An Oregon couple that chose to pray instead of taking their infant boy to a doctor when he was struggling to breathe were sentenced six years and three months in prison. The sentence is the harshest in a string of cases involving parents who belong to controversial faith-healing churches in the state, the Oregonian reported. Shannon and Dale Hickman were convicted of second-degree manslaughter last month in the death of their son, David. The sentence is the mandatory minimum under the guidelines, though defense attorneys argued that they qualified for lighter shorter stints in the slammer in favor of treatment, according to the paper. The couple would have been the last ones to qualify for the lighter sentences after the state legislature eliminated the leniency this year following a rash of preventable deaths of children whose parents belong to Oregon City's Followers of Christ Church. The judge did not buy the defense attorney's argument - or pleas from Dale Hickman to not separate him and his wife from their other children. "As the evidence unfolded and the witnesses testified, it became evident to me and certainly to the jury that this death just simply did not need to occur," said presiding Judge Robert Herndon, the Oregonian reported. Prosecutors said that the sentencing would send a message to the church that sick children belong at the doctor. "We have a religious group sacrificing children's lives, year after year, decade after decade," Mike Regan said, according to the paper. "We have to do something." The Hickmans plan to appeal, their attorney said.