00:00:01
Morgan gain of The Kissing Bandit is was famous for kissing Major League Baseball
00:00:07
pitchers or famous athletes and and Morgana was in the Astrodome Nolan Ryan was on the pitching mound and the Astros
00:00:15
were playing so Morgana goes down to the the very lower level and apparently jumps onto the field Runs Out kisses
00:00:24
Nolan Orion and then runs back and gets back up to the the seats but well the police by then I came and grabbed her
00:00:31
and arrested her for trespassing so Morgana calls my father and says hey I've been arrested for trespassing I
00:00:38
need some help here can can you represent me my dad goes well sure my dad's defense for Morgan I was and
00:00:46
well I'm going to go back a little bit Morgan I had a big set of uh breasts if you want to call it Morgana The Kissing
00:00:55
Bandit whose real name is Morgana Roberts once told a reporter that she got her bras custom made by the same
00:01:03
people who made the domes for stadiums when she was arrested in 1985 for kissing Nolan Ryan she called Attorney
00:01:11
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
00:01:20
fall over onto the field and therefore she thought well I'm already on the field why not go kiss Noah and Ryan
00:01:28
and it was kind of a funny laughing stock of the of the courthouse because they're like oh what kind of defense is
00:01:34
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
00:01:41
chest was so heavy correct that it toppled her over onto the field top holder over onto the field and I thought
00:01:48
that was a brilliant defense I mean that's the thing I keep reading about these defenses that your father came up
00:01:55
with in so many different ways and they're almost they're almost too good I mean they're just unbelievable the stuff
00:02:03
that he would come up with right he he was very good off the fly I am an impromptu he would come up with some of
00:02:10
the best defenses that you would never ever think of Richard Haynes name racehorse Haynes
00:02:18
considered to be one of the most exceptional criminal defense lawyers the country's ever seen
00:02:24
here's how he described his approach say you sue me because you claim my dog bit you this is my defense
00:02:33
my dog doesn't bite and second my dog was tied up that night third I don't believe you really got bit
00:02:42
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
00:02:51
he was just Richard rice horse Haynes a person talking to regular people this is
00:02:57
Dallas attorney Charla Aldous she tried a case with racehorsings and says she'd never seen anything like him
00:03:03
he was Fearless I've tried probably over 200 cases or 250 I've lost count but you know you can
00:03:11
always smell fear on the other side if they're not completely comfortable in their skin and they're not comfortable
00:03:17
in the courtroom with racehorse when he walked through the doors of the courtroom you knew that
00:03:22
man was where he was supposed to be in life he would own the room a real Texas accent yet not as bad as
00:03:30
mine thankfully for him but um yeah he did he he was he was a down-home boy he never put on errors and I remember one
00:03:38
of my my favorite things and I have stolen this from him and have done it that he would say to Witnesses on the
00:03:45
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
00:03:53
Mr Smith have you ever up until this very moment in your life and just the way he said it you think
00:04:03
this is the most important question and answer of the entire trial it was just a suspenseful way that he
00:04:10
would would word the questions and and with the pauses where they needed to be and the anticipation and the voice tone
00:04:17
and it was just it was beautiful to watch I learned so much from just having the opportunity to try that case with
00:04:24
him it didn't matter if you had two pennies to rub together or a million dollars now
00:04:30
he'd like the guy with a million dollars or show up but if he thought you were the underdog he only had two pennies he
00:04:37
would still take your case and and still give you the best defense that you could get
00:04:42
he represented all kinds of people some very controversial people his job was the same no matter who it was
00:04:51
I can't permit myself the luxury of having it matter to me whether they're guilty or not he said
00:04:58
over and over people told us that to watch him in the courtroom was like watching Magic
00:05:04
he started practicing law in Texas in 1956. back then it was common for courtrooms to have spittoons for chewing
00:05:13
tobacco and the first time he tried a case he tripped over one the jury laughed but he thought they
00:05:21
also sympathized they could see he was nervous he won the case the next time he went to court he
00:05:28
tripped over the spittoon on purpose he won again for two years he kept this up until
00:05:35
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
00:05:44
cross-examined an empty chair on the witness stand he debated nailing his hand to the jury box and the only reason
00:05:53
he didn't do it was because he couldn't be sure he wouldn't start crying when he
00:05:59
was asked if he considered himself the best criminal attorney in Texas he said it's my belief that I am and I wonder
00:06:08
why you're restricted to Texas according to one judge he was a Charming little jerk
00:06:15
I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal no he'd always come into the courtroom with the cowboy boots and and usually
00:06:35
with a white cowboy hat you see a lot of photos of him when he's exiting the courtroom he'll put that
00:06:43
white cowboy hat out and and you know the reporters will be interviewing and that was probably the the biggest
00:06:50
signature items that he would have or besides his monster-sized leather briefcase they might have one legal pad
00:06:58
in it but he would he would carry that in the courthouse to make the jury think or the judge think hey he's got all this
00:07:05
he's got all this paperwork in here he's getting ready to pull it out I mean that
00:07:08
that seems like a big look to me the white hat and the boots but maybe in Texas just normal probably in Texas is
00:07:16
pretty normal but for him a lot of the younger attorneys and you'll see it they started
00:07:24
wearing cowboy boots and and they would come in with cowboy hats on everybody wanted to be like him yes they did
00:07:32
so I started working for racehorse Haynes two days after I got out of high school and I was an office helper
00:07:39
a private investigator a law Clerk and an associate attorney over that period of time and it was better education than
00:07:45
I got in law school Houston attorney Chris tritico I walked into this this scene of more than you could ever
00:07:54
imagine and the famous people walking through the door that wanted to meet Richard and hire him and hire The Firm
00:08:01
it was it was amazing and Richard was bigger than life Larger than Life he he was gregarious he was he was funny and
00:08:10
top of the field racehorse Haynes is best known for his defense of two very high profile clients
00:08:17
the first was Houston plastic surgeon John Hill in 1969 John Hill's wife 38 year old
00:08:26
Joan hill suddenly became very ill her husband John drove her to the hospital Joan's mother was also in the car and
00:08:36
afterwards she would report that John was driving very slowly she said it was almost like he didn't want to get there
00:08:42
he fiddled with cassette tapes and played very loud classical music Joan Robinson Hill got sick and John
00:08:51
Hill instead of taking her to one of the hospitals that he had privileges at took
00:08:56
her to a small Hospital over off of Highway 59 here in Houston and she died of what today they would
00:09:05
call basically toxic shock syndrome back in the early 70s they didn't have a name
00:09:09
for this they didn't know what they didn't know what killed her eventually they indicted
00:09:15
Dr John Hill for murdering his wife accusing him of injecting her with toxins that he they claimed he was
00:09:24
growing at home and killed her some said he was injecting the toxins into our desserts
00:09:31
specifically eclairs racehorse Haynes was hired to represent John Dr John Hill in the murder trial
00:09:39
it was a hung jury so John Hill went home he lift just a few doors down from Joan's parents Rey and Ash Robinson who
00:09:48
were convinced John Hill had killed their daughter before the case could be retried someone
00:09:55
knocked on the door of John Hill's Mansion he opened it and was shot and killed right there on his front steps
00:10:04
for the rest of uh Ash Robinson's life it was assumed that he had hired a hit man to kill Dr John Hill
00:10:12
[Music] it was never proven and dash Robinson died without ever answering the question
00:10:18
so no one ever found out the case became the subject of a best-selling book called blood and money
00:10:27
which was made into a movie murder in Texas starring Farrah Fawcett and Andy Griffith
00:10:34
when I started at 18 years old I was one of the things I first was asked to do was deliver something over to the Hill
00:10:41
Mansion which was the most exciting thing I ever ever got to do at 18 years old because I just read the book so and
00:10:51
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
00:10:56
and I wanted so much to ask to go in but I I was I was more professional than that
00:11:03
the second client to put resource hands on the national map was billionaire T Colin Davis having a billion dollars in
00:11:12
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
00:11:20
his wife Priscilla who was said to be having an affair one night someone broke into their house
00:11:26
and shot Priscilla the man she was having an affair with and Priscilla's 12 year old daughter
00:11:32
Priscilla survived and told the police everything her husband Colin Davis was charged with
00:11:39
capital murder there was a lot of evidence against him two witnesses placed him at the scene of
00:11:45
the crime with a gun racehorse Haynes had a plan he focused on discrediting Priscilla
00:11:54
he described her as promiscuous the queen bee of sex parties a frequent drug user he showed a poster-sized photograph
00:12:02
of her with one of her boyfriends a guy wearing nothing but a Christmas stocking
00:12:07
one reporter said racehorse Haynes made her out to be totally unreliable a quote
00:12:14
want and floozy whose testimony wasn't worth the time it took to hear it he was heavily criticized in the press
00:12:22
for his approach the prosecutor said racehorse Haynes came at Priscilla Davis like a ball of
00:12:28
butcher knives but it worked it was a hung jury and that was in Fort Worth tried it
00:12:36
again I believe in Amarillo Texas on a change of venue and got a not guilty on the case
00:12:42
then as they were wrapping up the divorce Cullen was accused of making a threat to the judge Colin Davis was
00:12:51
frustrated that his divorce was taking so long he thought he was being asked to pay too much alimony and he was
00:12:59
suspected of hiring a hit man to kill the judge The Hitman went to the FBI and the FBI
00:13:06
actually got the judge to cover himself in fake blood and get into the trunk of a car to pose for photographs which were
00:13:14
then shown to Colin Davis suggesting that the hit he'd ordered had been carried out and that the judge was
00:13:21
dead Cullen apparently or has alleged to have paid the money to the Hitman they arrested him for attempted capital
00:13:27
murder of the judge Richard tried that case and got an acquittal of that on that case
00:13:36
somehow in spite of so much evidence racehorse Haynes made Cullen Davis a sympathetic character
00:13:44
he said the FBI had botched the investigation he told the jury if they worked for you you'd fire him come to
00:13:53
think of it they do work for you probably some of the best criminal defense work you'll ever see was winning
00:13:59
that case the pictures of this judge pretending to be dead in that trunk or as graphic as you'll ever see even
00:14:06
though he wasn't dead certainly looked that way really good piece of work in that case
00:14:11
and those two cases back to back over of course several years in the 70s put Richard at the very very top of the
00:14:20
criminal defense field in the United States these are these are probably his best known cases those are his best
00:14:27
known cases but in my opinion not his best work there is a case in Texas called Pam
00:14:34
Fielder Fielder versus State Pam Fielder was married to a doctor in Texas and he
00:14:40
liked s m type stuff and he would take Pam down to what we called the dungeon in their in their house and and torture
00:14:49
her and and have her torture him drive nails through private parts of his body Drive nails through private parts of her
00:14:56
body all the some of the worst stuff you've ever seen Dam Fielder said she had initially consented to what she
00:15:03
called bondage and discipline games with her husband but it escalated and she didn't want to
00:15:10
do it anymore she said her husband drugged her with Demerol to force her to participate
00:15:16
in July of 1981 Pam Fielder shot her husband firing seven rounds with a 45 caliber semi-automatic pistol
00:15:26
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
00:15:31
had not said on this day that he was going to take her to the dungeon she just thought he would resource
00:15:39
Haynes argued that the abuse she had suffered had to be taken into consideration
00:15:44
he himself had established what's called battered woman syndrome as a legitimate
00:15:50
defense in Texas the year before and so Haynes put on over 350 photographs or different
00:15:59
Implements of sexual torture that they had we had recovered from the house and tried to call an expert to testify
00:16:06
that her State of Mind at the time that she killed him was that she was going to
00:16:11
get injured and she had no choice but to kill him the judge refused to allow that jury
00:16:16
charge Pam Fielder was convicted but on appeal in 1988 the conviction was reversed on
00:16:25
appeal the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for the first time recognized The Battered Women's defense in Texas
00:16:30
and it is now a statute in Texas and it was racehorse haynes's Ingenuity inventiveness and his belief in the
00:16:38
system that a woman ought to be able to put on evidence of that she's been battered that created
00:16:45
that law in Texas that still stands today and that in my opinion is the best work he's ever done
00:16:53
racehorse Haynes like to tell a story about this case about an elderly lady who came to the courthouse every single
00:17:01
day to watch the trial even though she had no relationship to any of the parties
00:17:08
finally a reporter asked her what she was doing there and she replied are you kidding we've got whips and chains and
00:17:16
racehorse hands [Music] foreign foreign that he did John Hill then Cullen Davis and then like I said
00:17:41
the Pam Fielder case and all of those things and then you get talked about when Richard Nixon is having his
00:17:48
problems they were talking about hiring racehorse sayings when Manuel Noriega gets kidnapped out of Panama and Manuel
00:17:54
Noriega calls racehorse Haynes and that's on the news and everyone wants to hire racehorse Haynes and you're in the
00:18:00
news all the time by the highest profile people in the country for years it's it's I've never seen anything like
00:18:10
it and we will never see another lawyer like that I remember like yesterday because it was
00:18:15
a it was a big deal him coming to Sherman the population is about 30 000 the entire County probably a hundred
00:18:21
thousand so you heard people talking about it racehorse Haynes is Coming to Town racehorse Haynes is coming to town
00:18:27
and I was really excited about meeting him and it's right when the new Volkswagen Beetles had come out
00:18:33
and I bought a red one I'll never forget it and it was delivered to me while we're in the middle of trial and I said
00:18:40
rice come out you got to see my car watch this watch this and I hit the button to show how the doors
00:18:45
automatically unlocked and he was driving about a 30 year old suburban all beat up and everything and
00:18:51
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
00:18:58
and he kicked it again and he said damn it usually when I do that the door is open
00:19:03
it was just so that was that was so typical of him he was so humble um but so relatable
00:19:12
was he was he ever just quiet and contemplative or was he always up to a to a trick to an antic what was
00:19:21
interesting is the racehorse that I saw in trial and in public and the racehorse
00:19:27
that I observed during the night when we're getting ready for the next day and and they were totally different people
00:19:34
some of the there was quite a few lawyers on the team and everybody was you know working around the clock and
00:19:40
and talking and everything I would watch race though he would go to a private area by himself and would read every
00:19:47
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
00:19:55
his god-given talent he was very very prepared every day will you describe what he was like in
00:20:03
the courtroom in the courtroom the thing that that that distinguished Richard from from
00:20:11
lawyers that from every lawyer I've ever seen is he was always a gentleman he had a command of the language in in
00:20:21
an ability to keep control over his own emotions better than most people I have ever seen
00:20:28
in my life in a murder trial we were trying when I was a young lawyer a horrible murder case and
00:20:38
Richard has a kid on the stand who's an eyewitness to the murder and had told a lie while on direct and
00:20:49
Richard caught it I didn't catch it I don't think anybody in the courtroom caught it but Richard did
00:20:54
and he started asking this young man questions and he goes he asked him questions for about an hour and a half
00:21:00
and he was slowly asked he'd ask a question and he would ask a question the same question but
00:21:06
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
00:21:14
circle slicing slicing slicing slicing the whole courtroom is thinking what the hell is this guy doing
00:21:22
until he got all the way around that Circle and he asked that last question he sliced it one more time asked that
00:21:27
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
00:21:33
and the kid said yes sir you did he said I got you young man because you're taking liberties with the truth
00:21:38
aren't you and the prosecutor objected right as the young man said yes I am it was the most
00:21:45
brilliant cross-examination I've ever seen and nobody got that that kid had lied until Richard finished that hour
00:21:55
and a half circle and that's the way he handled everything he never raised his voice to this kid he baited him along
00:22:03
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
00:22:11
chair and realized he had been caught it was it was brilliant and very few lawyers have the patience
00:22:18
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
00:22:27
he could reuse Staples he would reuse them uh if he saw paper clips in the trash when he'd walk around his office
00:22:33
he would yell at the associate saying what are you doing that's a penny sitting there in that trash basket
00:22:39
you know even when it came to going to lunch you know one of his favorite lunches and I would joke them about it
00:22:45
so he would go to Jack in a box and get the two tacos for 99 cents and I was like Dad you know it's got to be the
00:22:51
absolutely worst lunch you could possibly have well he didn't care he loved his tacos and what about your
00:22:58
mother how did he meet your mother they met their High School sweethearts and at the end they were married for 62
00:23:06
years when it was time for racehorse Haynes to retire his wife Naomi went to Chris
00:23:12
tritico's office and asked for his help she said I Richard cannot work anymore I
00:23:19
need you to take over the practice and close it down and take over the remaining cases and I said is Richard
00:23:24
okay with this and she said he will be [Music] the work seemed to be so important to
00:23:31
him well it was um he Richard understood what he had done and what he was and and he I don't think that he knew
00:23:43
anything else to be and which is why I unfortunately he worked until we just had to drag him out of the courtroom
00:23:50
I don't think he knew what to do with himself racehorse Haynes died April 28 2017 in
00:23:59
Trinity Texas shortly after celebrating his 90th birthday he practiced law for more than 50 years Richard believed
00:24:09
deeply in in what he was doing in the courtroom and and he he believed it so much that he gave up a big part of his
00:24:17
life and and I'll give you a classic story about that um one night one one time we were in trial
00:24:27
on on the murder case I was telling you about my wife was due to have our second
00:24:31
child and literally do any minute and this was at a time before cell phones were had been had come out
00:24:38
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
00:24:45
and if I need to leave she's just going to come get me and I'm just going to get
00:24:48
up and walk out and he said no problem you don't have to say anything I'll understand just leave and I sit down
00:24:53
at Council table and Richard turned around and he said you know when my last child was born
00:24:59
I was in a trial and I didn't leave until after final argument and I missed the birth
00:25:08
before he passed he told me one time that that one of his great regrets was that he
00:25:16
didn't spend as much time as I did with my kids as he and he wished he had and it was the biggest compliment that
00:25:25
he could have ever given me was that that he appreciated what I had done with my kids
00:25:31
and and he wished he had and I I took that as the greatest compliment he ever gave me
00:25:39
[Music] there's an old profile in the Abilene Reporter news called arrogant reputation
00:25:48
doesn't bother racehorse Haynes it ends with him saying I guess the bottom line is who you yourself would hire if you
00:25:57
were in trouble if I was in trouble I'd hire me [Laughter] [Laughter] [Music] criminal is produced by Lauren Spore
00:26:21
Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob Byers Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of
00:26:29
Criminal you can see them at this criminal.com where on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show
00:26:36
criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia
00:26:44
from PRX a collection of the best podcasts around shows like the kitchen sisters present
00:26:51
they have a wonderful new series called the keepers stories of activist archivists Rogue Librarians and
00:26:59
historians every art form has their standards that they've placed in the Canon mathematics science everybody has
00:27:08
their grades and somebody placed them there are people in visual art World say hey
00:27:13
okay this is what's going in the Louvre this is it and I think Hip-hop needs the
00:27:19
same thing this is the archive [Music] go listen and learn more at kitchensisters.org I'm Phoebe judge this
00:27:37
is Criminal foreign [Music]