Percy Foreman

"All my clients have a right to be stupid; otherwise they wouldn't get into trouble in the first place. But sometimes they abuse the privilege."

Those words capture perfectly the character of one of Texas' most successful and colorful criminal defense attorneys, Percy Foreman. During a legal career that spanned six decades, Foreman defended such noteworthy clients as Jack Ruby, James Earl Ray, and South Texas political boss George B. Parr, the "Duke of Duval." He also inspired later generations of Texas lawyers, including Richard "Racehorse" Haynes, who claimed that Foreman inspired him to study the law.

Percy Eugene Foreman was born in 1902 in the Polk County hamlet of Cold Springs. Six years later, he moved with his family to Livingston after his father was elected sheriff of Polk County. Foreman quit school at fifteen, receiving a high school diploma two years later from a Houston correspondence academy. At age eighteen he joined a Chautauqua company, touring the country as a featured orator.

While continuing to travel the Chautauqua circuit from Easter through Thanksgiving, Foreman enrolled at the University of Texas. Attending only four months a year, he earned a bachelor's degree and a law degree in six years. After a brief stint as an assistant district attorney in Harris County Foreman opened his own firm and by late in the 1930s had become Texas' leading defense lawyer.

Foreman possessed a brilliant legal mind, but was equally famous for his courtroom style and demeanor. A huge man, standing six-feet-five-inches tall and weighing anywhere between 260 and 290 pounds, with shaggy strands of steel-gray hair drooping over his eyes, he commanded attention. When delivering his closing arguments to a jury, he would often bring an old-fashioned three-sided church pulpit into court and "preach" to the members of the panel.

Foreman proudly boasted of being the first criminal defense attorney who became wealthy defending thieves, murderers, and wayward spouses. He preferred that clients pay his fees in cash, but would take anything of value. At one time he was the largest landowner in Harris County, holding title to more than forty homes and dozens of commercial buildings. He rented warehouses for the automobiles, furs, jewelry, and other items with which cash-poor miscreants paid their bills. He once even accepted four circus elephants as payment for services rendered.

Most impressive, perhaps, was Foreman's record defending persons accused of capital offenses. He represented nearly fifteen hundred men and women facing possible death sentences-"misdemeanor murder," he called their crimes-but only one was ever executed. "Nobody who has the money to hire Percy Foreman," a Texas legislator once announced, "has any real fear of the death penalty."

When Percy Foreman died on August 25, 1988, he was, even at age 86, still the most respected lawyer in Texas. His funeral drew mourners from all over the country. Foreman is buried at Forest Park Westheimer in Houston, a privately maintained cemetery. To get there, travel west of Loop 8 or the Beltway on Westheimer to S. Dairy Ashford Road.

For further information see Michael Dorman, King of the Courtroom: Percy Foreman for the Defense (New York, 1969). To learn more about East Texas history contact the East Texas Historical Association at Stephen F. Austin State University or visit the ETHA web site at http://leonardo.sfasu.edu/etha/.