Michael Wayne Richard (August 24, 1959 – September 25, 2007)[2] was an American man who was convicted of rape and murder.
He concluded that there was no evidence that the Texas Defender Service suffered any "major" computer failure; although news reports had mentioned multiple crashes, the only claim that the TDS repeated during the hearings was that there had been some problems with an internal email service, and no documentation of those problems was produced.
[10] Contrary to one of Richard's lawyers' earlier comments about the court refusing to stay open "20 minutes", the Special Master found the filings were not ready until 5:56 p.m., with the execution authorized for any time after 6:00 p.m.[10] He also found fault with the attorneys for assigning only a junior attorney to prepare the documents; for delaying two hours past the US Supreme Court's grant of certiorari in Baze v. Rees earlier that day, which opened a new avenue for appeal, before even discussing preparing a motion in Richard's case; and for relying on paralegals to contact the clerk's office about the filing, without any attorneys attempting to directly contact a judge or the Court of Criminal Appeal's General Counsel.
For 17 years, starting in the 1990s, Richard regularly corresponded with English woman Lesley Moreland, whose daughter had been murdered in the United Kingdom in 1990.
[11] Moreland is a committed Quaker, and her exchange with Richard, was influenced by her personal faith and conviction that there is humanity in everyone, even the most condemned criminal.