Published: May 17, 2008 01:51 pm            

Racehorse Haynes remembered as one tough attorney

Answers-To-Go

Each week hundreds of people call or visit the San Marcos Public Library to find information. "Answers•To•Go" highlights recently received questions. Please visit the library at 625 East Hopkins, call 393-8200 for information over the phone, or e-mail us through our web-page at www.ci.san-marcos.tx.us/library.htm.



Q. Because I’m legally blind, I can get books through the Texas State Library’s free Talking Book service. I’d like a book about the legendary Texas lawyer, Racehorse Haynes. If you can help me find the title, I can request an audio version from Talking Books.



A. I started by searching WorldCat, the online database that shows the holdings of libraries around the world. I didn’t find any biographies or autobiographies on Racehorse Haynes.

Next I searched our online TexShare databases for an article on Haynes. I found a June, 2004 “Texas Monthly” article written by Kinky Friedman.

Friedman writes, “Racehorse is one of the most successful and most colorful silver-tongued devils to grace Texas since God made trial lawyers.

“It would not be possible in this column to do justice to Racehorse’s many subsequent victorious battles in the courtroom. ‘I don’t get people off,’ he once told me. ‘The jury acquits them.’

“One of the people acquitted by the jury was T. Cullen Davis, the richest man—by 1976 standards—ever brought to trial on a murder charge. Davis allegedly shot and wounded his wife, Priscilla, and killed his stepdaughter and Priscilla’s lover with a .38 in his $6,000,000 mansion on 181 acres near little old downtown Fort Worth.

“At the time, Davis claimed to have been by himself in a movie theater watching ‘The Bad News Bears.’

“Another famous client of Racehorse’s was Dr. John Hill, who allegedly fed his wife an éclair laced with E. coli bacteria. Racehorse was once again on the right side of the scales of justice.

“Then there was the infamous Kerrville ’slave ranch’ trial, involving drifters who were kidnapped, tortured, and in one instance allegedly killed with a cattle prod.

“Racehorse put on quite a show in front of the courthouse one afternoon. Ever the dedicated defender, he shocked himself repeatedly with an electric cattle prod. ‘It hurt,’ he says, ‘but it wasn’t lethal.’

“In dealing with his famous and not so famous clients, there is one rule Racehorse holds inviolable: He almost never allows the defendant to say anything in court.

“He learned this lesson from a personal experience as a young lawyer. ‘I believed my guy was innocent, and apparently the jury agreed,’ says Racehorse.

“‘So when the bailiff handed the verdict to the judge, and the judge declared, ‘Not guilty,’ I shook hands with my guy and told him he could thank the jury if he wished.

“‘So he stands up and he says to the jury, ‘Thank you. I’ll never do it again.’”

Let’s return to the question of books on the famous trials of Racehorse Haynes. On Cullen Davis, the library has “Blood Will Tell: The Murder Trials of T. Cullen Davis” by Gary Cartwright and “Final Justice :The True Story of The Richest Man Ever Tried for Murder” by Steven W. Naifeh and Gregory White Smith.

On Haynes’ defense of Dr. John Hill, we have “Blood and Money” by Thomas Thompson.

True crime books are very popular here so we have a wide assortment. If you enjoy this type of reading, just come in and we’ll show you where they are shelved.

        

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