Letter to William Hooks, Appellate Counsel

    I wrote the following letter to Mr. William Hooks, esquire, of Helena, Montana. Mr. Hooks is/was my appellate counsel for the criminal prosecution against me. I post this letter publicly to denounce Mr. Hooks as a collaborator in the Great Monspiracy:

    Dear Bill,

    I must say, I am extremely disappointed by your position in your last letter. I had though, obviously inaccurately, that you were going to be a genuine advocate for me. Yet when a significant issue arises in the last leg of the race, you abandon ship.
    I am not your common, uneducated client. I know the law well enough to recognize a genuine, legal foundation. You made the argument that Finley was applicable to my case, as it applied to my being forced to face off against my own attorney in open court both in November, 2004, and May, 2005. The Supreme Court addressed only the secondary hearing in its order and completely ignored the prior hearing that was by far the more extensive violation.
    The Court got around the Finley issue with the second hearing only because it determined that a findings of fact and conclusions of law had not been filed in the cause, and thereupon sent the case back for a new hearing and rectifying the absence of counsel by permitting you to represent me. However, this did not address the failings of the first hearing. Not only was the earlier hearing a far more extensive process, with three separate hearing dates and with evidence presented against me by my own counsel, Mr. Falla, but there was a findings and conclusions filed following that hearing. Therefore, the Supreme Court's solution for the May, 2005, hearing does not remedy the problem with the first hearing whatsoever.
    Nor does the Court even discuss the earlier hearing or the applicability of Finley to a three day hearing addressing the merits of my ineffective assistance claims against Ed Falla in which Mr. Falla became a third adversarial party to me throughout (beside the district court and prosecutor). Without a doubt, this is an oversight of the Court, and as my counsel, it is your obligation to address this.
    And yet, you have decided not to do so. We have had disagreements before when discussing arguments to make before the Supreme Court, particularly your unwillingness to raise vexatious litigation or speedy rights violations when we first discussed strategy for the appeal. I bowed to you on those issues because you were in charge of strategy and you had a reasonable reason not to go beyond five base arguments, which is to say that you informed me that the Court had issued directives stating that any attorney that argued more than five arguments had no faith in any of his arguments and therefore his brief would not be considered. In this instance, you have no rational reason to dismiss filing a motion for reconsideration. You simply have given up.
    So the question is - why? After making a halfway decent effort to be my advocate, why in the eleventh hour have you abandoned me? Have you sold me out or is my status as an enemy of the state simply too politically inconvenient for you to continue to represent? Are you afraid to stand up to the Court justices who have demonstrated a blatant disregard of my civil rights so far, to defend me in the face of such overwhelming unpopularity? Mr. Hooks, I could not previously have imagined that you would permit politics to affect your representation. I know you have shown an unwillingness to challenge the status quo, but this is more than just playing within the rules - this is a betrayal of trust, sir. And I believe I am entitled to a fair explanation for your duplicity.
    I do not expect one, however. I expect you to remain silent or to simply rebuff what I say. Your integrity, what I had thought was a penchant for the pursuit of justice, is clearly no more than a facade. As I have said, I am extremely disappointed in you. I am sure that means little to you, but it is the truth. Again, not something you seem overly concerned about.
    You have left me little choice but to file a motion for reconsideration on my own. I have every expectation that the Court will reject it because you are my counsel of record, being as Montana does not permit pro se filings when a counsel of record exists. But I need to at least make the attempt - after all, you have abandoned me, so my counsel of record is mere pretense at this point in time.
    You should know that I will be posting this letter publicly on my blog. You are welcome to comment publicly if you like or ignore it. The link to my blog follows my name below.
    I await the copies of the records and transcripts you have promised.


Ron Glick
Political Prisoner since 2004