A California mom accused of fatally torturing her 3-year-old daughter in a horrific family “exorcism” is asking a judge to toss the case — claiming in a twisted defense that she’s being prosecuted over her faith.
The outrageous assertion was laid out in new documents filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court earlier this month as accused killer mom Claudia Elisa Hernandez prepares to appear in front of a judge Jan. 22, more than three years after the death of her tragic daughter Arely.
The judge will consider arguments from Hernandez involving California’s Racial Justice Act — as her camp claims she and her family are entitled to a religious exemption on the basis they are Pentecostal Christians who believe in demonic possession and divine healing.
The El Salvadoran mom, now in her late 20s, was joined by her father and brother in sickly assaulting the tot because they believed she was “possessed by an evil spirit” — all because the child had woken up screaming, according to police documents published by the Daily Beast.
“They arrived at 6:30 a.m. [Sept. 24, 2022], and over the next 12 hours, they violently pinned her down and stuck fingers down her throat to make her vomit, which they believed would help her get the spirit out,’ ” the cops wrote.
All the while, the bewildered dying little girl was repeatedly begging her torturers’ to stop — and telling her mother, “I love you,” officials have said.
Hernandez posted a YouTube video several days before her arrest in which she grinned at times while defending herself against horrified critics.
“I cannot change what is. It is what it is,” the mother said.
Her lawyers have now filed a joint motion on behalf of Hernandez and her co-defendant brother and father arguing police and prosecutors targeted the family because of their religious beliefs and cultural background. Prosecutors are seeking 25 years to life behind bars for Arely’s accused killers.
Hernandez’s father, a pastor who immigrated from El Salvador, had previously taken part in prayer rituals meant to expel evil spirits, the document noted.
California’s Racial Justice Act, which took effect in 2021, allows defendants to challenge charges if race, ethnicity or national origin played a role in how a case was investigated or prosecuted — even without proof of intentional discrimination.
Citing the law, the family’s defense is claiming the investigation was tainted by bias, accusing detectives of repeatedly questioning the family about mental illness and dismissing their church as a “makeshift” or illegitimate place of worship.
But legal experts told The Post on Thursday that the bid to have the charges dropped doesn’t have a chance in hell.
“Injuring people is illegal, regardless of whether you have religious motivations for doing so,” said Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment expert and professor emeritus of law at UCLA, to The Post.
“The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death.”
While California law provides a narrow exception involving alleged child neglect and faith healing — when medical care is replaced solely with prayer — it does not apply to serious charges such as manslaughter or felony child endangerment, he noted.
“Most fundamentally, constitutional rights, including the right to free exercise of religion, can be overridden when necessary to serve a compelling government interest. Preserving the lives of children is a compelling interest if anything is,” said Douglas Laycock, a top lawyer who has worked at both the University of Texas and University of Virginia.
Then there’s always the fact that “California has some of the weakest protections in the country for free exercise of religion,” he said.
“And third, their lawyer is relying on the Racial Justice Act. But the RJA never mentions religion, and as best I can tell, it provides no protection against religious discrimination.”