Ignorance Gone to Seed Part II
A Sample of Injustice in Custer County
February 2009
My name is Dick Hay and I live at 316 South Custer in Miles City (where I have lived since 1960) in January 2007 I mailed out a pamphlet telling how I had been refused my constitutional rights to have a trial by a jury of my peers in two different courts in Custer County. After the mailing I changed my mind and decided to appeal to the Montana State Supreme Court and ask that I be granted an opportunity to have my day in court before a jury of my peers and have them decide the issue. The Supreme Court didn't even answer the question as to why I am not entitled to have a jury of my peers decide the issue and instead claimed that they lacked jurisdiction in the issue.
Here is the story of the events that has led up to the city prosecutor, Mr. Noble, inserting knowingly false information about me (lies) into the public record and refusing to correct it. Judge Day refusing to allow me a jury trial to have Mr. Noble explain his actions against me and a Supreme Court that didn't even answer the main issue. I would like to have you read this letter, then discuss it with your friends and neighbors and if you have any questions you can call me at 234-2192.1 must warn you ahead of time that in order for any of this to make sense you should have a large bottle of stupid pills on hand. Some of the information is a repeat of what I wrote in the first letter, but I have included it in order to show the series of events that took place. In this way I am asking all the citizens of Miles City to act as a jury of my peers and let your voices be heard. I appreciate you taking time to read it and form your own opinion and decide if this is the type of justice we are entitled to.
My family moved to Miles City in 1959 from Hailey, Idaho, after I had taken a job at the Miles City Star as production foreman. I worked for Star Printing Co. in various jobs until 1970 when a partner and I and a friendly banker purchased the Forsyth Independent. That same year we started a commercial printing firm in Miles City known as H&T Quality Printing. Later we started a newspaper in Colstrip under the name Rosebud County Press. Then we purchased an apartment house and also were involved in a cattle venture in which we purchased some full blood and purebred registered cattle. In the 1980's we sold the newspaper1l to a group in Forsyth and in 1992 we sold the printing plant and the apartment house, and retired. We have also owned our hone at 3 16 South Custer since 1960.
In the fall of 1993 I went to work on a part-time basis at the M&H Convenience Store here in Miles City. I was to be available to work when someone needed time off or called in sick. I also took a job at the elementary schools to serve the students their lunch at noon. At the present time lam still working at M&H and also serving meals at Highland Park school.
On Thursday, June 3,2004, I received a letter from Kenneth W. Hom containing a summons. The summons says to appear before the court on or before the 8th day of June. The accompanying complaint was signed by Mr. Noble and says that "on or about the 4th day of May, 2004 in Miles City, Montana. the above-named Defendant RICHARD W. HAY, did commit the following offense: Unlawful Transactions with Children." Supposedly the unlawful transaction was that Ryan Powell, from Biddle, Montana, and a companion were caught with some beer by the Miles City Police Department. Now I must point out here that Biddle, Montana, is located near Broadus, Montana, where Mr. Noble also has a law office. According to the police report Mr. Noble has a written agreement with Mr. Powell to dismiss the charges against him if he will tell where he obtained the beer. Mr. Powell said he bought it from a "old white haired man at M&H." The reason it could not have been me as I did not work on May 4. At this time my wife was being treated for her fifth bout of cancer and she was in and out of the hospital several times and had medical appointments that needed to be kept and she had an appointment on June 8. They changed the date for me to appear to June 15.
I thought that this should be fairly easy to get corrected. All I have to do is tell Judge Hom that I did not work on May 4 and therefore the charge should be dismissed. So, I showed up at the time I was supposed to and I told him I did not work at M&H on May 4. He said we weren't there to try the case that day, we were there for me to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. Now, common sense and logic would tell any person that if I was not working that day I could not have committed any crime. A simple phone call to the store manager would have confirmed the fact I did not work on May 4.
So I told Judge Hom I would enter a plea of not guilty and requested a trail by jury. I was then told that a pre-trial conference date was set for August 11 at 11 a.m. I might say now that all these meetings that judges set, everyone who attends it is their job and they are paid for their time . . . everyone, that is, except me. I am supposed to be at a certain place at their convenience.
On July 24 I received a letter from the Noble Law firm in Broadus containing a wad of papers. One of the documents is where they begin to refer to Ryan Powell as the "victim." Remember he is the person who was caught illegally possessing alcohol and lives in Biddle, next to Broadus, where the Noble Law firm is located. The cover page says that the M.C.P.D. Incident Report contains five pages. The "Narrative" portion of the report has a beginning page (page 1) and the next page is numbered "Page 3." It also contains many places where words have been covered over with a black marker and is completely missing Page 2. To date I have made 21 requests for copies of Page 2 and a copy of the "written agreement" between Mr. Noble and Ryan Powell, and each time I am assured they will be supplied. To date I have never been able to see them. Much of the information states events and times as "on or about" On or about leaves lot of room to make the evidence fit the predetermined outcome of a trial.
At the beginning of the conference on August 11 I told them that I didn't see any use in going in farther with the hearing as I did not work at M&H on May 4, therefore I could not have sold any thing to anyone. Now they are either too dumb or too lazy to pick up the phone and call the manager and ask if I worked on May 4. Of course, if common sense, logic and evidence is going to mess up your predetermined outcome of the case and show that the "victim" from Biddle (next to Broadus where the Noble Law firm is located) it is best to ignore facts that get in the way of your thinking..
At the pre-trial conference on August 11, I explained to Judge Hom and Mr. Noble the procedure followed at M&H in working the shifts. I told them I had worked the 5 p.m. to midnight (2400) shift on May 3. The graveyard-shift worker came to work about 11:45 and at that time I transferred all the coins from my till to the till he was going to operate and dropped all the currency in the floor safe and closed the till I had been operating then I can complete tabulating the results of my shift. The last sale from the till I was operating was at 11:47 for a package of cigarettes. This till will not be used again until 7 a.m. and will not have any money in it until after 5 a.m. And since I did not work on May 4 it would have been impossible to sell ANYTHING on the day they claim the crime was committed. The store also had nine surveillance cameras in place from which is very easy to determine who comes into the store. The cameras also have the time and date built into the system. The police have used these cameras on several difference occasions that I am aware of but no one from the police department ever even notified the manager what was going on. The cash register also h
