Cops to discuss man’s fatal beating inside New York church

[Warren Stupidity]

NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. — Police in a central New York town have scheduled a news conference to discuss their investigation into the death of a teenager who was allegedly beaten inside a church by his parents.

Bruce and Deborah Leonard have been charged with first-degree manslaughter in the death of 19-year-old Lucas Leonard. Four other members of the Word of Life Church in New Hartford also have been charged in connection with the man’s death.

New Hartford police say Lucas Leonard died Monday after he was beaten at the church. Officials say his injured 17-year-old brother was found inside the church and is hospitalized in serious condition.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/parents-charged-with-fatally-beating-son-in-new-york-church/2015/10/13/1d98068a-7215-11e5-ba14-318f8e87a2fc_story.html

God is love.

[exboyfil]

1. Hope it is upgraded to murder

and all members of the group that participated in the beating are charged.

[Yorktown]

2. Unless the parents plead it was an exorcism

That way, they might walk scott free.

[struggle4progress]

4. Oh? Does New York law recognize "exorcism" as a defense?

[Yorktown]

5. Exorcism was succesfully used as defense in Germany

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneliese_Michel

And that was the same Catholic Church that operates in the US

The only difference being the secular laws in the state of New York.

Otherwise, there would be no reason for the Catholic Church not to use that defense in the US

[struggle4progress]

6. The OP concerns an incident in 2015 NY, not in 1976 Germany; and it will be prosecuted

under current NY law

And as the "church" at issue here has no connection with the Catholic church, but is a small isolated group that has for some years operated in a former school building, your remarks about the Catholic church seem off point

In any case, you entirely misrepresent the German case you cite, since convictions were in fact obtained in that case, according to the link you provided

[Yorktown]

7. 1- analogy 2- Catholics are Christians 3- light convictions

I congratulate you for your keen eye and sharp mental process: yes, Germany 76 is not New York 2015. Even I had managed to see the difference.

But my example does show that a leading Christian Church (the Roman Catholic one) was not above pleading exorcism as an explanation/mitigating circumstance.

And the parents and priests got off much too leniently.

In short, the reasons above indicate why I initially mentioned why the concerned Christian church might have tried to evoke exorcism.

But I will grant you that to a literalist mind, the parallel does not apply. The match isn't 100%. But then parallels rarely do. Better avoid parallels and stick to literalism?

[struggle4progress]

8. 1 -You're not yet ready to quit the day job for a career in law

2 - Perhaps one tell-tale mark of a bigot is an inappropriate rush to generalize about groups from individuals. The OP is about some small group of people running a "church" from a former school building in a small town in NY. They have no connection to the Catholic church, and they're so isolated some of the neighbors had never seen any of them and thought the building was abandoned. This will, of course, not keep some people from using this as an opportunity for Catholic bashing

3. When you try to provide evidence to support your argument, it helps if you've looked first at the evidence you're providing and can characterize it properly, since otherwise you must move your goalposts -- which you just did here

[Yorktown]

9. Your judgement of me is both misplaced and pretentious

I won't bother to present academic credentials here, but your assessment fell flat.

But keep evaluating people from snippets on a discussion board, it's funny.

Oh, and a point of clarification, this is not a court of law, so arguments here do not need to be polished to legal grade.

But by focusing on technicalities, you carefully avoid the gist of what I was saying. You know, Confucius, moon, finger, fool?

PS: have you fed your high horse? I hear it whinnying in the background.

[whatthehey]

3. Deuteronomy 21:18 in action.

[Curmudgeoness]

10. THIS is one of the things that is very wrong with religion.

When people take their religion too seriously, they are on the verge of this sort of fanaticism.

Two teenage brothers were brutally beaten in church — one fatally — in an effort by their parents, sister and other members to get them to confess their sins, police said Wednesday in a case involving an insular congregation that had sparked gossip and suspicion among neighbors.

Police said spiritual “counseling” at the Word of Life church in upstate New York turned into an hours-long attack Sunday night in which Lucas Leonard, 19, and his 17-year-old brother, Christopher, were pummeled with fists and kicked. They suffered injuries to the abdomen, genitals, back and thighs.

Eventually, Lucas stopped breathing and relatives took him early Monday to a hospital, where he died, police said. Authorities went to the church and found his younger brother, who was hospitalized in serious condition.

“Both brothers were subjected to physical punishment over the course of several hours, in hopes that each would confess to prior sins and ask for forgiveness,” Police Chief Michael Inserra said.

He said investigators have not determined what the supposed sins were.