Richard Carl Hicks

Commander: RICHARD HICKS ~ PH: (951) 966-3819

Richard Hicks was found innocent of killing a cop.
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The investigating authorities concluded it was Richard Carl Hicks, the same man Lamance was chasing along the maze of rural back roads for the third time in a matter of weeks, who fired the fatal shot.Hicks, who admits his involvement in two previous chases, insists he had nothing to do with the officer's death and was, in fact, at home in bed when the tragedy occurred.A highly regarded Dallas forensic pathologist, after reviewing the evidence, came forward with an alternate scenario too horrifying for the Lamance family to even consider.Still, in May 2003, a year after a jury had quickly acquitted Hicks of capital murder charges in state court, a federal judge ruled that the evidence against him was more convincing than the jurors had believed.

Last month the 54-year-old Hicks began serving a 15-year federal prison sentence, convicted not of murder but, instead, violation of a protective order that was sworn out against him by his ex-wife three years earlier.
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But in the minds of many it had everything to do with a manipulative legal system's embittered determination to see Hicks punished for a greater crime it was convinced he committed.

It is a tangled story, one that lacks satisfactory resolution.Friends and family of Lamance continue to grieve, as do those convinced that Hicks has been unfairly treated by authorities that managed to find a way to skirt the legal issue of double jeopardy.
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From the bench during Hicks' sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Paul Brown stated that "there's no question that it [the investigation] could have been handled and carried out better" and that "certainly it won't be written up in any textbooks."
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On a recent afternoon, a quick poll of the dozen customers hiding from the 95-degree heat found no one there who believed that Hicks, who spent every day of his life (except the two years he was in the Army) in Whitewright, shot and killed anybody.

HOUSTON (AP) - Health officials Tuesday confirmed the first human case of West Nile virus in Texas, further evidence of the disease's spread since it appeared in the United States three years ago. Richard Hicks, 50, was admitted Friday to the Houston Veterans Affairs Medical Center with a fever and viral encephalitis, which causes swelling in the brain.Army colonel accused of wife's murderANNAPOLIS JUNCTION, Md. (AP) - A lieutenant colonel has been ordered to face a court-martial on charges he strangled his wife and dumped her body in a stream near their home at the Carlisle Army Barracks in Pennsylvania. A military investigator and the commander of Fort Meade recommended Lt. Col. David Bartlett Jr., who is on the staff of the Army War College, be tried in front of a military judge, according to a statement Tuesday from Fort Meade.Oklahoma executes man for 1985 murder