Norris Free

Again Evangelist J. Frank Norris of Fort Worth, Tex., has been found not guilty of a criminal charge. Fourteen years ago he overcame prosecution for arson and then for perjury, after his Fort Worth Baptist church and parsonage had been burned. This time the charge was murder.

Last summer (TIME, July 26) one Dexter E. Chipps went to Evangelist Norris' study in the First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, to remonstrate against the evangelist's utterances upon Chipps' close friend, Mayor H. C. Meacham of Fort Worth. Politics, the Ku Klux Klan, Roman CatholicismP:all lay behind the diatribes that Evangelist Norris considered himself called upon to utter from his church rostrum. He had been threatened with death; he believed that angry Mr. Chipps had come to kill him; he, famed for his gunmanship, shot quickly, to be first. Later he learned, with regret, that Mr. Chipps was not armed that day.

Fort Worth was top excited a community for a fair trial of Evangelist Norris. So venue was changed to Austin, where the murder trial ended last week. The jury consisted of a onetime sheriff, merchants, clerks, farmers, laborers. None was known to be a Klansman or a Catholic. All were wary gentlemen, who heard Prosecutor William McLean sneer at Evangelist Norris as a "pistol-packing parson"; cry: "There has been a frame-up in this case. Norris had murder in his heart and wanted an excuse to kill Chipps, and said something to make him turn, and then pumped him full of bullets . . . the poor old drunkard."

Of Chipps, the jurors heard Defense Lawyer Dayton Moses declaim: "Thank God, in Texas you don't have to wait until you are shot down to protect your own life. Dr. Norris is a man of courage. He had the right to kill Chipps the minute he came into his office door, but he did not. He waited until Chipps came back, rushed at him to carry out the promise he [Chipps] had made to Mayor H. C. Meacham [of Fort Worth, who was not permitted to testify in this trial] to stop Norris or kill him. Poor Chipps was sent to his death that day by the Mayor of Fort Worth."

The jury went out to deliberate; the trial judge, James R. Hamilton, went home for a rest; Defendant Norris and his bodyguard took a walk over to his hotel. A long time would elapse, all thought, before the jury could untangle the splenetic arguments of the lawyers. Two hundred miles away in Fort Worth, Evangelist Norris' followers prayed industriously.

The jury deliberated briefly; reached their verdict; returned to the courtroom. Defendant Norris had come back. Mrs. Norris and their two boys--J. Frank Jr., 16, home from Culver Military Academy for the excitement, and George Louis, 10--huddled near him. Dexter E. Chipps Jr., 14, stared over at them. Bailiffs and deputy sheriffs stood in pompous readiness to shoot. "The punishment," said Judge Hamilton, "for anyone creating any disturbance or demonstration in this courtroom will be $100 or three days in jail." Then the jury foreman read off the verdict of not guilty.

Warily, with an eye to the judge, Freedman Norris approached his personal lawyer, Marvin Simpson, held out his arms. They embraced, kissed each other, cried. Bailiffs hustled the courtroom clear. Outside, the dead man's son was forlorn. . . . "I'm sorry for mother. It will hurt her."