Killer murders Alcoholics Anonymous girlfriend: 26-years-to-life upheld
A state appeals court panel Tuesday upheld a former Saugus resident’s conviction for the September 2011 murder of his girlfriend, whom he met earlier that year at an Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous meeting.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that there were errors in the trial of Eric Allen Earle, including the admission of evidence of uncharged acts of domestic violence against the murder victim, Karla Brada, and his ex-wife.
The appellate court justices noted in their 58-page ruling that there was “overwhelming evidence demonstrating that defendant was intoxicated the night of August 31 to September 1, and that when defendant was intoxicated, he became angry, belligerent, aggressive and threatening, even with law enforcement officers, male friends, nurses, jailers and his mother.
We discern no reasonable probability that the (trial) result would have been different absent evidence of defendant’s prior acts of domestic violence,” the panel found.
Earle was convicted in September 2014 of first-degree murder for the Sept. 1, 2011, asphyxiation of his girlfriend, Karla Brada, who died just two days short of her 32nd birthday. Holly Hill Sunrise Park AA Meetings have Violent Felons.
Brada was found dead inside the condominium she shared with Earle, who maintained she had fallen down the stairs and then come upstairs and shown him some bruises from the fall. He said he awoke to find her dead in bed. AA Daytona Meetings in Holly Hill Park.
Earle is serving a 26-year-to-life prison sentence.
Atheist Fights Court-Ordered Alcoholics Anonymous Treatment
February 27, 2018 BRIAN GROSH
CLEVELAND (CN) – An Ohio atheist convicted of drug charges claims in court that a state judge and treatment providers forced him to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous, which he says is rooted in monotheistic spirituality.
Self-professed atheist and humanist James Lindon filed his pro se lawsuit Monday in Cleveland federal court against Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold, Cuyahonga County departments and officials, and a treatment center and program.
In 2016, Lindon was convicted of drug possession and theft for stealing five hydrocodone pills from an outpatient clinic where he was working as a pharmacist. He was also convicted of tampering with evidence after swallowing four of the five stolen pills when confronted by plainclothes security guards, according to court records.
Judge Strickland Saffold of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas sentenced Lindon to 30 days in an in-patient substance abuse program and two years of probation.
However, to successfully complete his treatment and probation, Lindon claims he has also been required to participate in an Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program, which he says is entirely dependent on belief in a single God or “higher power.”
“Compelling any person to attend de facto religious services as a part of mandatory substance abuse treatment program is a predictable and systemic violation of constitutional law,” his lawsuit states.
According to the complaint, Lindon was told that failure to attend and participate in the 12-step program would result in incarceration or other detrimental consequences.
When Lindon objected to the religious elements of the program and said he did not believe in a higher power, the treatment center staff allegedly refused to adjust his treatment plan and instead instructed him to read a chapter of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book entitled “We Agnostics.”
The chapter asserts that alcoholism is an illness that only a “spiritual experience” will conquer and claims that recovery from alcoholism requires belief in a “power greater than ourselves,” according to the lawsuit.
Lindon disagrees.
“Substance abuse counseling can be successfully provided without resorting to religious superstition, appeals to the supernatural, and interference in plaintiff’s sincerely held beliefs concerning religion, Christianity, humanism and atheism,” the complaint states.
He claims his requests for secular alternatives to the faith-based 12-step program have fallen on deaf ears and he has been forced to continue participating in religious services or risking facing punishment.
Indeed, in a phone interview on Tuesday, Lindon said his opposition to the religious approach of the AA program led to his dismissal from a counseling and recovery monitoring program known as the Ohio Lawyers Assistance Program, or OLAP.
Lindon — who was also a practicing attorney until his suspension in Ohio and disbarment in Michigan – had entered into a recovery contract with OLAP with the hopes that the organization could advocate for him with the Ohio Supreme Court and help him transition back into legal work after he completed his probation.
Instead, he says he was summarily dismissed from the program after repeatedly expressing his opposition to faith-based treatment and requesting a secular treatment plan.
Paul Caimi, an OLAP associate director who is named as a defendant in Lindon’s complaint, declined to comment Tuesday when reached by phone.
In addition to Judge Strickland Saffold and Caimi, Lindon is suing OLAP, a Cleveland in-patient treatment center known as ORCA House, the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Probation Department, Cuyahoga County Chief Probation Officer Maria Nemec and the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County.
Lindon seeks compensatory damages, a declaration that the defendants’ use of the AA 12-step program is unconstitutional, and injunction against using it.
“Defendants’ policies, customs, and actions amount to state-endorsed and impermissible interference with plaintiff’s free exercise of religion, or impermissible establishment of religion or endorsement of religion, entanglement with religion, promotion of one religion over another religion, or promotion of religion over non-religion,” Lindon’s lawsuit states.
https://www.courthousenews.com/atheist-fights-court-ordered-alcoholics-anonymous-treatment/
new him in high school he is a fag
THAT’S your response to this horrific tragedy?!?! Apparently your high school is full of assholes.
At least this POS is locked up and is in prison. That won’t bring Karla back but at least he’s not free in society continuing this behavior on others. May he never be paroled and may he serve the full sentence!