wrongfully convicted/innocent in prison/injustice in texas

To:  PRESIDENT BUSH,GOV. RICK PERRY, JUDGE CYNTHIA KENT

East Texas , Tyler,Smith county
President Bush, Governor Rick Perry, 114th Judicial court, Honorable Judge Cynthia Stevens Kent

I have invoked a petition on my husbands behalf and writing to you personally as to our justice system. Our forefathers were in fear that our judicial representatives would begin to make their own laws instead of enforcing the ones already in force. Which indeed without ethics is being accomplished on a daily basis, and in some areas, very corrupt. I do not believe our fore fathers in tended our justice system to be a business of making money but instead to instill trust, equality, and to up hold our land of the free and justice for all. This is not happening. Reform is needed with utmost respect for our amendments. With this being said I would like to refer you to a incident which is but just one good example of injustice and pray you to take it to heart.
In April of 2004 my husband Raymond m. Richards was wrongfully accused, arrested, charged and illegally convicted. We have 6 children, and have been together for 25 yrs. This august. Our oldest daughter has a son. She thru the father out and began association with a known drug dealer. The baby has stayed with us since the day it was born, one day she sent her new boyfriend to come pick up her son, while in our home he slapped the 5yr.old in the mouth in front of our girls. I picked the boy up and took him to my room and told the boyfriend he would not be taking my grandson anywhere and that my daughter should come pick him up herself. So it was decided by the boyfriend that our grandson could no longer come to our home. Our daughter and my drag queen brother came by, and I asked her why the baby could not come back and she said she did not want to discuss it. So my husband and I called the father of the baby in Pennsylvania and came here to access the situation. He and Raymond and 2 of our other daughters went to their home, when they arrived the girls went in as if to visit while Raymond and our son in law observed from a window. They saw a small child sitting on my brothers lap who incidentally also has full blown aids, t.b., dementia , and other diseases. He was smoking drugs from a pipe while a loaded gun lay on an end table. His boyfriend took another small child and threw him on his belly and spanked him severely for stepping on a toy and then placed the child in a closet and the child being scared of the dark. At this point my husband called 911. And no one came after an hour. He called back and said he was going in to remove his children and grandson and cps should do the same for the other children there. Our daughter, the mother of the boy, was not home. My husband and son in law met the officers at a nearby store and the officers allowed them to take the boy with them due to the circumstances. The next day while Raymond and my son in law were at work, our daughter, her boyfriend, my brother, his boyfriend, and a very large man came to our home in a private community on posted private property and assaulted our 14 yr.old daughter and myself, scared our 8 yr. Old and the neighbors children who were over playing and almost ran over one of them, they were drunk and on drugs and our oldest daughter doing all this while she is pregnant with the druggy boyfriends child. We had 6 witness’ and filed charges, pictures were taken of my injuries by the sheriffs dept. but yet they found no probable cause to arrest them and said that the 14 yr. Old was not considered a minor. My neighbors were outraged at the sheriffs dept.’s response. The 14 yr. Old was on the phone with 911 while they assaulted me and took them over an hour to respond. When my husband arrived ands saw the blood on me, he said enough and instructed us to call our oldest daughter to inform her that her father would be coming to bring her and the baby home. She said whatever.. He broke down on the way, a officer stopped to help and offers him a curtosey ride after checking him for warrants, weapons and drugs. He was clean so the officer delivered him to our daughters residence. When he arrived to the home he was attacked by my brother who had a knife, and the boyfriends, Raymond grabbed my brothers arms and pushed him down, when he fell, he cut his neck with his knife. The boy friends ran, my husband went into the home and found our daughter hiding in a closet, he did rip the door off and threw it and screamed at her what is wrong with you hitting your mama and little sister, she screamed back just take him I don’t want him anyway, Raymond looked at her with shame and disgust at her words, shook his head and just left, when he returned, the next day he was arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, 2 counts, assault bodily injury/family violence, criminal mischief, and aggravated burglary. $300,000.00 bond!! As we proceeded thru our justice system, I found how wrong and corrupt it is. The d.a. said he did not want to file attempted murder as my brother instructed because aggravated assault carries more time. The public defender would never talk to me or look at the felony records I had on all of them and to show him they were lying. When we got to the misdemeanor court after several rescheduling, the charges were dismissed for lack of evidence. There was no weapons that Raymond possessed. When we got to the felony court, the public defender and the d.a. lied to the judge about the witness’ saying they had no records while one of them had a active felony warrant out Florida for cocaine trafficking and bond jumping and was recently arrested in a neighboring county here but had to let him go because key west did not extradite. One was a sex offender and convicted for unlawful use do a d.l. a phony one he had where he collected 2 ssi checks, one in Florida and one in Texas . The daughters boyfriend had 7 prior felonies and also had the same public defender has Raymond. They were all allowed to testify. The attorney did not call the cps worker as a witness nor the officer that checked Raymond for weapons. The witness’ had told cps a totally different story than what they told officers and d.a.. the public defender said Raymond should plead guilty to burglary. The aggravated part had been dropped. Raymond was severely injured in an auto accident in 2000. And not expected to live, crushed all his internal organs even splitting his spleen from top to bottom and refused to let them remove it, he lived. But was told it would be 7 yrs. Before he would be healed. The day he went to court he was given a loaded double dose of medication. I could tell he was totally incoherent of the proceedings, I told him not to sign, and the attorney pulled me into the hall, screamed in my face yes he does or he will get 99 yrs. Another one of our daughters was there that worked as secretary for a lawyer and tried to explain to him the evidence, at that time the private investigator walked up and asked what the problem was and we tried to explain that they were trying to get Raymond to plead, he said to the public defender I thought we had a good case. The attorney changed the subject and went back into the court room. He told Raymond that if he signed he could go home on probation in 2 weeks. Raymond signed. He would have done or said anything under the medication they had given him. He received 20 yrs. And a$10,000.00 fine. I have presented this evidence to all the d.a.’s and many, many others. The d.a. prevents it from reaching the judge. All the lawyers in the area will not take his case because they rent office space from the attorney and it would be a conflict of interest. I tried to tell the investigator who got the warrants issued that the witness’ were lying and he refused to listen. The boyfriend claims to sell drugs to the officials and knew Raymond would get 20 yrs. Before he even went to court. The boyfriends father has been a drug cook for many years here and was convicted and now claims to be a ordained minister who travels and returns quite frequently. Since this episode, The witness have been arrested. One in Florida for his warrants, the boy friend and daughter were caught in a motel with the 2 children selling and doing drugs, meth, ice , marijuana, needles on the floor, and sold to a under cover officer, also the baby she had was born with a whole in its heart due to drug use. Raymond did nothing any other good father would have, he is guilty of being a good father , husband, and grandfather. If the officials had done their jobs in the first place and prevented what my husband was trying to prevent from happening he would not be in prison, the kids would not be in foster care, and our family would not have been torn apart. And the state would not be paying out all this money to house Raymond and his medical and foster care for the kids and rehab for our daughter. Cps . Sheriffs dept, crime stoppers, dea, etc,, did not do a thorough investigation and are overloaded with cases to do a thorough investigation. The judicial system is corrupted by public defenders and d.a.’s working together to make sure their records look good at the expense of innocent peoples lives and the states budget. If anything needs reformed its our legal and justice system!! And it starts with corrupt officials having to much power and not enough ethics and heart, which are what our land of the free are based on. Did you know that in Texas we house more inmates than all the other states put together. That should tell you something, look up the statistics, math don’t lie. But our legal system does and I am ashamed to say I live in the land of the free because its so far from the truth. Mr. President if you want to change this country you need to start here, prison is to teach criminals to be better criminals not reform them back into society. There are better solutions to this problem and I can give you a hundred of them. I ask that all who read this petition take it to heart and not only help to free Raymond from his wrongful imprisonment but to help change this country and instill back into it it what our fore fathers meant it to be. Thank you all for your time and concern, god bless us all. Lady Lisa L. Richards

Sincerely,

The Undersigned