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Paul R. Haunstein © Enid Morning News 11-1969 Submitted by: Jo Aguirre
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Colorful Defense Attorney Dies in Enid Hospital
Paul R. Haunstein, one of Northwest Oklahoma's most colorful defense attorneys, died at an Enid hospital this morning where he had entered Thursday for a routine medical checkup. He was 71.
Services are pending at the Henninger – Allen Funeral Home.
In bad health for the past two years, he had all but closed out his law practice, limiting his work primarily to probating estates and non-– contested legal matters.
It was difficult for Haunstein not to take an active part in the courtroom where he had spent so much of his adult life.
A firebrand of the old school, Haunstein was a delight to watch as he doggedly hammered away in the defense of his clients and he had a fairly good batting average even with "hopeless" cases.
In recent years when other attorneys shied away from drunken-driving cases and had their clients plead guilty, Haunstein would take even the blackest of drunken-driving cases to a jury.
Once, his client had a clutch of six ragged – looking tots and a sad – looking wife. "Are you going to separate him from his loved ones?" he asked as the children and wife sobbed. Of course, the jury didn't.
Another time just before Christmas, his only defense was that he had lost six drunken-driving cases in a row, and he couldn't face the holiday season with another loss. He didn't have to.
The officers had another client dead to rights in what Haunstein admitted was a "dark looking" case. Haunstein had the young man dressed neatly, had his mother, pastor and employer testify, and then asked the jury not to put a black mark on "this young man's life." It didn't.
He could rattle even the most certain officer or trooper and a favorite gimmick was to ask the officer if he had witnessed the accident. When the officer said no, he dismissed with a flare which told the jury that you couldn't have believed him anyway.
Another favorite device was to ask the state's witnesses to tell what happened – "if you know" – in such a tone that the witnesses could scarcely be believed.
Haunstein was tireless in his efforts to defend his clients. One was a young airmen from Vance Air Force Base who had clearly run through a stop sign and hit a truck owned by a large corporation. Haunstein used the American flag, the defense of the free world and the NATO alliance as he convinced the jury that it would be all right to find for the young man because the corporation could afford it anyway.
But, he had his losses, and one hurt him deeply. He was defending the colorful Crescent artist – welder, Jim Robison, the fall of 1965 in a murder trial which had become the talk of Enid.
Robison had been charged in April 1950 with the February beating death of Carl Goldsberry, Enid merchant, after Robison had been implicated in a bank robbery at Okarche when his getaway plane crashed near Guthrie. Robison was given 25 years on the bank robbery charge and was paroled in 1960.
He had taken up art while in prison and was becoming a promising artist when in 1965 he was asked to tour the art galleries of Europe. He applied for a presidential pardon and the old murder charge turned up.
Robison came to Enid and hired Haunstein to get himself put in jail on the charge. The state's case looked hopeless for 15 years had intervened, the murder weapon had disappeared, witnesses were dead and memories dimmed.
A jury however found Robison guilty and fixed his punishment at life. Many felt that Robison had convicted himself in his own testimony with conflicting stories about his military career and his later civilian life. He later received a new trial on appeal and the state dismissed the charge early this year.
How Stein's last major defense was one of his most difficult. He was court appointed to represent one of the defendants and a number of charges from two lover's lane gang rapes in the spring of 1957.
It was a sordid crime, one of the most vicious in the county's history. Hauntein offered no defense, but his closing argument was classic which drew a court room full of spectators. When he had finished, he said he might have saved the defendant a year. He had. The jury fixed his punishment at 99 years.
The appeals court in its review of the case said the testimony merited the electric chair and said but for his able counsel the defendant would have received it.
The rare accolade was a climax to a long and colorful career.
Hauntein was born on a farm 3 miles east and 3 1/2 south of Waukomis which his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Haunstein, had staked in the opening of the Cherokee Strip.
Except for service in the military and attending school at St. Louis University where he received his law degree in 1923, he had lived in Oklahoma all his life.
He was with the 18th U. S. Field Artillery, and the big guns of the war caused a hearing loss which opposing attorneys often carped that he put to advantage in the courtroom, hearing what he wanted to and ignoring the rest.
An ardent Democrat, Haunstein dabbled in politics running for judge or county attorney but losing in rock – ribbed Republican Garfield County. He once was elected judge, but the court was abolished before he could take office.
Hunting was Haunstein's hobby and though he had lost a limb he bagged his share of geese and ducks in his unique one arm stance.
He never missed goose season and more than one court case was set around the hunting days. "No, we can't set it that day, that's one of Paul's goose days," the judge would remark.
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