Richard 'Racehorse' Haynes, whose high-profile clients included oil millionaire Cullen Davis, dies at 90

Richard "Racehorse" Haynes parlayed his dislike for bullies and passion for fighting other people's battles into a legendary career as a criminal-defense attorney.

The flamboyant trial lawyer is known for successfully defending clients charged with murder in high-profile, headline-grabbing cases. Not one of the 40 clients he represented who faced capital punishment was sentenced to death.

Haynes, 90, died Friday in hospice care in Livingston.

Services are pending at Heights Funeral Home in Houston.

Haynes' most sensational cases became three books, two movies and a Broadway play. His clients included T. Cullen Davis, the oil millionaire charged with the 1976 death of his 12-year-old stepdaughter, one of two people killed in a shooting at his Fort Worth mansion. Haynes also represented John Hill, a Houston plastic surgeon charged with killing his wife in 1969.

Critics contended that Haynes got his clients off by simply confusing juries with mounds of testimony.

"I can't permit myself the luxury of having it matter to me whether they are guilty or not," he said in 1986. "The system, for it to work, has to have lawyers.

"I never think in terms of "getting people off. I always think in terms of the prosecution's presentation did not persuade the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. as the law obligates them to do before they can convict."

In the 1970s, Haynes had clients address the jury after trial. He changed his policy after a shocking statement to the jury from a client who had been acquitted.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank each and every one of you," the client said. "And I promise you that I will never, ever do it again."

Haynes' colorful flair often added to the spectacle of his high-profile cases. He added a western hat and ostrich cowboy boots to accent his customary pin-striped suit. He admitted to "popping off" to the news media in order to help his clients.

Haynes was born in Houston, where his father was a plasterer and his mother took in laundry and made decorations from tin cans to earn extra money. During the Great Depression, he was sent to live with his grandmother in San Antonio. The hard economic times forced the family's five children to split up.

His grandmother taught him math, reading and writing and read him Shakespeare and the Bible at bedtime. She sent him off to school with instructions to get advanced placement.

"'Don't let them start you in kindergarten,'" Haynes recalled her saying. "'Don't let them start you in first grade. You can do third-grade work. You holler about third grade and compromise on the second.'"

The resulting turmoil about the placement demand landed Haynes in the news.

"I got my name in the paper with my picture," he said. "And I suppose I've been in love with that ever since. That may have been the undoing of me."

Haynes picked up his nickname in high school when his football coach commented on his propensity to run like a racehorse between the sidelines, rather than down the field. In 1944, he graduated from Reagan High School and joined the Navy. During World War II, he served in the Pacific, where he landed at Iwo Jima with the Marines. He received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for saving several Marines from drowning. The medal is the Navy's highest noncombat award for heroism.

After two years in the Navy, Haynes entered the University of Houston, where he studied accounting. He originally wanted to become a doctor.

"I worked for a couple of weeks at the hospital, and I said, 'Man, I've got to get a profession where if I screw up, you can appeal,'" Haynes once told University of Houston Magazine. "Because if you are a doctor and you screw up, you've got to go to the funeral, and I didn't want to do that."

In 1950, Haynes married his high school sweetheart, Naomi Younger.

He earned his bachelor's degree in 1951, but delayed entering law school to serve as an Army paratrooper during the Korean War.

"We had stood up and said we're not going to tolerate bullies," he said in 1986. "That's sort of my credo. I don't tolerate bullies. I really don't believe in barking without at least standing up and trying to bite."

In 1956, he graduated from the University of Houston Law Center, passed the bar exam and began practicing. His first courtroom appearance was inauspicious. The nervous young attorney tripped over a spittoon while entering the courtroom. The jury laughed, but seemed to sympathize with his naiveté. He won the case.

Haynes began kicking the spittoon before every trial.

"I would just kick that spittoon like a bell," he said in 1986. He considered it a way to break the ice with a jury. But after two years, the judge grew tired of the ritual and threatened to fine him the next time he tried the move.

Haynes asked for one more kick, a request the judge granted.

Haynes also was daring outside the courtroom. He raced motorcycles, was an avid sailor and enjoyed skydiving. During the Davis murder trial, he challenged an investigator to a targeted parachute jump for a case of beer

"I'm an expert at packing parachutes," he said at the time. "I'll pack both."

Haynes is survived by a daughter, Ricki Haynes, and two sons, Blake Haynes and Slade Haynes, and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He is preceded in death by his wife of more than 60 years, Naomi, and his daughter Tracey Alexander.