Percy Foreman

Percy Foreman (June 21, 1902 to August 25, 1988) was born in a log cabin near Livingston, Texas, the son of the sheriff of Polk County. After some years as an assistant district attorney he practiced criminal defense in Houston for six decades. He claimed as many as 2,000 murder cases and one client executed. He often took "diamonds, cars and houses in lieu of cash payments." "I'd rather try a murder case than any other type criminal case," he said. "There's one less witness." In 1963 he won for Cecil Blaffer Hudson what was then the largest divorce settlement on record, 6.5 million dollars in cash and 3 million in property, from E.J. Hudson, chairman of Hudson Engineering Corporation. He represented Jack Ruby for a few days and withdrew "because of a dispute with the Ruby family over fees."¹

Ray

James Earl Ray's first lawyer, Arthur Hanes, had contracted on July 8, 1968, with the writer William Bradford Huie for a book on Ray and the murder of Martin Luther King, Huie to pay Ray and Hanes each 30 percent of his receipts. Ray dismissed Hanes for Foreman, and "on February 3, 1969, Ray assigned all his rights under the various contracts to Foreman as the latter's fee." On February 13 Foreman wrote Ray that there was "a little more than a 99 per cent chance" of a death sentence and a "100 per cent chance of a guilty verdict." On March 9, the day before the plea, he wrote: "If the plea is entered and the sentence accepted and no embarrassing circumstances take place in the court room, I am willing to assign to any bank, trust company or individual selected by you all my receipts under the above agreement in excess of $165,000.00." A second letter advanced 500 dollars to Ray's brother on condition that the plea go through "without any unseemly conduct on your part in court." Huie's magazine contract was amended in anticipation of the plea and paid Foreman 1,000 dollars for an article, "Against Conspiracy."²³

At the hearing in Memphis on March 10, 1969, Ray interrupted: "The only thing I have to say is that I can't agree with Mr. Clark." Foreman supplied: "Ramsey Clark." Ray went on: "Mr. J. Edgar Hoover. I agree with all these stipulations, and I am not trying to change anything." The court asked whose theories he rejected. "Mr. Canale's, Mr. Clark's and Mr. J. Edgar Hoover's about the conspiracy." Foreman told the judge: "I think that what he said is that he doesn't agree with Ramsey Clark that Ramsey Clark is right or that J. Edgar Hoover is right. I didn't argue that as evidence in this case." Ray received 99 years and within days repudiated the plea. His suit against Foreman, Huie, and Hanes was dismissed, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed in 1971, leaving open the question whether such contracts "are void as a matter of public policy." In 1976 the same court found "a potential conflict of interest" in the arrangement, and a district court finding that the fee "would be unreasonable if there were money to pay it," and upheld the plea.²³

The new agreements of January 29 and February 3, 1969, gave Foreman 60 percent of the income from Huie's works. Ray alleged that on February 13 Foreman brought him a waiver of any claim against Huie or Look "for damaging Ray's chances for a fair trial," and that Foreman told him "the prosecution was prepared to bribe a key witness" and that "if he refused to plead guilty, Foreman would exercise less than his best efforts at trial." In one of the letters of March 9 Foreman wrote of the Huie royalties: "These are my own property unconditionally," and that he had by then "spent in excess of $9,500.00 on your case." The Sixth Circuit in 1974 called the allegations, if true, "an outrageous abrogation of the standards which the legal profession sets for itself" and ordered a hearing.⁴

The Hunts

On July 21, 1975, a federal grand jury charged Nelson Bunker Hunt, Herbert Hunt, Foreman, three other lawyers, and "a retired Texas industrialist," Edward J. Hudson of Houston, with obstruction of justice. "The indictment charged that the seven men had conspired to pay witnesses to go to prison to hush testimony about the wiretapping" of H.L. Hunt's aides Paul Rothermel and John Curington, who were Foreman's clients. The Hunts answered the same day that the charges were "a further result of an attempt by the C.I.A. to discredit the Hunt oil empire." In April 1976 Bunker Hunt pleaded nolo contendere and paid a fine of 1,000 dollars, and the charges against Foreman and Hudson were dropped. Neither of the wire service obituaries of 1988 mentioned the indictment.¹⁵