TROUBLE IN PARADISE

As the great American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Nothing golden stays,” and so it was soon to be with Tortuga. All of the dreaming and scheming to develop an exclusive retreat was to fail because of the greed of the president. And, I don’t mean President for life John Claude Duvalier. I mean the president of DuPont Caribbean, Inc. Pierson, the flimflam man, had turned himself into the man who would be king.

Pierson sank to a level of not paying the hard-slaving natives their $1 a day for their labor, and blaming the Dallas investor, Translinear, who had invested millions of their own money, intending for Haiti to kick them out of the project.

In support of the native who Pierson schemed to not pay, I resigned as an officer of the corporation on February 28, 1972. The day after I delivered Pierson my resignation, a Haitian official, Guy Bonam, was in my office at the bank. When I gave him a copy of my resignation, he read it and said,

“When President Duvalier reads this letter the contract with Pierson will be cancelled?” I said I would have expected that to happen. He immediately left my office for Haiti.

Within a week after the Haitian officials got my resignation letter, the Haitian government immediately proclaimed Pierson persona non-grate and that ended the development of Tortuga.

For months after I resigned my executive vice-president position with DuPont Caribbean, all sorts of "persuasions" came from my bank and its lawyers to withdraw my resignation so Haiti might reconsider their stockholder and friend’s contract. In all good conscience, I could not.

Five days before Christmas in 1972 there was a knock at my door. I opened it to see a sheriff’s deputy serving me with a $5.6 million lawsuit filed against me by the defunct DuPont Caribbean Corporation.

My immediate concern was how would I pay for my own legal defense. I had never received a penny in wages from the island venture and, of course, my ten percent of the stock was now worthless. I made less than $20,000 a year at the bank.

Since I was still a member of the Eastland “enterprise,” I went to my friend District Attorney Emory Walton to ask for his legal representation. Emory brought in an Abilene lawyer to represent me while he acted as co-counsel.

Now the press had another topic for publication. They pursued this story with equal vigor. During the year that was to follow, I spent as much time working with my lawyers on my lawsuit and in court as I did at my job. My legal fees were mounting and my employer’s stockholders were exhibiting more displeasure.

With this pressure being brought to bear, I was not surprised when I literally struck out at Pierson that day. We had just completed yet another hearing on the multi-million dollar suit when my lawyer and I stepped into the elevator. Just before the operator closed the door, Pierson stepped in.

Although he was one of the pallbearers at Kelly’s funeral, I did not see fit to even look at him. Just as the operator turned the big wheel that was the elevator’s lowering and lifting mechanism, Pierson, standing to my right, whispered a harsh comment,

“We’ll get your job after the next the. . . .” He was not able to finish his threat. My left fist clenched with what seemed to be a will of its own and without any warning, it made contact with Pierson’s mouth. The sound made from Pierson’s head and back hitting the metal elevator wall was that of a baseball bat making contact with a tin barn.

As Pierson slithered slowly down the wall to the elevator floor, he looked like a cartoon character piled in a heap. Blood was everywhere – on the floor, on the wall, on me, on the elevator operator, and even on my lawyer. More blood gushed from Pierson’s mouth as he mumbled something through his toothless upper and lower gums.

My lawyer grabbed my arm. As I turned toward him, I detected a blanched look of such horror I thought he might join Pierson on the floor.

“Don’t hit him again, Collins!” he ordered. The elevator operator was so astonished he stopped at the next floor and Pierson; covered in blood, rushed for the stairs back to my friend Earl’s courtroom we had just left. My lawyer and I got off, too, taking the steps to the street, leaving the poor old elevator operator gaping at the blood.

There was so much pain in my left hand I was certain I had shattered every bone in it. Rather than cause a scene at the bank, I went home to tell Lou Ann so she wouldn’t have to learn of the incident through prying calls from news reporters or some cop sent to arrest me.

Sure enough, when I got home Sheriff Lefty Sublett had already left a message to call him and the phone was ringing again. I knew it was probably Lefty so I told Lou Ann to just listen, and she would hear why Lefty had called for me.

Lou Ann watched me cradling my swollen left hand as I picked up the receiver with my right hand. It was Lefty calling again. Lefty spoke with a slow drawl and walked even slower than he talked. I was surprised he got around to contacting me so fast.

“Collins,” he said, “I’ve got a warrant for your arrest and just wanted to know if you want me to come pick you up or would you rather drive down to the courthouse on your own.”

Of course, my lawyer was already headed back to Abilene as fast as he could get out of Eastland, so I told Lefty I'd be right there. Lou Ann was about to panic wanting to know what happened. On the way to my car in the driveway I explained,

“There’s really not much to tell you, except I think I broke my hand when I knocked the hell out of Pierson.” I was very pleased when she said, “Good for you, Honey. Hurry home so you can tell me all about it.”

Television cameras from the Abilene station were waiting outside the courthouse, filming me as soon as I got out of my car and walked into the courthouse. Lefty and the justice of the peace were inside the JP Court waiting for me. Lefty made a show before the judge of examining my right hand. “Judge, I don’t see any cuts or swelling,” Lefty said as he looked at the judge.

“Did Mr. Pierson and you have a scuffle that caused him to fall,” Lefty asked.

“It was something like that, sheriff,” I replied as I gently kept my throbbing right hand in my pocket. For some reason Lefty then stepped behind me as I listened to the Justice of the Peace read the assault charge Pierson had filed against me.

“How do you plead?” the judge asked.

I then knew why Lefty had stood behind me. He was standing so close I could feel his breath on my neck when he whispered, “No contest,” which I repeated to the judge.

The judge fined me $14 and assessed another $5 for court costs. I paid the $19 and was out of the courthouse in less than three minutes. I decided I should stop by the bank before I went home. After all Pierson was one of the owners of the bank.

When I went into my office there was an unorganized pile of cash on my desk with a handwritten note on top of it. "Just a little help to pay your fine! From those of us who never had the guts to do what you did - but all of us have wanted to do for years.” Fanning it out with my right hand, my left hand still in my pocket, I counted nearly $300 in loose change, dollar bills, fives, tens and even one twenty.

Some contributors sought me out later to thank me for what I had done. The Abilene Reporter News ran a story with a headline that read, “Local Banker Makes Big Hit."

Late that afternoon I had a visit at my home from the District Judge Earl Conner, who was presiding over my multi-million dollar lawsuit. Earl told me he was in the middle of a hearing when Pierson burst into the courtroom, blood all over the front of his white shirt, yelling what he thought was, “Peace bond, Peace bond, I need a peace bond.”

Earl recessed the hearing he was conducting and had his court reporter send Pierson to the JP court in the basement. He left the bench with his court reporter right behind him, went into his chambers and hurriedly closed the door.

Unable to contain himself as he retold the event, he said he could not remember cracking up so much as he did once he was in his chambers. As he stood in our living room he fished a large white handkerchief from his trousers to wipe the tears flowing down his red face. With his false teeth clicking, he recounted what he told his court reporter - “The minute I saw Pierson with all that blood I knew immediately what had happened – Collins got a hold of him.”

My knocking hell out of Pierson didn't dampen Judge Conner’s determination to continue presiding over Pierson’s lawsuit against me. After about a year of hearing after hearing, a jury trial date was set and the big day came for my trial.

For reasons, which I was never told, I was not invited to sit in on selecting the jury. I wanted to be there, but I was much too ignorant about the behind-the-scenes workings of the legal “enterprise” to get it.

However, on the day of the trial, when I saw all of the jurors being seated, I got an inkling as to why the jury selection was made outside my presence. Among the final twelve jurors was Esco Walters, a Judge on the 11^th Court of Appeals. “How did a State Appeals Court Judge get called to sit on a jury?” I asked myself.

After eight long days of testimony, Pierson’s Dallas lawyer made his closing argument. He asked the jury to find me guilty of damaging DuPont Caribbean and its owner’s reputation. However, he asked the jury to reduce $5.6 million dollars it had asked to be awarded to only ONE PENNY!

In his charge to the jury, Judge Conner asked them to answer two questions: (1) Was Collins’ characterization of Pierson the reason the Republic of Haiti cancelled the multi-billion dollar contract and (2) Did the jury find Collins’ characterization of Pierson to be accurate? I never denied characterizing Pierson as a crook.

The jury deliberation was brief. The twelve returned to the courtroom with poker faces. There were no smiles, no winks, no nods in my direction, but I noticed there was no indication of remorse either.

When Judge Conner called for the jury foreman to stand, Judge Walters rose to his feet. With all the dignity and pomp befitting his status as an Appellate Court Judge, he answered in the affirmative to Judge Conner’s question as to whether the jury had reached a verdict. “It has, Your Honor,” Walters said.

“Please hand the court’s charge and your verdict to the bailiff,” Judge Conner instructed. Judge Walters complied. It was then Judge Conner’s turn to exhibit the high standard of dignity that goes with wearing the judicial robe. He read the verdict. “We the jury find the defendant, Michael Collins, not guilty of any of the charges filed against him in this case.”

Judge Conner then asked the jury if their verdict was unanimous. Each member signified yes by nodding in unison. Judge Conner thanked them for their time and attention they had given this case. He informed them that their checks could be picked up at the clerk’s office and instructed them to go home to their families.

After all those years of my serving as a juror in the Eastland County Courthouse, this was my first experience with the shoe being on the other foot, so to speak. And while the ordeal of the trial was tiring and costly, Pierson’s actions against me provided the rare opportunity to observe our system of justice at its best. Only when all parties are allowed an opportunity to lay all facts at the feet of “twelve good men and women, tried and true, the system is infallible.”

That was thirty years ago and our legal system is not the same today. The pitiful misconduct of lawyers, including the pressures the powerful law firms put on who were once good judges has created pockets of corruption within the legal system that will take years to correct, if ever.

The one thing my good friend Judge Earl Conner told me about the new style of justice - truth has nothing to do with justice or the outcome of a trial. Today’s lawyers have made dishonesty the standard in the legal industry. When a lawyer takes a case that has lots of “dents and scratches”, but the lawyer wants to take it anyway, the only thing to do is what seasoned used car salesmen have been known to do – lie.

“There’s nothing in the lawyer’s rules of conduct that requires lawyers to tell the truth or for lawyers to make their clients tell the truth. The objective of lawyers is to make money and if it takes lying to do it, so be it!” Judge Conner said.