A state appeals court will rule Tuesday, on whether the Weston prayer death parents should have their reckless homicide convictions overturned. Dale and Leilani Neumann are appealing a judge’s decision last year denying them a new trial. The judge ruled the couple’s trial attorneys were not ineffective and that jurors properly considered a faith healing defense in their deliberations.
Jurors separately convicted the Neumann’s of second-degree reckless homicide for failing to take their 11-year-old daughter to a doctor as she died from a treatable case of diabetes in March 2008. The couple chose to pray over the girl instead. The Neumann’s were sentenced to 10 years probation, including a month in jail each year for the first six years of probation. But the sentence has been stayed pending the appeal.
Matt Lehman, WSAU