I did not know what exactly had been behind that first hearing before Judge Wallace on April 4, 1995, but I was going to find out. I had not heard the opening discussion but believed it was the key, and it should be on the recording made by the court reporter, shouldn't it? Had not Wallace told me "what do you think she is for?", when I had asked that a "recording" of the proceedings be made.

So I poked around the Courthouse trying to find out how one gets a "transcript", and am somehow directed back to Betty Davis, "court administrator". I asked her if this is where I get a copy of what the court reporter had put down at the hearing, but Betty did not seem to understand me. I found out later that state courts used the archaic term "statement of facts", but that everyone else call them "transcripts", but this distinction was not the problem. Betty Davis was.

Betty Davis knows everything, but does not let you know, and tries to make it appear that one has no reason for asking for what one is obviously entitled to. That is what I came to recognize more and more as time went on. Also later, as I started wondering who is running the show in the court, I came to realize that she is not the "court administrator" as implied by her title on the court documents at all, but that the ELECTED JUDGE is. Betty is the "court coordinator", as that position is called. In fact, she was the judge's SECRETARY, who ran the show behind the scenes, out front claiming "poor little me", "I only do as I am told". Betty Davis would ultimately be swept out of office upon Wallace loosing in a "surprise" upset in 1992. Ray's "beaver" case, filed in January 1995 would still be in there in June 2003, over eight years later, despite a trial and a verdict, among a 5000+ case "backlog" in the court that was being denied in the campaign, with the new judge winning on a campaign of NO campaign contributions, and "unquestioned integrity", and the "Betty" position would become "court coordinator".

Anyhow after Betty and I finally came around to agreeing as to what it was that I wanted, she said it would have to come from the court reporter, but that her office was the place to make the request, and I did so in writing on April 10, 1995, but nothing happened. I had somehow managed to extract the name of the reporter, a Becky Malone, and I somehow caught her on the stairs a few days later and conveyed that I had put in a request, and offered a pre-payment to her. Becky told me that I did not have to put any money down, since the proceeding was so short, and that she would get around to it right away. I should have been suspicious right then and there. I have since found out NO court reporter puts out work for someone she does not know without having been PAID FIRST. Anyhow, I received NOTHING, so back to Betty Davis by letter on May 3, 1995, also reminding her of my previous April 10 request. It was not until many years later, when Judge Zimmermann finally "directed" the Clerk to "notify all reporters to prepare statements of facts", that Becky Malone informed me by letter that "no record exists" for hearings of April 4, 1995, June 12, 1995, Sept. 11, 1995, March 4, 1996, and April 21, 1997, only for July 22, 1997, and that she had "no knowledge" of later hearings, and that she "presumed" Betty Davis knew about later hearings, because "she [Betty] always secured the presence of a reporter for him [Zimmermann]".

I am now sure that when Judge Wallace had scolded me with "What do you think she is for?", that that is exactly what she "was there for", but that she was not transcribing. They were trying to sneak in "default" judgment. How could she start a transcript in the middle of a hearing, without it being obvious from the transcript that she had not been recording what was going on in open court! Start with my statement, "I request a recording be made"?

I had not yet discovered what is called the Texas Rules Of Civil Procedure, the rules that parties and the court is supposed to go by. Anyhow after that April 4, 1995 hearing, I figured I needed to do something, and figured out what "discovery" was, and so on April 18, 1995 I sent a letter to Richard Ray, as follows, which at the time appeared a straight-forward way for me question Ray.

Not receiving a reply from Mr. Ray, I started complaining directly to the court:

Emphasis as was in the original, except it was by one of those clattering 9-pin dot matrix printers, with a ribbon, with only one type of print, clattering away as it pulled paper with holes on the sides out of one neatly folded carton of paper and then somehow folding itself again as it came down on the floor. At least there was no miss-feed or double feed of paper, unless the paper got in crooked.

But my problem was not with crooked paper as I attach the required "Request for Setting Form" for a hearing, and for "NATURE / TYPE OF HEARING" put in "Resolution / Pretrial". And so about May 25 Betty Davis sends "NOTICE OF SETTING" for a "hearing" for June 12, for "Resolution / Pretrial", whatever that may mean, since I had made up the term "Resolution". Anyhow I had made it clear I wanted things RESOLVED. But Jones was still not listed as a party to appear, and I surely wanted him into court, and I was becoming fully aware that Mr. Ray did not want HIM before Judge Wallace in open court, spilling all the beans that "Ray had screwed it all up", and "Ray assured me he would take care of it".

So another letter to Judge Wallace. What I did not know was that judges do not normally get involved in the details of cases. If they were to try to get involved in everything, they would go crazy. LAWYERS are there to shield the judge from all the squabbling, and there was of course no lawyer on my side. Anyhow, I have been told, and have seen, that judges, even with lawyers to shield them, sooner or later get to where they do not pay attention, just simply do what one lawyer or the other wants, both lawyers more or less selling their wares, and a layman listening would never notice that the judge is completely spaced out.

But the judge is SUPPOSED to be in charge, and when someone DOES complain to him, he is supposed to do something, particularly when someone like me, not a lawyer, screams that the lawyer on the other side made it all up. I would later learn that there is a rule, under the Rules Of Procedure, that allows for a "motion" (a request) for "summary judgment", i.e. for the judge to determine if the other side really has no evidence to its "claim" in the court. My previous letter to Wallace may not have said "motion", or used the word "summary judgment", but it should have been clear what I was complaining about to Judge Wallace when I wrote that "there is no basis whatsoever in what he [Ray] has brought before this Court".

Anyhow, I wanted to be sure Jones would be present for the June 12, 1995 hearing, and so I immediately wrote to Judge Wallace:

My letter to Wallace may not have been procedurally perfect, but it was pretty clear what it was that I wanted, namely GET JONES TO SHOW UP. I would later learn from the "Rules of Civil Procedure" that the "procedure" for getting someone into court is to get the Clerk of Court to issue a "subpoena" to tell someone he is to show up, and get it "served" by the sheriff or another person. Then if he does not show up, the Court can hold him in "contempt" of court, and make them show up. But then, as I would later learn, a judge can get by with whatever he wants to do, and if a judge does not want someone to be present, he surely would not hold someone in "contempt" and have him brought in by the sheriff.

Anyhow, I had been told by the "court administrator", Betty Davis, that Jones was REQUIRED to show up at that first hearing. Such of course makes sense, so a judge can talk to everybody, and give everybody a chance to be "heard" at the "hearing".

And as I would later study the Rules Of Civil Procedure, I would come to realize that the court "process", as it is called, did not spring out of thin air, but has the wisdom of thousands of years as to how civilized people should and normally do resolve problems, both IN and out of court. One side puts in a "motion", stating what he wants the judge to do, the other puts in a "response", and the "party" that put in the original "motion" puts in a "reply". At least that is the way it is supposed to be. Some courts even require that the parties "file" NOTHING with the Court unless they cannot resolve the problem with the "motion", "response", and "reply" to each other, and ONLY THEN come to the judge to resolve the matter. Such of course would keep the court from being clogged with "filed" document, and also keep the judge from being driven crazy. Lawyers, of course, are supposed to have studied what the law is, or at least learned how to find what the law is, and should not normally require ANY input from the judge, except sit at trial, and sign a final "judgment", unless the two lawyers somehow, according to the Rules Of Civil Procedure, work things out between themselves or get the judge to "dismiss" the case.

Anyhow, all the details aside, it was pretty clear what I wanted to be "resolved" before the judge, namely that "there is no basis whatsoever in what he [Ray] has brought before this Court". That is why I had wanted to be sure that Jones would be at the "hearing". That is why I had asked for a "resolution / pretrial", but clearly had not gotten anything resolved on April 4, not with Wallace scolding me with "What do you think she is for", and "proceed, you are in discovery".

The entire courtroom was packed at 9 A.M. on June 12, 1995. And unlike the first hearing in the case, where we were called the first five minutes, this time we were the last, after noon, there was no one in the courtroom except our case. Unlike a normal petty hearing, where the parties come up to the bench, Judge Wallace had us seated separately at the two large tables in front of the Judge, me on the window side near the jury box, which would normally be the one used by the plaintiff. The following from notes put to paper immediately after the hearing. My part from notes I had prepared for the hearing. The record of the hearing has of course disappeared.

Ray: (holding a copy of my discovery request of April 18, 1995)

Judge, I have been very busy, but I have sent a reply.
          (he had not. What he had sent was "interrogatories" to me, THREE days before the hearing)

Wallace: It is not in my power to have Jones present. (Wasn't Jones required to be present at least ONCE? And the judge can't get him into court, if I complain to the judge THAT THE LAWYER MADE IT ALL UP?)

ADJOURN

Ray, in his "Original Petition" had claimed that I had "… caused a large portion of Jones' land to be flooded continually, ditches to be formed thereon, …", and I had asked for "Location and extent of large portion", and "Location and dimensions of ditches", and "Acknowledgement from Jones that this is indeed his complaint."

What is there to "not understand what was meant", particularly when this hearing was to "resolve" the matter of "Richard Ray is misusing his access to your Court to assault me with charges he has fabricated", and "I petition this Court to do whatever is necessary to get Jones into Court for the scheduled hearing, to initial each and every paragraph of the Plaintiff's Original Petition, in the presence of the Judge.

I was not a lawyer, had barely gotten a hold of an old copy of the Rules Of Civil Procedure, but was beginning to sense that things in this court were much more awfully wrong than I had expected, and that I had better start documenting things. So I fire off another letter:

The "interrogatories" Ray had sent me just before the June 12, 1995 "Resolution Hearing" had a strange twist and ominous co-mingling between "beavers" and "The Dam" which Ray had fabricated. Here are the key "interrogatories" to me, with my answers. Note the trickiness of the questions.

Even more sinister were the "Requests for Admissions". Requests for admissions are "deemed" admitted, unless denied UNDER OATH (notarized), so one has to be very sure to deny them properly. What I have found is that lawyers, at least all the ones I wound up entangled with, would deny EVERYTHING, or claim it is not RELEVANT, or that it is HARASSING, or OPPRESSIVE, or that they HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE of the matter, that the question is TOO BROAD, or that the question is UNINTELLIGIBLE, when it is perfectly clear. There seems to be no limit, never mind PERJURY. They do it all the time. In this case the whole case is FRAUD and PERJURY. Watch the co-mingling of THE DAM with "beavers":

What a slick lawyer! What a scum! And he would never ask again about THE DAM, not at "depositions", not before the jury, NOT IN THE JURY QUESTIONS, and the judge would not let me show his "pleading" to the jury to show that EVERYTHING BEFORE THEM was FRAUD!

No wonder the record of this hearing had to disappear also!