Whose Conduct Is Disorderly?

The friend Hicks was trying to help is Richard Reeves, someone Hicks met in the second grade more than 50 years ago in Fort Worth. Hicks is glad to oblige when Reeves asks for help. Reeves has been involved in a volatile relationship for years, according to Hicks, with a friend who sometimes stays with Reeves but lives nearby at another address. Reeves, according to police records, has called the police about a dozen times over the past 10 years when he and his mate have been fighting. Hicks said police advised Reeves to go to the justice of the peace and fill out an eviction form, which would change the situation from a civil to a criminal matter and give police officers the power to force an eviction.

Reeves has health problems and, according to his friends, is battling Alzheimer’s disease. Hicks agreed to help him submit the eviction petition to the judge after Reeves said his mate had damaged his house. Together, Reeves and Hicks drove to the subcourthouse on Thursday, Sept. 24, the day before the ruckus, and asked for an eviction form from the administrative court clerk behind the protective glass at the Justice of the Peace’s office.

An eviction form asks for the address where a tenant lives. Hicks wasn’t sure which address to write down. The mate didn’t officially live with Reeves. But the mate often stayed with Reeves, even at times when Reeves offered no invitation. Hicks said a police detective suggested Reeves evict the mate. Hicks said he explained the situation to the clerk and asked which address he should include on the eviction. The clerk, according to Hicks, suggested he write Reeves’ address in the space marked “complaint.” Another space was available to list a secondary address where the mate could be located and served. Hicks put the mate’s other address there.

Reeves signed and dated the form on Sept. 24, 2015. Hicks did not record any conversations that day.

An administrative court clerk who would identify herself only as Denise told the Weekly that all of the clerks in the office have dealt with Hicks in the past but none of them instructed him how to fill out the eviction form. Denise said they provide only procedural advice about which blanks to fill out but don’t tell people what to write in the blanks.

“We don’t advise,” she said. “We’re not allowed to. We tell them we can’t help them fill it out. We’re not attorneys.”

Reeves turned in the form and paid $116 to cover submission fees. A court date was set for Oct. 9.

On September 25, Ortega visited Reeves’ house to serve the notice to his mate, who wasn’t there. Ortega said he spent 25 minutes explaining to Reeves why deputies can’t evict a tenant who didn’t live there.

Reeves would later tell the Weekly that he didn’t understand why the eviction form wasn’t processed and that Ortega “wasn’t here very long at all.”

The Weekly’s conversation with Reeves was difficult. He sometimes struggled to answer basic questions and repeated things often. But Reeves has known Hicks long enough to say with certainty that “Paul is not a fighting man or anything like that. Even when we were kids. He’s just Paul. He’s got a lot of friends.”

Reeves told Hicks that the deputy had come to serve the eviction notice but had left, saying he couldn’t evict someone who didn’t live there. Hicks headed to the subcourthouse, confused as to why Ortega had not served the eviction notice at the alternate address. While waiting to talk to the constable, Hicks chatted up the court clerk and made the now infamous crack. Chief deputies make $80,000, constables $100,000, according to the Texas Tribune’s salary explorer page.

Hicks says he was just joking around. Ortega made it clear he didn’t appreciate the remark.

Ortega is thick, muscular, and serious looking. He can be an intimidating figure. Hicks wanted to know why Ortega had not served the notice at the alternate address. Ortega said Reeves had told him that the mate didn’t officially live with him and so this wasn’t an eviction case. But that’s why they’d listed the alternate address, Hicks continued. Ortega wasn’t interested in talking with Hicks and quickly walked away. Siegel came out to the lobby to speak with Hicks next.

Like the receptionist before them, the constable and chief deputy kept repeating that Reeves can’t evict someone who doesn’t live at his house. Hicks kept asking why they didn’t just serve the eviction notice at the alternate address.

“I wanted to make sure I understood what they were talking about,” Hicks said.

His main confusion: He was doing exactly what police had told him to do: fill out an eviction form. And he was doing what he said the court clerk had advised him to do, which was list the alternate address to find the friend. He suspected the constable’s personnel were brushing him off due to his previous clash with Justice of the Peace Ritchie.

Ritchie’s office is next to the constable’s. The “arrogant bastard” description that Hicks used to describe the courthouse staff is primarily directed at Ritchie, Hicks said. Hicks considers the deputies and clerks to be “puppets” emboldened by the haughtiness of their leader.

The bad blood goes back to 2013, the year Hicks bought a 2003 Chevy S-10 pickup from a guy for $3,000. The truck was outfitted with tow bar equipment, and Hicks asked for that as well. He said the seller threw in the tow bar for free but later changed his mind and came back and stole the tow bar from the truck bed. So Hicks went and took it back. The seller accused Hicks of theft, and the dispute made its way to Ritchie’s court, with a jury trial set for February 2014.

Ortega served a small claims court notice to Hicks and still recalls their meeting.

“When I went to go serve him, he was on his side of the gate, and I was just trying to explain the paperwork,” Ortega said. “He basically told me, ‘I’m not going to take it. I’m not going to sign it.’ ”

“Well, you don’t have to take it,” Ortega recalled telling him. You don’t have to sign it. I’ve already seen you. You’ve identified yourself, so here’s your paper. Ever since then, every time he comes in it’s something.”

Hicks said he received a call from a court receptionist shortly after 8 a.m. on the day of the scheduled trial saying it had been postponed.

Recalling the conversation, Hicks said: “I said, ‘What’s the problem?’ Click.”

The caller, Hicks said, had hung up.

Hicks called back. He thought maybe the guy who had sold him the truck might have been trying to fool him by having someone call to say the trial was postponed.

“I thought maybe this was a scam,” Hicks said. “If I don’t show up to court, I automatically lose.”

He said the receptionist hung up on him again without answering his question about why the judge wasn’t there.

“I got a call back shortly thereafter telling me to be in Judge Ritchie’s office at 10:30” that morning, Hicks said. “I thought, ‘Oh, the judge got his problem worked out and is going to hear the case.’ ”

During the meeting, however, Ritchie, according to Hicks, was livid and said he had been late that day because he lost electricity at his home and was getting it restored.

“He was mad and angry that I’d even question why the trial would be cancelled and why I would call back and question it,” Hicks said.

Hicks was thinking that regular folks who lose electrical service at their homes are still required to show up for court dates, aren’t they? Why does a judge get special privileges? But Hicks said he kept his mouth shut because he didn’t want to further anger Ritchie.

At some point, Hicks recalled, Ritchie suggested he should recuse himself from the case because of their sour interaction.

“He was so angry,” Hicks remembered, “he said, ‘If I were you, I’d ask me to be recused from this case.’ After he got through ranting and raving about having an electrical problem that day, I went around and asked that he be recused from the case.”

Hicks returned to the lobby and filled out a request for recusal. Ritchie signed an order of recusal on February 5, 2014, saying “justice is best served with this case being heard by a visiting judge in this court to provide fair and impartial adjudication without causing undue stress or delay to any party.”

A visiting judge heard the case, ruled against Hicks, and ordered him to reimburse the seller $600 for the tow equipment.

A year and a half later is when Hicks found himself dealing with the judge’s staff again, this time while trying to help Reeves. Things went even worse. After talking with the clerk, chief deputy, and constable, Hicks walked to the judge’s office to talk with the clerks who had initially given him the eviction form. Before long he was in handcuffs, even though he had not cursed at anyone and had barely raised his voice despite several stressful conversations.

Deputies led Hicks, still in handcuffs and now accused of disorderly conduct, into Ritchie’s courtroom. Hicks claims the judge recognized him immediately.

Hicks was cited for disorderly conduct and sent on his way.

A Weekly reporter visited Ritchie’s courtroom to seek an interview but was told the judge was busy. Asked when the judge would be available, a clerk said she didn’t know. The reporter called back two times to request an interview with the judge. Clerks took messages both times, but Ritchie didn’t return the calls.

Hicks vowed to fight the disorderly conduct charge.

“I had to hire an attorney, a couple of attorneys, and it cost me over $10,000,” he said.

Fighting for what he thinks is right comes natural to Hicks, who challenged incumbent Jungus Jordan for his Fort Worth City Council seat in 2009 but lost big, collecting 12 percent of the votes compared to Jordan’s 75 percent. Hicks served as a crew chief in the Air Force from 1971 to 1975, worked at Vought Aircraft for 28 years in aircraft manufacturing, and worked part-time in Western wear over the years before semi-retiring a few years ago. Now Hicks piddles around the house, works on his motorcycles, and is trying to commercially market homemade salsa.

“I’d rather be working,” he said. “One thing you don’t want to do is stop working. You need something to keep your mind focused on things.”

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