Staats' case will continue

EPHRATA - The case against a Moses Lake couple accused of mistreating their young son will not be dismissed.

Grant County Superior Court Judge Evan Sperline denied a motion by the defense to dismiss the case recently.

Robert and Michelle Staats are charged with first-degree criminal mistreatment and second-degree criminal mistreatment after allegedly not providing proper medical care for their son. The boy reportedly weighed between 8 and 10 pounds when he was admitted to Samaritan Hospital last year.

The couple allegedly didn't trust traditional medicine and explored several alternative methods before being forced to take their son to the hospital following his deteriorating health.

The defense's first argument was the Staats' should be protected under the Christian Science exemption. Defense attorneys Stephen Hormel and Douglas Phelps stated the exemption should make the entire law unconstitutional.

Prosecutor Angus Lee argued the law wasn't unconstitutional and if it was it could be severed because it didn't affect the section of law that Staats were charged with. Sperline stated the Staats' are not Christian Scientists themselves so the exemption has no effect.

"Further, there can be little doubt that the legislature would criminalize extreme, damaging child neglect even if it foresaw that an exemption, as to the failure to provide medical treatment for Christian Scientists would be declared invalid," Sperline wrote.

Hormel and Phelps also argued that the law is too vague for the Staats' to know that what they were doing was illegal and too vague for someone else to decide if it was illegal or not. Sperline disagreed with the attorney.

"The defendants claim the statute is facially void for vagueness because it provides no means to determine what health care treatment is medically necessary," Sperline stated. "In resolving this claim, the court will have in mind that the statute doesn't criminalize withholding medically necessary health care; rather, it criminalizes withholding health care under circumstances in which the parent knows that doing so will risk bodily injury to the child, and in which a reasonable person would provide the withheld care.

Sperline also explains the statute is more about examining what treatment is withheld instead of what treatment is provided.

According to a previous Columbia Basin Herald article, the Staats' son began having health problems as far back as February 2011.

The child was reportedly never taken to a doctor until November 2011.

On May 9, 2012, Michelle Staats found her son lethargic and when he stopped breathing she called 9-1-1. He was taken to Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake.

Doctors reported the child looked "emaciated, wasted, and obviously malnourished."