Frontier justice

For other uses, see Frontier justice (disambiguation).

Frontier justice is extrajudicial punishment that is motivated by the nonexistence of law and order or dissatisfaction with judicial punishment. ^[1] The phrase can also be used to describe a prejudiced judge. ^[2] Lynching, ^[1] vigilantism and gunfighting are considered forms of frontier justice. ^[3]

Examples

United States

• March 20 to April 15, 1882: Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday tracked and killed 4 cowboys said to be responsible for Morgan Earp's death, which would later become known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. ^[4]
• 1889: Ellen Watson was lynched in Wyoming as a cattle rustler.
• Late 1800s: A group of self-appointed lawmen called "stranglers" lynched around sixty horse rustlers and cattle rustlers along southwest North Dakota's Little Missouri River. ^[5]

Brazil

• April 1991: José Vicente Anunciação murdered a co-worker during a drunken knife-fight in Salvador, Bahia. Witnesses to the crime were not able to provide evidence in court. Anunciação was set free and then dragged from his bed at night by a mob of forty people who beat him to death with bricks and clubs. Previously, a mob of 1,500 people stormed and set fire to the Paraná prison where Valdecir Ferreira and Altair Gomes were being held for the murder of a taxi-cab driver. ^[6]

See also

• Citizen's arrest
• Divine retribution
• Gjakmarrja
• Hanging of Patrick O'Connor
• Jungle law
• Noble cause corruption
• Ochlocracy
• Range war
• Rough music
• Victim blaming
• Victimization
• Witch-hunt

References

1. Gonzales-Day, Ken (2006). Lynching in the West: 1850–1935. London: Duke University Press. ISBN   0822337940.
2. Bryant, Wilbur Franklin (1887). The Blood of Abel. Gazette-Journal Company. p.  100.
3. Mullins, Jesse (May 1994). "To Stand Your Ground". American Cowboy.
4. "Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Posse". History.net. Archived from the original on October 5, 2012. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
5. Kingseed, Wyatt (2002). "Teddy Roosevelt's Frontier Justice". American History . 36: 22–28.
6. "Brazil's frontier justice". The Economist . April 27, 1991.