Below is a press release regarding Ramsey Muñiz, a Texas leader during the Civil Rights Movement, who is currently serving a sentence of life without parole. Key evidence was intentionally withheld by prosecutors during the 1994 trial. Supporters call for an investigation and an immediate Commutation of Sentence from President Barack Obama.

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Ramiro “Ramsey” Muñiz, a former Texas gubernatorial candidate and Texas leader during the Civil Rights Movement, has spent 16 ½ years incarcerated in United States prisons serving a sentence of life without parole. The majority of those years were in the hardest maximum security penitentiaries.

Recognizing the blatant injustice, the National Committee to Free Ramsey Muñiz has met with Rosa Rosales, President of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the largest Hispanic organization in the United States. They have also met with several members and officers of Texas LULAC. The committee plans to reopen the Ramsey Muñiz case in order to prove his innocence and increase support in calling for an investigation and immediate Commutation of Sentence from President Barack Obama.

Members of the National Committee to Free Ramsey Muñiz hold that Muñiz, now 67 years of age, has suffered greatly for a crime he did not commit. They present trial transcripts which show that prosecuting attorneys intentionally withheld evidence that prevented the disclosure of the principal conspirator and co-conspirator. The principal conspirator was allowed to go free rather than bringing him to face trial. Evidence of this has been sent to the Office of the Pardon Attorney.

Even after 30 years, many remember the historical political impact that Ramsey Muñiz made throughout the Southwest. The civil and constitutional rights of the Mexican-American community in education, employment, politics, and immigration were issues that Muñiz brought to the forefront. These issues have remained in the forefront since his incarceration.

Jaime Martinez, civil rights activist, states, “There is no question in my heart and in the hearts of the people, who continue to fight against injustice in the spirit of non-violence practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Cesar E. Chavez, that we will win his freedom.”

For additional information, go to www.freeramsey.com and contact the National Committee to Free Ramsey Muñiz at (409) 363-1878.

Ramsey Muniz

A letter from Irma Muniz, Ramey’s wife:

I hope that I hear from Ramsey soon because it is normal procedure for people who have just arrived to be placed in solitary confinement. I will send a personal note to the warden asking for leniency on a non-violent man who is 66 years old and has spent many years of his life in maximum security penitentiaries.

If you would like to write to Ramsey or ask him for a visitation form, please send correspondence to:

Ramiro R. Muniz

40288-115

FCI Beaumont Medium

Federal Correctional Institution

P.O. Box 26040

Beaumont, TX 77720

With love and gratitude,

Ramsey, Irma, and Family

But one of the other main reasons is that the person that has been helping me edit is Ramsey Muniz http://www.myspace.com/ramseymuniz 

Ramsey has been supported by such diverse groups as LULAC and Union del Barrio and considered a political prisoner by both.

Anyway for several months he kept writing that something had happened to cause him to stop sending back his edits, but that he would explain later.

He called me a little while ago and explained that my writings had been confiscated from him, and he didn’t go into much other detail except to say that sometimes things like this happen en la pinta!  I am unclear as to whether he has been able to get them back, but I am patiently awaiting his next edit.  If I don’t get it, I will try to find out about writing to the warden.

If you can find time to write him, go to his myspace site for his address, and I know that he will be glad to hear from you.  He is fighting like hell to try to get moved back to Texas and eventually get released.

The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee

United States House Of Representatives

2435 Rayburn Building

Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Congresswoman Jackson Lee

Mrs. Jackson Lee. I had the good fortune to meet your husband in my college days when I was organizing a student group known as MEChA. He was extremely helpful to us in our attempts to secure MEChA’s national conference at the University of Houston. I later heard you speak at the Nation of Islam Mosque one of the last times that Houston was fortunate enough to have in its presence the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. I have had the pleasure of speaking on the same stage as you at some of the immigration events a few years back. Finally, as recently as November, 1st, my nine-year old daughter spotted you at the Compean Halloween party, as she was in attendance with my parents and my sister, who are part of the musical group Mariachi Juvenil Sol Y Luna.

I congratulate you on your recent electoral victory, yesterday, though I must admit that I have never had much of a doubt as to whether you would return to Washington as our representative!

I am writing to you in the hopes that you could lend an ear to a confidant of mine and my father’s, Ramiro “Ramsey” Muniz. Mr. Muniz was a gubernatorial candidate, years ago, under La Raza Unida Party. My father worked with him in this project years before he became an attorney. He is also in the process of helping me to edit a book that I am writing. In general, he has contributed a great deal to our community, and trying to list his contributions would only fail to illuminate the vast amount that he has done.

Unfortunately, he now finds himself incarcerated, and many people believe that he has been framed. He is actively working with attorneys to clear his name. The details around his case are readily available on the internet. I am writing today, however to plead for you to intervene on behalf of Ramsey so that he may be transferred to a unit in Texas. It is my belief that contact with one’s family is a basic human right, and he is being denied this right by being kept in a prison in Oklahoma.

Most recently, LULAC, has adopted a resolution supporting both the transfer of Ramsey to a Texas prison and a commutation of his sentence. Please see http://www.lulac.org/advocacy/resolutions/2007/civr12.html as reference or simply do a yahoo search for Ramsey Muniz LULAC.

Please consider intervening on behalf of Mr. Muniz or please advise me as to how I can help to bring Mr. Muniz back to Texas, while he works to prove his innocence. Thank you in advance.

Hector A. Chavana Jr.