In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Sex, Murder, and the Unwritten Law: Courting Judicial Mayhem, Texas Style
  • Alfredo E. Cardenas
Sex, Murder, and the Unwritten Law: Courting Judicial Mayhem, Texas Style. By Bill Neal, foreword by Gordon Morris Bakken. (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2009. Pp. 298. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780896726628, $29.95 cloth.)

In his third book, Sex, Murder, and the Unwritten Law: Courting Judicial Mayhem, Texas Style, Bill Neal continues his work at documenting Texas's experience with the "unwritten law" carried to the west by old southerners raised in a society that placed a high value in defending one's "sacred honor" and "protecting the home." Neal, a supreme storyteller, uses court cases to advance his point, but his effort lacks scholarly discipline.

Neal argues that the unwritten law was "[n]either legislative nor judge made, it amounted to a system of jury-made lawlessness which recognized rights that were forbidden by law and denied rights that were granted by law" (14). In his first three examples, Neal presents the cases of John Hallum, Verna Ware, and Winnie Jo Morris. In the first case, attorney Hallum lured, shot, and killed his pastor in a crowded train depot because the pastor was involved in an ongoing affair with Hallum's wife. Hallum, contrary to the usual trial tactics, openly invoked the unwritten law and won an acquittal despite the statutory law and the pastor's position and popularity in the community. In the latter two cases, young women claimed [End Page 83]they were seduced with promises of marriage and defended their honor by killing their paramours. Juries acquitted them both.

In his remaining three sample cases, Neal strays from his central theme. In the Valentine's Day murder of Buster Robertson by Wichita Falls mayor Frank Collier and his wife, he shifts from the unwritten law of protecting family honor to a murder motivated by social class. Indeed, Neal spends pages on the history of Wichita Falls, with photos of oil wells and high rise buildings, explaining the class structure in the oil-boom city. While seduction was the catalyst that ostensibly led to the ultimate shooting, it was driven by class status. Additionally, unlike the other three cases, juries did not acquit either Mayor Collier or his wife. Neither did the appellate courts. They were granted pardons by Governor Ma Ferguson—pardons, no doubt motivated by politics and money and not the unwritten law.

Neal dedicates the final two chapters—nearly half the book—to cases he tags as being part of a "cursed fortune." The fortune came from the oil patch and started with Floyd Holmes and ended up with Cullen Davis. Both were charged with murders and both used their incredible wealth to get the best justice money could buy and gained acquittals. Neither was driven by a desire to preserve their sacred honor; Holmes, at least, claimed the unwritten law of self-defense, but Davis was driven by anger and greed. Neither case fits into Neal's underlying argument regarding the unwritten law. Clearly, the second half of Neal's book does not "document how the unwritten law readily excused violent self-help redressment of individual wrongs, real or perceived, even when a killing resulted."

The theme of the unwritten law is certainly a worthwhile area of historical research. Neal's efforts, while important, fall short. Neal is a storyteller extraordinaire and a capable attorney, but his aspirations to write history could have benefited by the guiding hand of a good editor.

Alfredo E. Cardenas
Pflugerville

pdf

Share