Oklahoma became a state in 1907, but before that it was Indian Territory--the epitome of the Wild West. Justice was administered from a courtroom in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, by a judge named Isaac Parker. So many murderers were convicted and sentenced to death by hanging in his courtroom that he became known as "The Hanging Judge" and his court as "The Court of the Damned." "Suspects" were rounded up by a couple of dozen deputy marshals who traveled the territory on horseback, shot and asked questions later, and then dragged the bad guys back to jail in Ft. Smith, where a jury of their peers convicted them. Apparently, the deputy marshals who arrested them were the principal witnesses against them.

One of these deputies was Jim Cole,  my great-grandfather. I haven't spent much time researching his biography, but my mother has. I just found an interesting document (Edwin C. Bearss, Law Enforcement at Fort Smith, 1871-1896--http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/fosm/fosm.pdf ). I plan to read it tonight and hope to find some references to Jim Cole. I notice already that it includes a photograph of the deputy marshals standing in front of the courthouse (a copy of which I own): my great-grandfather is the paunchy man on horseback to the far right.

Jim Cole has gone down in history as the deputy who shot Frank Dalton in the back (although my mother disputes this). He received several gunshot wounds in return, but still managed to ride back to Ft. Smith afterwards. The saga of Dalton's demise is available at the National Park Service website for Ft. Smith: http://www.nps.gov/fosm/historyculture/frank-dalton-deputy-us-marshal.htm. (The National Park Service is an unsung hero of American history. If you haven't visited a National Park Service historical site under their guidance, you've missed a great experience.)

The Hanging Judge presided over jury trials, so technically the juries who ought to take some of the blame for the severity of the court. The National Park Service explains the process succinctly here: http://www.nps.gov/fosm/historyculture/criminal-case-procedure-in-judge-parker-court.htm .

I'm not as skeptical of the guilt of the accused in Parker's court as East Coast newspapers were at the turn of the century (it was the press that dubbed Isaac Parker the "Hanging Judge"). Living in Indian Territory was probably like living in the worst slums of a modern inner city. Gangs roamed with impunity. Everyone knew who was up to no good. The gangs were proud of what they did--they were like proto-revolutionaries. They were disenfranchised by the Civil War and blamed their own poverty on "Yankee" big business, especially the banks and railroads.

I also can't believe that current juries are more lenient than juries in the Ft. Smith courtroom. The conviction rate these days is pretty high, and the imposition of capital punishment when available also seems to be the norm. The only real differences that I can see was the speed with which the punishment was "executed," the fact of simultaneous executions, and that executions were public.