April 16, 2016
Unfortunately I failed to publish this one last month. I hope it is still of interest.


News and Views


https://www.yahoo.com/gma/missouri-woman-recalls-moment-she-suspected-her-mom-153005320--abc-news-topstories.html

Missouri Woman Recalls Moment She Suspected Her Mom Tried to Kill Her
JENNER SMITH, ABC News
April 15, 2016


A Missouri woman who nearly died after her mother poisoned her with anti-freeze said she suspected that her mother was planning to kill her after reading her journal.

"She had this journal that she wrote ... her thoughts. She wrote the deaths of Shaun, my brother, and me. And that's what worried me ... I was shocked," Sarah Staudte told ABC's "20/20" in an exclusive interview.

Sarah's father Mark Staudte, 61, and her older brother Shaun, 26, both died just five months apart the year before in 2012. Medical examiners ruled Mark's death was due to "natural causes" and Shaun's death was due to "prior medical issues." Both bodies were cremated.

Sarah, now 26, told "20/20" that when she confronted her mother Diane about the journal entry predicting her death, her mother told her she wasn't going to die and to not read her journal again.

Sarah said she kept what she read a secret.

In June 2013, Sarah was brought to the emergency room at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, with flu-like symptoms, but doctors determined that her kidneys and brain were failing. After doing a number of tests, doctors initially could not figure what was wrong with her.

During Sarah's hospitalization, Springfield Police Det. Neal McAmis received an anonymous tip that Diane could be involved in Sarah's illness and could also be responsible for the deaths of her husband and son. Det. McAmis then went to the hospital where he said one of the doctors told him that Sarah was in both a mysterious and grave condition.

"[The doctor] said that he was suspicious that it was a possible poisoning case," Det. McAmis told 20/20. "At that point, I was told Sarah was pretty much given a zero percent chance of making it. It was not if Sarah is going to die, but when."

He also learned from a nurse that the mother Diane was behaving strangely, joking about her daughter's condition and talking about an upcoming vacation to Florida.

Det. McAmis called Diane into questioning where she eventually admitted on tape to poisoning Mark, Shaun and Sarah with anti-freeze.

Diane told the investigator that she wanted Sarah dead because her daughter had student loans that she needed to pay off and that she was having problems finding a job. Sarah, a French and History graduate of Missouri State University, wanted to pursue her dream of being a translator.

"I've been kind of putting pressure on [Sarah] to get out and get a job. Your college bills are coming due. I don't want to pay for them. After all, you get tired of doing everything for your kids and it's like you need to step up and do it," Diane said in her interrogation tape, obtained by "20/20."

Sarah's sister Rachel was also brought into questioning, where she eventually admitted to helping her mother kill her father and brother, as well as poisoning her older sister.

Miraculously Sarah survived the poisoning but suffered severe neurological damage. She had to relearn how to walk and talk, and continues to recover.

When Sarah found out the news from police that her mother and sister were responsible for her hospitalization and the murders of her dad and brother, she was both shocked and upset.

"I just [felt] like I want[ed] to slap both of them, and call them 'B' words," she said.

In January 2016, Diane pleaded guilty to first-degree murder charges for Mark and Shaun's deaths and to assault charges for Sarah's poisoning. She took an Alford plea from Greene County prosecutor Dan Patterson, acknowledging that there was substantial evidence to convict her but not admitting wrongdoing. Diane was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Rachel, now 25, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in May 2015 as part of a plea deal in exchange for testifying against her mother at her trial. She was sentenced in March 2016 to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

During her sentencing, Rachel apologized to her older sister.

"I'm sorry I couldn't find the courage to stand up for what was right, to go for help, to protect you and our siblings," Rachel said. "Your suffering could have been prevented and I hate myself for not being there for you.... I want you to know that you are an inspiration to me."

Sarah faced both her mother and sister at their sentencings.

"I prefer to be survivor than a victim," she said.

Sarah said the hardest part of what has happened is that she misses her family, especially her father and brother. She said she believes that they protected her.

"[My father and brother are] like angels, watching over me. And every once and awhile, I have dreams that they visit me, from beyond the grave," she said.

She has embraced her spirituality and is a devout Christian. She spends a lot of time at her church and said that she wants to create an awareness group to help others who have also been poisoned.

But it's a hard journey. She is now living in an assisted care facility and has a state-appointed guardian.

Sarah told ABC News that while her mother and sister took away her livelihood and independence, they did not take away her desire to fulfill her future dreams. She still hopes of one day of being a French translator and walking the streets of Paris and Montreal.

Despite the hardships, pain and loss Sarah has had to endure, she maintains that she is a survivor and that she is no longer angry at her mother and sister.

"I forgive them for what they did because forgiveness is the right thing to do."

Watch the full story on ABC News' "20/20" TONIGHT at 10 p.m. ET.



http://criminal.lawyers.com/criminal-law-basics/is-an-alford-plea-the-same-as-a-guilty-plea.html

Is an Alford Plea the Same as a Guilty Plea?

“Guilty pleas are common. In fact, most criminal matters don't go to trial, but rather end when the defendant (the person accused of a crime) pleads guilty to committing the crime, usually in exchange for some favorable treatment from the prosecution. This is the typical plea arrangement. While these types of guilty pleas are common, however, there's a special type of guilty plea that's often overlooked. It's called an "Alford" plea.

What's an "Alford" Plea?

An Alford plea is when a defendant enters a plea of guilty without making an admission of guilt. In other words, he pleads guilty but at the same time he maintains that he's innocent. This is very different from the typical guilty plea where the defendant usually admits, in open court, that he's guilty of the crime.

The term Alford plea comes from a 1970 US Supreme Court decision in which the defendant was charged with first-degree murder, which was punishable by death under the laws of the state where the murder was committed. However, under those state laws, if the defendant pled guilty, he'd be sentenced to life imprisonment. The defendant was offered a deal in which he agreed to plead guilty to second degree murder with a maximum prison sentence of 30 years. At the hearing on his plea, the defendant testified that he didn't commit the murder and that he was pleading guilty simply to avoid the death penalty.

Ultimately, the Court ruled that a judge may accept a guilty plea from a defendant who doesn't want to admit guilt but wants the benefit of an arranged plea bargain. The critical questions the judge must ask in these cases are:

Is the defendant making an intelligent decision to plead guilty? That is, does he understand what the plea means, what rights he's giving up (like the right to jury trial, etc.), and that he'll be treated as being "guilty," despite his professed innocence, and
Is there sufficient evidence of the defendant's guilt? The criminal justice system is designed to help make sure that persons aren't punished unjustly; unless there's proof that he committed a crime. So, in an Alford plea, the judge must be convinced that there's enough evidence that the defendant committed the crime
In the Alford case the evidence was overwhelming that the defendant committed the murder, and his decision was "intelligent" because he was taking advantage of a way around the death penalty and life in prison.
. . . .
Counts As a "Strike"

Like a regular guilty plea, an Alford plea can be used as evidence against you if you're later charged with another crime. This is important especially for sentencing purposes if you're subject to a "3 strike law," where a court is required to give a harsher sentence for person who commits three or more of the same or similar crimes. Remember, if you enter an Alford plea, it's the equivalent of a conviction. So, if you already have two prior convictions at the time you enter an Alford plea, that conviction plus the other two equals three convictions, and possibly a harsher sentence than the one you got on the first or second convictions.”



EXCERPTS -- "I'm sorry I couldn't find the courage to stand up for what was right, to go for help, to protect you and our siblings," Rachel said. …. "She had this journal that she wrote ... her thoughts. She wrote the deaths of Shaun, my brother, and me. And that's what worried me ... I was shocked," Sarah Staudte told ABC's "20/20" in an exclusive interview. Sarah's father Mark Staudte, 61, and her older brother Shaun, 26, both died just five months apart the year before in 2012. Medical examiners ruled Mark's death was due to "natural causes" and Shaun's death was due to "prior medical issues." Both bodies were cremated. …. her mother told her she wasn't going to die and to not read her journal again. …. During Sarah's hospitalization, Springfield Police Det. Neal McAmis received an anonymous tip that Diane could be involved in Sarah's illness and could also be responsible for the deaths of her husband and son. ….



EXTREME BELIEFS

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/losing-my-religion-life-after-extreme-belief-faith?CMP=share_btn_fb

Losing my religion: life after extreme belief; Fleeing the grip of a sect can be a matter of life or death. Megan Phelps-Roper, and two other former believers, reveal how they lost almost everything when they lost their faith
Shahesta Shaitly
Sunday 10 April 2016 06.00 EDT

Photograph -- ‘I weep thinking about how callous and unmerciful I was’: Megan Phelps-Roper. Megan Phelps-Roper, 30, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church, Photograph: Katy Grannan for the Observer
Photograph -- Imad Iddine Habib, 26, ex-Salafi Muslim -- ‘There are vivid moments where I miss my mother. I can’t afford to get emotional about it’: Imad Iddine Habib. Photograph: Katherine Anne Rose for the Observer
Photograph -- ‘I knew straightaway I was not a part of the church any more. I was out. I miss my family every single day’: Megan Phelps-Roper with her mother Shirley at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Megan used social media to spread the church’s message. Facebook Twitter Pinterest


WBC -- My first memories are of picketing ex-servicemen’s funerals and telling their families they were going to burn in hell. For us, it was a celebration. My gramps was the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, so it wasn’t just our religion – it was our whole life. I don’t remember much before the picketing. I was allowed to mix with other kids early on, but over time my world shrank. We believed it was a Good vs Evil situation: that the WBC was right and everybody else was wrong, so there was no questioning. It was a very public war we were waging against the “sinners”. I asked a lot of questions as I got older, but there’s a big difference in asking for clarification and actually questioning the beliefs you’re taught. I spent so much time reading the Bible, trying to see the world through this very particular framework, that to have truly considered [it was wrong] was inconceivable. I’d seen members leave in the past, including my brother, and the thought of ever leaving the church was my worst nightmare.

The WBC loves and thrives on publicity, so I joined Twitter in 2009 to run the church’s account. I was very zealous and adamant that my beliefs were the truth, but I began to realise that the 140-word limit meant I had to drop the throwaway insults or conversations would die. Over time, I found I was actually beginning to like people: to see them as human beings rather than people to condemn. For the first time, I started to care about what people outside the WBC thought of me. As my feelings towards my faith wavered I’d boomerang between thinking “none of this makes sense” to “God is testing me and I am failing”, but it was only in the four months before I left in 2012 that I actually started to make a plan. I cornered my sister in our room one evening and told her I was going to leave and asked her to come with me. She initially said no and told me I was being silly, but over time we’d have stolen conversations about it and she came round to the idea.

My mom was so broken by the news – I’d never seen her face like that before
Leaving was unbearably sad. Having dinner with my grandparents or bouncing on a trampoline with my brother for the last time; asking my parents about their history in detail because I knew I’d never be able to ask them about it again: I was consciously saying goodbye to my family while they had no idea. I was trying to keep as much of it as I could. On the day, my younger sister and I sat down with my parents after they’d heard that we had planned to leave. They were really upset and my mom was so broken by the news – I’d never seen her face like that before. We told them we didn’t believe anymore, then went to pack. The adrenaline pumping through me made my hands shake as I stuffed my things into bags. Word spread among the family and several of my aunts and uncles turned up to talk us out of it. It started with: “You know better than this” and spiralled into shouting as we left. I went back the next day to pick up the rest of my stuff and knocked on the front door of the house I grew up in for the first time. The cold was immediate. I knew straight-away that I was not a part of the church any more. I was out. I miss my family every single day.

I still momentarily flinch when I come across someone or something the WBC would disapprove of. Two men kissing on the street, a drag queen – anything that takes me back to what I believed for so long. I still encounter those old feelings and then I have to process it: “That’s what the old me would have felt” – it’s an ongoing process of deep deprogramming.

I see the world in split screen now. I remember feeling like we at WBC were a persecuted minority, triumphant in the face of evil people “worshipping the dead” as we picketed funerals or rejoiced at the destruction of the Twin Towers. But beside that memory is the one where I weep thinking about how callous and unmerciful I was to so many people who’d just lost a son or a daughter. I’m ashamed of that now, and it’s still really difficult to think about the harm I caused. It’s overwhelming sometimes.

Deborah Feldman, 29, ex-Satmar Hasidic Jew
‘By denying who I really was, I was slowly killing myself’: Deborah Feldman.
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‘By denying who I really was, I was slowly killing myself’: Deborah Feldman. Photograph: Steffen Roth for the Observer

The Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism I was born into was founded by Holocaust survivors who wanted to reinvent the Eastern European shtetl in America. Before I learned anything else, I learned the Holocaust had happened because Jews were bad and that the way we lived was different from the rest of the world because if we didn’t, the Holocaust would happen to us again.

Growing up in such a strict community meant we had no contact with the outside world. It still amazes me to think that was and is possible in the Bronx. The only time I’d get a glimpse was if I were ill. Tonsillitis meant a car journey to the doctor, where I’d watch, from the window, people living their lives freely.

I hit my teens and figured out what I needed to do to survive in the community. I’d drawn the wrong sort of attention to myself as a young girl. I’d been rebellious. Asking “why?” was forbidden and I’d be yelled at, ostracised; kids stopped talking to me at school. Women and girls belonged in the kitchen, my grandfather often reminded me. Soon I figured out how to live a double life: I had the version of me that fitted in with the community, and then I had my interior life that no one knew about. As soon as I pretended I was going along with it all, things got easier for me. I got married to someone from the sect when I was 17 and had my son. The most difficult thing was the constant lying. By denying who I really was, I was slowly killing myself.

I lived a double life: I had the version of me that fitted in with the community, and then I had my interior life.

Leaving wasn’t about courage or strength for me. It was all much more practical than I thought it would be. Some of it was perhaps biological: as soon as my son was born I had this driving instinct to get him out. It took three years of planning and at the very end, when I had everything lined up – money in the bank, a small network of friends on the outside, a divorce lawyer working on the custody of my son – I still couldn’t quite cross the boundary. I was too scared.

What happened next was fate. I was in a car accident I shouldn’t have survived and I walked away without a scratch. As I got out of the car, the Jewish girl in me thought: “God is punishing me and telling me I shouldn’t go”, but as I walked away from the wreck, I thought: “Hang on, if I can survive this, I can survive leaving.”

I have no contact with my family now. The backlash was immense. My family wrote me threatening letters, and later on when I wrote a book about my experiences, the community said I was a hysteric, a liar. I don’t know that I’ll ever be fully deprogrammed. I didn’t just leave a religion, I left a sect that was based on inherited trauma and incorporated antisemitism. Many of the [antisemitic] ideas my grandparents heard in Europe got integrated into their beliefs about themselves and then passed on to their children. I grew up believing we were genetically inferior. They didn’t see that as a bad thing – they’d sit me down and explain: “We’re special to God. Our souls are special, but our genes are inferior, just like they said about us.” How do you even begin to unstitch that?

I was born on a Friday at prayer time, which was seen as an auspicious sign in my community. Growing up in Morocco I was constantly told I was to become a religious scholar. My name is translated as “pillar of religion”. I was enrolled into a Salafi Koranic school at four, but I had trouble reading and reciting verses of the Koran, as I was so dyslexic. This was seen as a big disappointment in my family, so I learned most of the Koran by heart to save myself any grief. By the time I left the Koranic school at 13, I knew I didn’t believe.

Our lives were based around a single version of a much bigger religion. Disagreements were frowned upon. We weren’t to voice questions. I couldn’t understand why no one debated or discussed the opinion of the scholars and imams – we were expected to blindly follow. Many of the students from my school went to Afghanistan and Syria – that had been their life’s purpose, and though I was interested in Islam as a religion from an academic viewpoint, I knew I wasn’t a Muslim.

I was scared, but I also felt it was my duty

My faith finally ruptured at 14. I told my parents I didn’t believe, and I also came out as pansexual. I felt, and still feel, that I was looking at the bigger picture, but they weren’t open to it. I couldn’t be a part of a faith that kept changing the rules depending on the situation. My family’s reaction was typical: a lot of violence and threats initially, and when that didn’t work, my mum got “sick” for 40 days, saying I was being banished from heaven and making her suffer. I was resolute, so they kicked me out. I became homeless and I’ve not seen or heard from them since. In a way I feel I may have shut the emotion of losing my family away somewhere. I try not to feel. There are vivid moments where I miss my mother: her face, her cooking, knowing what she is thinking about, but I can’t afford to get emotional about it.

I moved from place to place and stayed with friends. I got an education: I have a baccalaureate in Islamic sciences and I then founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco. The resistance is small, but we have a voice. I have had to live in hiding and have received countless death threats. In Morocco, Islam is the state religion, and the state considers you a Muslim by default. You can be jailed for eating in public during Ramadan, so you can imagine what my future there looked like. There is a wide belief that all apostates should be killed.

I attended a public conference in 2013 and spoke out about my beliefs. I was scared, but I also felt it was my duty. I called Islam a virus, which I knew would be inflammatory. Secret services began investigating me and I heard that they contacted my family and questioned my father. I was asked to attend court. My father would later testify against me on the count of an apostasy charge. When it all got too heavy, I knew I had to come to England as a refugee and start over. Not long after I arrived here, I was sentenced to seven years in prison in absentia. I gave up everything and everyone I know, but I’m free.



“I still momentarily flinch when I come across someone or something the WBC would disapprove of. Two men kissing on the street, a drag queen – anything that takes me back to what I believed for so long. I still encounter those old feelings and then I have to process it: “That’s what the old me would have felt” – it’s an ongoing process of deep deprogramming. I see the world in split screen now. I remember feeling like we at WBC were a persecuted minority, triumphant in the face of evil people “worshipping the dead” as we picketed funerals or rejoiced at the destruction of the Twin Towers. But beside that memory is the one where I weep thinking about how callous and unmerciful I was to so many people who’d just lost a son or a daughter. I’m ashamed of that now, and it’s still really difficult to think about the harm I caused. It’s overwhelming sometimes. …. Over time, I found I was actually beginning to like people: to see them as human beings rather than people to condemn. For the first time, I started to care about what people outside the WBC thought of me. As my feelings towards my faith wavered I’d boomerang between thinking “none of this makes sense” to “God is testing me and I am failing”, but it was only in the four months before I left in 2012 that I actually started to make a plan. I cornered my sister in our room one evening and told her I was going to leave and asked her to come with me. She initially said no and told me I was being silly, but over time we’d have stolen conversations about it and she came round to the idea.””


Deborah Feldman, 29, ex-Satmar Hasidic Jew -- “The Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism I was born into was founded by Holocaust survivors who wanted to reinvent the Eastern European shtetl in America. Before I learned anything else, I learned the Holocaust had happened because Jews were bad and that the way we lived was different from the rest of the world because if we didn’t, the Holocaust would happen to us again. …. “I have no contact with my family now. The backlash was immense. My family wrote me threatening letters, and later on when I wrote a book about my experiences, the community said I was a hysteric, a liar. I don’t know that I’ll ever be fully deprogrammed. I didn’t just leave a religion, I left a sect that was based on inherited trauma and incorporated antisemitism. Many of the [antisemitic] ideas my grandparents heard in Europe got integrated into their beliefs about themselves and then passed on to their children. I grew up believing we were genetically inferior. They didn’t see that as a bad thing – they’d sit me down and explain: “We’re special to God. Our souls are special, but our genes are inferior, just like they said about us.” How do you even begin to unstitch that?” …. I hit my teens and figured out what I needed to do to survive in the community. I’d drawn the wrong sort of attention to myself as a young girl. I’d been rebellious. Asking “why?” was forbidden and I’d be yelled at, ostracised; kids stopped talking to me at school. Women and girls belonged in the kitchen, my grandfather often reminded me. Soon I figured out how to live a double life.”


“Salafi Muslim -- Our lives were based around a single version of a much bigger religion. Disagreements were frowned upon. We weren’t to voice questions. I couldn’t understand why no one debated or discussed the opinion of the scholars and imams – we were expected to blindly follow. Many of the students from my school went to Afghanistan and Syria – that had been their life’s purpose, and though I was interested in Islam as a religion from an academic viewpoint, I knew I wasn’t a Muslim. …. I try not to feel. There are vivid moments where I miss my mother: her face, her cooking, knowing what she is thinking about, but I can’t afford to get emotional about it. …. You can be jailed for eating in public during Ramadan, so you can imagine what my future there looked like. There is a wide belief that all apostates should be killed. I attended a public conference in 2013 and spoke out about my beliefs. I was scared, but I also felt it was my duty. I called Islam a virus, which I knew would be inflammatory. Secret services began investigating me and I heard that they contacted my family and questioned my father. I was asked to attend court. My father would later testify against me on the count of an apostasy charge. When it all got too heavy, I knew I had to come to England as a refugee and start over. Not long after I arrived here, I was sentenced to seven years in prison in absentia. I gave up everything and everyone I know, but I’m free.”



This is the kind of thing that happens when a religion, whether a “cult” or not, has absolute power. My beloved moderate Methodist Church was so different from these cases. The most important virtue of the American system is that there are no absolutely mandatory “beliefs” of any kind. I went for years calling myself an atheist after I went to college, because though a child, I already knew that I wasn’t a Christian; then after years with no religious affiliation, during which I faced and overcame my fear of going to hell, I finally discovered I was an agnostic and ethical humanist instead.

After some more years of life, I finally found the Unitarian Universalist Society, or as my particular congregation now says, “Church.” We had a discussion meeting of the whole congregation and afterward, held a vote on what to call our organization. There is no coercion of any form within UU groups, only a set of 7 principles, which explain our broad philosophy. As we are almost all ethical humanists, I find nothing to offend me and a communal warmth with open-minded discussions to keep me coming back. This is one of the joys of my elderly life.

The Hasidic Jewish woman’s story was especially wrenching to me. She and her family and the whole sect had absorbed the very destructive belief from the non-Jewish society around them that they were “genetically inferior,” and that God was punishing them for going astray by the horrors of the Holocaust. Some Christian groups also believe that when we have problems in life it is because “God is punishing us.” The God of my understanding is absolutely not vengeful, even to my enemies, and it is clear to me that each human has to walk his own path to self-acceptance and good mental health in general. One of my five or six most favorite hymns is “Lonesome Valley,” which is all about faith and acceptance, and has a hauntingly beautiful melody and lyrics. Go to this site for lyrics: http://www.negrospirituals.com/songs/i_must_must_my_lonesome_valley.htm, "I MUST WALK MY LONESOME VALLEY," from « The Spirituals and the Blues » by J. H. Cone, 1972

For a rousing Pete Seeger/Arlo Guthrie version [which is not the one I learned] is on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMz0cQ_ly5k to listen to it. It sounds like what I call “mountain music,” whereas my old favorite sound: one is by Mississippi John Hurt at Youtube also, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7ud9u5RpVY), and another by Billy Pollard at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTUgyoPPZIU. The one that brings me to tears, though, is the slow and measured Methodist version. It has no pizazz at all, but it showcases the beauty of the music itself, and unfortunately I can’t find one like it on Youtube. The Pollard version is the most similar to ours. It uses the correct tune and lyrics.

Whoever sings it, it is about the central fact of life on earth. We can have friends and the God of our understanding, but part of the time there’s nobody but us. That always brings me to the place of peace if I’m walking in a beautiful quiet woodland, and to sorrow if I’m dealing with a problem. Either way it is basic for my mental health. Thinking my own thoughts and feeling my emotions are crucial. That’s the difference between an introvert and an extrovert, and of course, I’m an introvert.