Criminal - Racehorse Haynes

Episode Date: September 21, 2018

There is nothing Richard "Racehorse" Haynes of Houston, Texas wouldn't do to win a case. He’s widely considered to be one of the most exceptional criminal defense attorneys America has ever seen. He was notorious for pulling stunts in the courtroom. We speak with his son, Slade Haynes, and attorneys Charla Aldous and Chris Tritico about how Racehorse Haynes changed how they approach a jury. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums,

and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Botox Cosmetic, Adabotulinum Toxin A, FDA approved for over 20 years. So, talk to your specialist to see if Botox Cosmetic is right for you. For full prescribing information, including boxed warning, visit BotoxCosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300. Remember to ask for Botox Cosmetic by name. To see for yourself and learn more, visit BotoxCosmetic.com.

That's BotoxCosmetic.com. That's BotoxCosmetic.com. Morgana the Kissing Bandit was famous for kissing major league baseball pitchers or famous athletes. And Morgana was in the Astrodome. Nolan Ryan was on the pitching mound and the Astros were playing. So Morgana goes down to the very lower level and apparently jumps onto the field, runs out, kisses Nolan Ryan, and then runs back and gets back up to the seats. But the police by then came and grabbed her and arrested her for trespassing. So Morgana calls my father and says, hey, I've been arrested for trespassing, I need some help here, can you represent me? And my dad goes, well, sure.

My dad's defense for Morgana was, well, let me go back a little bit. Morgana had a big set of breasts, if you want to call it. Morgana the Kissing Bandit, whose real name is Morgana Roberts, once told a reporter that she got her bras custom-made by the same people who made the domes for stadiums. When she was arrested in 1985 for kissing Nolan Ryan, she called attorney Richard Haynes. This is his son, Slade. So my dad's defense for her was that her breasts were so heavy, it caused her to fall

over onto the field. And therefore, she thought, well, I'm already on the field. Why not go kiss Nolan Ryan? And it was kind of a funny laughingstock of the courthouse because they were like, oh, what kind of defense is that, Mr. Haynes? And he goes, well, that's my defense, and I'm sticking to it. And she was found not guilty. Because her chest was so heavy. Correct. That it toppled her over onto the field. Toppled her over onto the field. And I thought that was a brilliant defense. I mean, that's the thing I keep reading about these defenses that your father came up with in so many different ways. And they're almost too good. I mean, they're just unbelievable, the stuff that he would come up with. Right. He was very good off the fly. I mean, impromptu, he would come up with some of the

best defenses that you would never, ever think of. Richard Haynes, better known by his nickname Racehorse Haynes, is widely considered to be one of the most exceptional criminal defense lawyers the country's ever seen. Here's how he described his approach. Say you sue me because you claim my dog bit you. This is my defense. My dog doesn't bite. And second, my dog was tied up that night. Third, I don't believe you really got bit.

And fourth, I don't have a dog. He was comfortable. He was in his own skin. He didn't try to act like a lawyer. He was just Richard Racehorse Haynes, a person talking to regular people. This is Dallas attorney Charla Aldiss. She tried a case with racehorse scenes and says she'd never seen anything like him. He was fearless.

I've tried probably over 200 cases, or 250, I've lost count. But, you know, you can always smell fear on the other side if they're not completely comfortable in their skin and they're not comfortable in the courtroom. With racehorse, when he walked through the doors of the courtroom, you knew that man was where he was supposed to be in life. He would own the room. A real Texas accent? Yeah, not as bad as mine, thankfully, for him.

But, yeah, he did. He was a down-home boy. He never put on airs. And I remember one of my favorite things, and I have stolen this from him and have done it, that he would say to witnesses on the stand, and it's so simple, but it was so gripping when he would do it. Let's say a Mr. Smith was testifying, and he would say, Mr. Smith, have you ever, up until this very moment in your life and just the way he said it you think this is the most important question and answer of the entire trial it was just a suspenseful way that he

would would word the questions and and with the pauses where they needed to be and the anticipation and the voice tone and it was, it was beautiful to watch. I learned so much from just having the opportunity to try that case with him. It didn't matter if you had two pennies to rub together or a million dollars. Now, he's like the guy with a million dollars or so, but if he thought you were the underdog, you only had two pennies, he would still take your case and still give you the best defense that you could get. He represented all kinds of people,

some very controversial people. His job was the same no matter who it was. I can't permit myself the luxury of having it matter to me whether they're guilty or not, he said. Over and over, people told us that to watch him in the courtroom was like watching magic. He started practicing law in Texas in 1956. Back then, it was common for courtrooms to have spittoons for chewing tobacco,

and the first time he tried a case, he tripped over one. The jury laughed, but he thought they also sympathized. They could see he was nervous. He won the case. The next time he went to court, he tripped over the spittoon on purpose. He won again. For two years, he kept this up

until finally a judge told him to knock it off. There's nothing he wouldn't do. He once held a cattle prod against his skin. He cross-examined an empty chair on the witness stand. He debated nailing his hand to the jury box, and the only reason he didn't do it was because he couldn't be sure he wouldn't start crying. When he was asked if he considered himself the best criminal attorney in Texas, he said, it's my belief that I am, and I wonder why you're restricted to Texas. According to one judge, he was a charming little jerk. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

He'd always come into the courtroom with the cowboy boots and usually with a white cowboy hat. You'll see a lot of photos of him when he's exiting the courtroom. He'll put that white cowboy hat out and the reporters would be interviewing. That was probably the biggest signature items that he would have or besides this monster-sized leather briefcase that might have one legal pad in it. But he would carry that into the courthouse to make the jury think or the judge think, hey, he's got all this paperwork in here. He's getting ready to pull it out. I mean, that seems like a big look to me, the white hat and the boots. But maybe in Texas, just normal. Probably in Texas, it's pretty normal. But for him, a lot of the younger attorneys, and you'll see it,

they started wearing cowboy boots, and they would come in with cowboy hats on. Everybody wanted to be like him. Yes, they did. So I started working for Racehorse Haynes two days after I got out of high school, and I was an office helper, a private investigator, a law clerk, and an associate attorney over that period of time. And it was better education than I got in law school. Houston attorney Chris Tritico. I walked into this scene of more than you could ever imagine.

And the famous people walking through the door that wanted to meet Richard and hire him and hire the firm, it was amazing. And Richard was bigger than life, larger than life. He was gregarious. He was funny and top of the field. Racehorse Haynes is best known for his defense of two very high-profile clients. The first was Houston plastic surgeon John Hill. In 1969, John Hill's wife, 38-year-old Joan Hill, suddenly became very ill. Her husband, John, drove her to the hospital. Joan's mother was also in the car.

And afterwards she would report that John was driving very slowly. She said it was almost like he didn't want to get there. He fiddled with cassette tapes and played very loud classical music. Joan Robinson Hill got sick, and John Hill, instead of taking her to one of the hospitals that he had privileges at, took her to a small hospital over off of Highway 59 here in Houston. And she died of what today they would call basically toxic shock syndrome. Back in the early 70s, they didn't have a name for this. They didn't know what killed her.

Eventually, they indicted Dr. John Hill for murdering his wife, accusing him of injecting her with toxins that they claimed he was growing at home and killed her. Some said he was injecting the toxins into her desserts, specifically eclairs. Ray Source Haynes was hired to represent Dr. John Hill in the murder trial. It was a hung jury, so John Hill went home. He lived just a few doors down from Joan's parents, Ray and Ash Robinson, who were convinced John Hill had killed their daughter. Before the case could be retried, someone knocked on the door of John Hill's mansion.

He opened it and was shot and killed right there on his front steps. For the rest of Ash Robinson's life, it was assumed that he had hired a hitman to kill Dr. John Hill. It was never proven, and Ash Robinson died without ever answering the question, so no one ever found out. The case became the subject of a best-selling book called Blood and Money, which was made into a movie, Murder in Texas, starring Farrah Fawcett and Andy Griffin. When I started at 18 years old, one of the things I first was asked to do was deliver something over to the Hill Mansion,

which was the most exciting thing I ever got to do at 18 years old because I just read the book. And I don't know, I don't even know who I gave the stuff to. I was just asked to deliver something over there, and I did. And I wanted so much to ask to go in that I was more professional than that. The second client to put resource Hanes on the national map was billionaire T. Colin Davis. Having a billion dollars in the 70s was a whole, whole lot of money, and he spent it freely. Colin Davis was in the middle of a messy divorce from his wife, Priscilla, who was said to be having an affair.

One night, someone broke into their house and shot Priscilla, the man she was having an affair with, and Priscilla's 12-year-old daughter. Priscilla survived and told the police everything. Her husband, Colin Davis, was charged with capital murder. There was a lot of evidence against him. Two witnesses placed him at the scene of the crime with a gun. Racehorse Haynes had a plan. He focused on discrediting Priscilla.

He described her as promiscuous, the queen bee of sex parties, a frequent drug user. He showed a poster-sized photograph of her with one of her boyfriends, a guy wearing nothing but a Christmas stocking. One reporter said Racehorse Haynes made her out to be totally unreliable, a, quote, wanton floozy whose testimony wasn't worth the time it took to hear it. He was heavily criticized in the press for his approach. The prosecutor said Racehorse Haynes came at Priscilla Davis like a ball of butcher knives. But it worked. It was a hung jury.

And that was in Fort Worth. Tried it again, I believe, in Amarillo, Texas, on a change of venue and got a not guilty on the case. Then, as they were wrapping up the divorce, Cullen was accused of making a threat to the judge. Cullen Davis was frustrated that his divorce was taking so long. He thought he was being asked to pay too much alimony, and he was suspected of hiring a hitman to kill the judge. The hitman went to the FBI, and the FBI actually got the judge to cover himself in fake blood and get into the trunk of a car to pose for photographs, which were then shown to Cullen Davis, suggesting that the hit he'd ordered had been carried out and that the judge was dead.

Cullen apparently or is alleged to have paid the money to the hitman they arrested him for attempted capital murder of the judge. Richard tried that case and got an acquittal on that case. Somehow, in spite of so much evidence, Racehorse Haynes made Cullen Davis a sympathetic character. He said the FBI had botched the investigation. He told the jury, if they worked for you, you'd fire them. Come to think of it, they do work for you. Probably some of the best criminal defense work you'll ever see was winning that case. The pictures of this judge pretending to be dead in that trunk are as graphic as you'll ever see.

Even though he wasn't dead, he certainly looked that way. Really good piece of work in that case. And those two cases, back to back over, of course, several years in the 70s, put Richard at the very, very top of the criminal defense field in the United States. These are probably his best-known cases. Those are his best-known cases, but in my opinion, not his best work. There is a case in Texas called Pam Fielder, Fielder v. State. Pam Fielder was married to a doctor in Texas.

And he liked S&M type stuff. And he would take Pam down to what we called the dungeon in their house and torture her and have her torture him, drive nails through private parts of his body, drive nails through private parts of her body, some of the worst stuff you've ever seen. Pam Fielder said she had initially consented to what she called bondage and discipline games with her husband. But it escalated, and she didn't want to do it anymore.

She said her husband drugged her with Demerol to force her to participate. In July of 1981, Pam Fielder shot her husband, firing seven rounds with a.45 caliber semi-automatic pistol. He walked through the door one day. She expected that he would torture her, and she pulled a gun out and shot him. But he had not said on this day that he was going to take her to the dungeon.

She just thought he would. Resource Haynes argued that the abuse she had suffered had to be taken into consideration. He himself had established what's called battered woman syndrome as a legitimate defense in Texas the year before. And so Haynes put on over 350 photographs or different implements of sexual torture that we had recovered from the house and tried to call an expert to testify that her state of mind at the time that she killed him

was that she was going to get injured and she had no choice but to kill him. The judge refused to allow that jury charge. Pam Fielder was convicted. But on appeal in 1988, the conviction was reversed. On appeal, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for the first time recognized the battered woman's defense in Texas, and it is now a statute in Texas. And it was Racehorse Haynes' ingenuity, inventiveness, and his belief in the system that a woman ought to be able to put on evidence that she's been battered

that created that law in Texas that still stands today. And that, in my opinion, is the best work he's ever done. Racehorse Haynes liked to tell a story about this case, about an elderly lady who came to the courthouse every single day to watch the trial, even though she had no relationship to any of the parties. Finally, a reporter asked her what she was doing there, and she replied, Are you kidding? We've got whips and chains and racehorse hands. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention,

and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. What software do you use at work?

The answer to that question is probably more complicated than you want it to be. The average U.S. company deploys more than 100 apps, and ideas about the work we do can be radically changed by the tools we use to do it. So what is enterprise software anyway? What is productivity software? How will AI affect both? And how are these tools changing the way we use our computers to make stuff, communicate, and plan for the future? In this three-part special series, Decoder is surveying the IT landscape presented by AWS. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. When you do the work that he did, John Hill, then Cullen Davis, and then, like I said, the Pam Fielder case, and all of those things. And then you get talked about when Richard Nixon is having his problems. They were talking about hiring Racehorse Haynes

when Manuel Noriega gets kidnapped out of Panama, and Manuel Noriega calls Racehorse Haynes, and that's on the news. Everyone wants to hire Racehorse Haynes, and you're in the news all the time by the highest-profile people in the country for years. I've never seen anything like it. And we will never see another lawyer like that. I remember like yesterday, because it was a big deal, him coming to Sherman. The population is about 30,000, the entire county probably 100,000. So you heard people talking about it. Racehorse Haynes is coming to town. Racehorse Haynes is coming to town. And I was really excited about meeting him.

And it's right when the new Volkswagen Beetles had come out. And I bought a red one. I'll never forget it. And it was delivered to me while we were in the middle of trial. And I said, Race, come out. You got to see my car. Watch this. Watch this. And he hit the button to show how the doors automatically unlocked. And he was driving about a 30-year-old Suburban, all beat up and everything, and had cowboy boots on. He said, Hey, Charla, watch this. He went over and kicked the front tire. He said, Dang it, just a second. And he kicked it again.

And he said, Damn it, usually when I do that, the doors open. It was just so, that was so typical of him. He was so humble, but so relatable. Was he ever just quiet and contemplative, or was he always up to a trick, to an antic? What was interesting is the racehorse that I saw in trial and in public and the racehorse that I observed during the night when we're getting ready for the next day. And they were totally different people. There was quite a few lawyers on the team and everybody was, you know, working around the clock and talking and everything. I would watch race, though. He would go to a private area by himself and would read every single piece of paper that he needed to read for the next day. He was always so very prepared. So he didn't go just on his God-given talent.

He was very, very prepared every day. Will you describe what he was like in the courtroom? In the courtroom, the thing that distinguished Richard from lawyers that, from every lawyer I've ever seen, is he was always a gentleman. He had a command of the language and an ability to keep control over his own emotions better than most people I have ever seen in my life. In a murder trial we were trying when I was a young lawyer, a horrible murder case, and Richard has a kid on the stand who's an eyewitness to the murder

and had told a lie while on direct and Richard caught it. I didn't catch it. I don't think anybody in the courtroom caught it, but Richard did. And he started asking this young man questions and he goes, he asked him questions for about an hour and a half and he was slowly asking. He'd ask a question, and he would ask a question, the same question, but with a slightly different slice of the question. And he went on for an hour and a half this way in a big, long, round circle, slicing, slicing, slicing, slicing. The whole courtroom is thinking, what the hell is this guy doing? Until he got all the way around that circle, and he asked that last question. He Until he got all the way around that circle and he asked

that last question. He sliced it one more time, asked that last question. And the kid rocked back in his chair and he took his glasses off. And Richard said, I got you, didn't I? And the kid said, yes, sir, you did. And he said, I got you, young man, because you're taking liberties with the truth, aren't you? And the prosecutor objected right as the young man said, yes, I am. It was the most brilliant cross-examination I've ever seen. And nobody got that that kid had lied until Richard finished that hour and a half circle. And that's the way he handled everything. He never raised his voice to this kid. He baited him along until he had him so boxed in that when it finally dawned on the kid what he had done to him, he just rocked back in his chair and realized he had been caught.

It was brilliant. And very few lawyers have the patience to wait that long to box somebody in. And that's what Richard did every time. We used to have a joke about this, but if he could reuse staples, he would reuse them. Or if he saw paper clips in the trash when he'd walk around his office, he would yell at the associates saying, what are you doing? That's a penny sitting there in that trash basket. Even when it came to going to lunch, you know, one of his favorite lunches, and I would joke him about it, he would go to Jack in a Box and get the two tacos for 99 cents. I was like, Dad, that's got to be the absolutely worst lunch you could possibly have.

Well, he didn't care. He loved his tacos. And what about your mother? How did he meet your mother? They met their high school sweethearts, and at the end they were married for 62 years. When it was time for Racehorse Haynes to retire, his wife Naomi went to Chris Tritico's office and asked for his help. She said, Richard cannot work anymore. I need you to take over the practice and close it down and take over the remaining cases. And I said, is Richard okay with this? And she said, he will be. The work seemed to be so important to him.

Well, it was, he, Richard understood what he had done and what he was. And I don't think that he knew anything else to be, which is why, unfortunately, he worked until we just had to drag him out of the courtroom. I don't think he knew what to do with himself. Racehorse Haynes died April 28, 2017, in Trinity, Texas, shortly after celebrating his 90th birthday. He practiced law for more than 50 years. Richard believed deeply in what he was doing in the courtroom, and he believed it so much that

he gave up a big part of his life. And I'll give you a classic story about that. One night, one time we were in trial on the murder case I was telling you about. My wife was due to have our second child and literally due any minute. And this was at a time before cell phones had come out. I approached the judge and I said, my wife's due to have a baby any minute. And I gave the number to the coordinator and if I need to leave, she's just going to come get me and I'm just going to get up and walk out. And he said, no problem. You don't have to say anything. I'll understand. Just leave. And I sat down at council table and Richard turned around and he said, you know, when my last child was born, I was in a trial and I didn't leave until after final argument and I missed the birth.

Before he passed, he told me one time that one of his great regrets was that he didn't spend as much time as I did with my kids as he wished he had. And it was the biggest compliment that he could have ever given me was that he appreciated what I had done with my kids and he wished he had them. And I took that as the greatest compliment he ever gave me. There's an old profile in the Abilene Reporter News called Arrogant Reputation Doesn't Bother Racehorse Haynes. It ends with him saying, I guess the bottom line is who you yourself would hire if you were in trouble.

If I was in trouble, I'd hire me. Criminal is produced by Lauren Spohr, Nadia Wilson, and me. Audio mix by Rob Byers. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. We're on Facebook and Twitter, at Criminal Show. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collection of the best podcasts around. Shows like The Kitchen Sisters Present.

They have a wonderful new series called The Keepers, stories of activist archivists, rogue librarians, and historians. Every art form has their standards that they've placed in the canon. Mathematics, science, everybody has their standards that they've placed in the canon. Mathematics, science, everybody has their greats and somebody placed them there. People in visual art world say, hey, okay, this is what's going in the Louvre. This is it. And I think hip hop needs the same thing. This is the archive. Go listen and learn more at kitchensisters.org. I'm Phoebe Judge.

This is Criminal. Radiotopia from PRX. Botox Cosmetic, Adabotulinum Toxin A, is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet, and forehead lines look better in adults. Effects of Botox Cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Don't receive Botox Cosmetic if you have a skin infection. Side effects may include allergic reactions, injection site pain, headache, eyebrow and eyelid drooping, and eyelid swelling. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Tell your doctor about medical history, muscle or nerve conditions including ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis,

or Lambert-Eaton syndrome in medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. For full safety information, visit BotoxCosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300. See for yourself at BotoxCosmetic.com. Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions, what should you use it for, what tools are right for you, and what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for. Thank you.