Oklahoma and Indian Territories were among the last frontiers of the wild and woolly American West. Hordes of legal fugitives and an assortment of unsavory characters flocked to the region when it was thrown open for settlement during a series of land runs. Col. D.F. MacMartin describes it best in his book “Thirty Years in Hell: Or, the Confessions of a Drug Fiend”:
“History has never recorded an opening of government land whereon there was assembled such a rash and motley colony of gamblers, cut-throats, refugees, demimondaines, bootleggers and high hat and low pressure crooks.”
With this population came an unprecedented wave of crime, which afforded criminal lawyers like Temple Houston ample opportunities for a steady clientele.
Finding His Place in the Oklahoma Sun
Temple grew restless and possibly felt that as long as he remained in Texas, he would labor in the shadow of his famous father. In Oklahoma Territory, he could carve out his own reputation, based on his own accomplishments.“His auburn hair now swept his shoulders … his dress was a mixture of legal dignity and western informality, a white Stetson, a black frock coat [that] tended to accentuate his slender height, and shop-made boots with square toes and riding heels that made his feet look sizes smaller. He wore a black cravat and a miniature gold saber tiepin that had belonged to his father.”He soon developed a reputation as one of the region’s most brilliant, popular, and eccentric lawyers. He defended some of the worst criminals in the territory, including murderers, stock thieves, and gunfighters. But it was Houston’s extemporaneous defense of Minnie Stacey that enshrined him forever as one of the great orators in American jurisprudence.
Minnie’s Plight
Like most frontier towns, Woodward had its share of bordellos. To “clean up the town” in 1889, the civic-minded citizens of Woodard saw that charges were brought against Minnie Stacey for prostitution and operating a brothel; the good citizens further sought to confiscate her property and drive her out of town penniless. Minnie couldn’t afford a lawyer, and she prepared for the worst. On the morning of May 26, 1899, Houston knew that Minnie’s case was to be heard that day. After knocking back a couple of shots of whiskey in a Woodward saloon, Houston informed his drinking companion of poor Minnie’s plight. He concluded, “She doesn’t have any money to hire a lawyer, but I am going to defend her, and I’m going to raise the roof!”When the judge called Minnie’s case, he learned that she had no lawyer and informed her that he would appoint one for her. Temple rose from his seat and announced, “Please your Honor, and I’ll defend the lady if she will allow me.” Minnie accepted Houston’s offer without hesitation. Houston bowed dramatically. The judge allowed a 10-minute recess for Houston to confer with his client and prepare his case. After a few minutes, he declared himself ready. The prosecution quickly outlined the case against Minnie. Houston offered no defense, which seemed out of character for him. The prosecution then moved for a conviction; to everyone there, it looked like an open and shut case.
Sermon on the Bench
Houston briefly reviewed the legal aspects of the case and the evidence presented. Then, as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, who happened to be in the courtroom, and a court stenographer transcribed his words, Houston delivered a masterpiece:“Gentlemen of the jury: You heard with what cold cruelty the prosecution referred to the sins of this woman, as if her condition were of her own preference. The evidence has painted you a picture of her life and surroundings. Do you think that they were embraced of her own choosing? Do you think that she willingly embraced a life so revolting and horrible? Ah, no! Gentlemen, one of our own sex was the author of her ruin, more to blame than she.”Houston surveyed the jurors, seeing that he had their full attention before he continued.
“Then let us judge her gently. What could be more pathetic than the spectacle she presents? An immortal soul in ruin! Where the star of purity once glittered on her girlish brow, burning shame has set its seal and forever. And only a moment ago, they reproached her for the depths to which she had sunk, the company she kept, the life she led. Now, what else is left her? Where can she go and her sin not pursue her?
“Gentlemen, the very promises of God are denied her. He said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” She has indeed labored, and is heavily laden, but if, at this instant she were to kneel down before us and confess to her Redeemer and beseech His tender mercies, where is the church that would receive her? And even if they accepted her, when she passed the portals to worship and to claim her rest, scorn and mockery would greet her; those she met would gather around them their spirits the more closely to avoid the pollution of her touch. And would you tell me a single employment where she can realize “Give us our daily bread?”
“Our sex ruined her once pure life. Her own sex shrinks from her as they would the pestilence. Society has reared its relentless walls against her, and only in the friendly shelter of the grave can her betrayed and broke heart ever find the Redeemer’s promised rest.”
“They told you of her assumed names, as fleeting as the shadows on the walls, of her sins, her habits, but they never told you of her sorrows, and who shall tell what her heart, sinful though it may be, now feels? When the remembered voices of mother and sisters, whom she must see no more on this earth, fall again like music on her erring soul, and she prays to God that she could only return, and must not—no—not in this life, for the seducer has destroyed the soul.
“You know the story of the prodigal son, but he was a son. He was one of us, like her destroyers; but for the prodigal daughter there is no return. Were she with her wasted form and bleeding feet to drag herself back home, she, the fallen and the lost, which would be her welcome? Oh, consider this when you come to decide her guilt, for she is before us and we must judge her. They sneer and scoff at her. One should respect her grief, and I tell you that there reigns over her penitent and chastened spirit a desolation now that none, no, none but the Searcher of all hearts can ever know.
“They wish to fine this woman and make her leave. They wish to wring from the wages of her shame the price of this mediated injustice; to take from her the little money she might have—and God knows, gentlemen, it came hard enough. The old Jewish law told you that the price of a dog, not the bite of such as she, should not come within the house of the Lord, and I say unto you that our justice, fitly symbolized by this woman’s form, does not ask that you add ought to the woes of this unhappy one, one only asks at your hands the pitiful privilege of being left alone.”
“The Master, while on earth, while He spake in wrath and rebuke to the kings and rulers, never reproached one of these. One He forgave. Another he acquitted. You remember both—and now looking upon this friendless outcast, if any of you can say to her, “I am holier than thou” in the respect which she is charged with sinning, who is he?
“The Jews who brought the woman before the Savior have been held up to execration of the world for two thousand years. I always respected them. A man who will yield to the reproaches of the conscience as they did has the element of good in him, but the modern hypocrite has no such compunctions. If the prosecutors of the woman whom you are trying had brought her before the Savior, they would have accepted His challenge and each one gathered a rock and stoned her, in the twinkling of an eye.
A friend of Houston’s, Logan Coffee, later stated that Houston’s speech had such a profound impact on Minnie that she moved to Canadian, Texas, joined the Methodist Church, took in washing for a living, and remained a Christian for the rest of her life.
The public response to Houston’s extemporaneous plea was overwhelming. Thanks to the Kansas City Star reporter who took down every word, thousands of copies were printed and distributed. Ultimately, a framed copy found its way to the Library of Congress, where it was displayed with the simple explanation, “One of the finest examples of American oratory ever uttered.”
Houston continued to practice law until he died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1905. He was at the peak of his career and only 45 years old. One of the most colorful lawyers of the Old West had passed from the scene, but he lives on through his masterful oration defending Minnie Stacey.
