ATLANTA -- Jury selection is under way for a child's death case involving members of a Brentwood church.

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Joseph and Sonya Smith are accused in the 2003 death of their son Joseph and were in a Georgia court Monday preparing to be tried.

The Smiths are members of the Remnant Fellowship Headquarters in Brentwood.

Investigators testified in an earlier hearing that the child had numerous injuries all over his body, and that brought into question the church's emphasis on disciplining children.

Church founder Gwen Shamblin defended the Smiths on her Web site after their arrest.

“It is an extreme leap of logic by journalists and media to say that traditional spankings and groundings of a child to his bedroom is in any way associated with a head injury, which, by the way, was documented by the coroner’s report as the cause of death,” she said.

Shamblin also encouraged her followers then to stand behind the Smiths.

Shamblin and other church members traveled to Georgia to support the Smiths during their arraignment, but before jury selection Monday morning, the defense attorney told the judge that they have made a deal with prosecutors to limit the church's involvement in this case.

It is unclear if the Smiths will have the same support from church members during their murder trial as they did following their arrest.

Investigators in the case testified that the Smiths admitted to beating their son, but that they denied they caused what's believed to be the fatal head wound, maintaining he hit his head on a banister.

The 14-count indictment issued in June said the couple, from Mableton, Ga., has been charged with four counts of murder, five counts of first-degree cruelty to children, three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of false imprisonment.

The Smiths are members of the Franklin, Tenn., based Remnant Fellowship Church, which grew out of church leader Gwen Shamblin's Weigh Down Workshop, a Christian diet program she created in 1986.

Authorities raided the church in June 2004 as part of the investigation of Joseph Smith's death.