosecutors and defense attorneys are expected to tangle for two weeks over whether Jeff and Marci Beagley are guilty of failing to provide adequate medical care for their 16-year-old son, who died of an untreated urinary blockage. But perhaps the most important phase in the latest trial involving faith- healing parents in the Followers of Christ church may have already The Beagley trial passed: The jury selection. Even before the first pool of 14 potential jurors filed into Judge Steven Maurer's courtroom last week, defense attorneys had red-flagged four jurors whose responses on juror questionnaires raised concerns. Juror #9 said he had two friends who had "escaped the cult." Juror #7 suggested the parents in a recent faith-healing trial "got away Benjamin Brink /The with murder." Oregonian Juror #2 compared the local faith-healing church to "Jonestown." Marci and Jeff Beagley Juror #14 simply seemed to know far too much about the case against THE CASE: Jeff and Marci the Beagleys, as well as last summer's faith-healing trial that resulted in Beagley, members of the a criminal negligence conviction of Carl Worthington in the death of his Followers of Christ church in daughter Ava, the Beagleys' 15-month-old grand-daughter. Oregon City, are charged with criminally negligent Defense attorneys Wayne Mackeson and Steve Lindsey hoped Judge homicide for failing to Maurer would find cause to bump the four from the jury because of what provide adequate medical they saw as the jurors' strong potential for bias against their clients. care for their 16-year-old son. Neil Beagley died in June Mauer ended up excusing juror #9 because his wife was having surgery. 2008 from an untreated urinary tract blockage, a After questioning the juror who made the Jonestown comparison, Maurer condition the family agreed it was unlikely she could overcome her biases and kicked her attempted to treat with faith from the pool. healing. But Maurer refused to release the other two jurors merely for being LEGAL ISSUES: The case opinionated, well-informed citizens -- people who make it their habit to is complicated by an Oregon read newspapers and follow local news on TV, radio and the web. law that allows children 15 and older to obtain medical "We routinely ask jurors to set aside opinions they have," Maurer said treatment without parental after juror #14, an accountant, explained she had followed news permission. coverage of faith-healing trials, including a recent story in The Oregonian on the Beagley trial. ARCHIVE: Previous stories about faith healing in Even after the woman who wrote the "murder" comment about theWorthington case said she found it "unconscionable to withhold medical treatment while waiting for divine intervention,\" Maurer pressed on, saying jurors cannot be excluded simply because they are informed citizens who have knowledge of the case and form their own opinions. "We all draw conclusions," said Maurer, but that doesn't mean we're incapable of making an unbiased decision when we're charged with that responsibility by the court. Then he asked the woman if she thought she could weigh the evidence presented in the case and apply the law as he instructed. When she told him she believed she could do that, he denied the defense motion to exclude her from the jury pool. It was clear from the beginning that none of the four jurors were likely to make the final 12-person jury selected Friday, because defense attorneys, like prosecutors, got to kick 12 jurors from the 56-person jury pool. But Mauer's decision made it clear the exclusions would be the attorneys\" choices, not the court's. Prosecutors have a tough road ahead of them. To gain a conviction, they must convince the jury that a juvenile's legal right to obtain medical treatment in Oregon does not absolve parents of their duty to provide medical treatment to their child. There's no telling where the jury might land on that issue. But regardless of the cutcome, Maurer's refusal to cave in to the theory that broad knowledge of a case equates to bias was an important message, a reminder that the best-informed members in a jury pool don't have to be excluded merely because they pay close attention to current events in their commumnity