Firefighters have set up sprinkler systems on homes in a central Idaho town and also plan to start two simultaneous burnouts Thursday to stop a 78-square-mile wildfire from coming down a creek drainage that funnels into the community. Winds switched to coming out of the northwest, prompting fire managers to make the call for the double-burnout...
Here's my full story from spokesman.com: By Betsy Z. Russell BOISE – Idaho’s religious exemption from charges of child abuse, neglect, child injury and manslaughter, passed in the 1970s to accommodate faith-healing groups, came under close scrutiny at a legislative hearing Thursday. “The religious exemption...
The Idaho Legislature’s interim working group on faith healing and children at risk wrapped up its meeting after powerful testimony from an array of presenters today, from an Ada County prosecutor who told of children suffering needlessly and prosecutors unable to act, to a faith-healing…
Dan Sevy, a member of the Followers of Christ and a practitioner of faith healing, told lawmakers today, “I want to point out that we believe in freedom of health care. Not free health care, but freedom of choice in health care.” Sevy, who lives...
Sara Walton Brady told the legislative panel on faith healing and children at risk that she believes her little sister, Mariah Walton, has been falsely portrayed as a victim of faith healing. She said her parents believed in treatment by natural herbs, and if they’d…
Linda Martin spoke quietly to state lawmakers today, a stack of coroner’s reports at the ready. “I represent myself and the children in my family that have passed away from what I believe is medical neglect,” she said. “I’ve been asking the state Legislature for…
Prosecutor Jean Fisher told lawmakers, “I’m asking you to look at this from a different perspective, because I think this is about the rights of children.” Fisher, who spoke on behalf of the Idaho Prosecuting Attorneys Association as well as the Ada County prosecuting attorney’s…
Jean Fisher, special crimes unit chief for the Ada County prosecutor’s office – a position she’s held for more than 20 years – just shared three tragic stories with lawmakers about children denied medical care by their parents on religious grounds. One involved a 16-year-old…
Roxanne Printz of the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare described for lawmakers how the department handles child protection cases. It received 22,000 calls in 2015, she said, and responded to 8,500 of those. About half of those were “coded as neglect,” she said. They...
State lawmakers are questioning Mary Jo Beig, an attorney with the Idaho Attorney General’s office, about how Idaho’s faith-healing exemption from child protection laws works. She offered an example: Two families who have a child with a broken femur that needs to be set. Both...
Mary Jo Beig, an attorney with the Idaho Attorney General’s office who has dealt with child protection matters since 1991, is now briefing lawmakers about Idaho’s child protection laws and religious exemptions. “The religious exemption is the only place in the child protective act that...
As this morning’s legislative committee hearing on faith healing and children at risk opened, Sen. Dan Johnson, R-Lewiston, the panel’s co-chair, said, “To me, the issue is really about balancing interests, those of the state and those of the parents. I think that’s very key.”...
Here’s the agenda for today’s legislative working group meeting on faith healing and children at risk; the meeting runs from 9 a.m. to noon in room EW 42 of the state Capitol. It will be live-streamed...
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
