Trials: Mesmerism in Miami

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Moralists may wonder why the U.S. press and public spent seven weeks following the affairs of burly Melvin Powers, 24, and his lissome, lippy aunt, Candace Mossler, 46, in intimate detail. Most lawyers, though, are morally certain that they know exactly why a Miami jury so easily acquitted Candy and Mel of killing her millionaire husband, Jacques Mossler, 69: the defendants had in their corner hulking, booming Houston Lawyer Percy Foreman, whose never-failing tactic is to act as if the murder victim, not the suspect, were on trial. By "trying" everyone except his clients, Foreman has lost a defendant to the electric chair only once in more than 700 capital cases.

At 6 ft. 4 in., Percy Foreman, 64, is probably the biggest, brashest, brightest criminal lawyer in the U.S. The 250-lb. son of a onetime Texas sheriff, Foreman chose brains over brawn as a teen-ager when he landed a contract to load cotton at 25¢ a bale, then hired laborers to do the job at 8¢ a bale. At 16, Foreman quit the hamlet of Bold Springs to seek his fortune in Houston; he shined shoes, delivered papers, and hustled through the University of Texas law school. Of his clients, he likes to say mysteriously: "They may not always be right, but they are never wrong."

Denounce the Dead. Right or wrong, his clients pay for their freedom. Not long ago, Foreman pocketed $200,000 for winning Houston Oil Heiress Cecil Blaffer Hudson a record divorce settlement of $6,500,000. If his clients lack cash, Foreman accepts anything else of value. He now owns more than 40 houses and an office building in Houston, plus several hundred acres scattered throughout Harris County (Houston). His wife pads around their $75,000 home in a pair of house slippers studded with diamond engagement rings earned from his clients.

Foreman is worth every carat. Recently he took on a Houston father who had gunned down his stepdaughter's teen-age lover in plain view of witnesses. Foreman excoriated the dead sinner, hauled a church pulpit in front of the jury, delivered a sermon on teen-age vice, and tearfully recited a Sir Walter Scott poem about "pious fathers." The father was acquitted.