The Words of Judge Parker

During his lifetime career as a politician and judge, Isaac Parker was a prolific speaker and writer. His charges to juries were known to last up to two hours in length. As a federal judge of the late 19th century, Judge Parker's speeches reflect the social and legal thought at the time; certainly much of what Judge Parker said in his jury charges could be considered grounds for an appeal today.

The speeches contained here come from a variety of original sources, primarily historic newspapers, therefore they may not reflect exactly the words of the judge. However, only historic sources were used, in order to ensure the highest level of accuracy.

Explore the words of Judge Parker, and allow him to speak for himself.

Interviews

1875 Interview with Judge Parker

From: Saint Louis Daily Globe-Democrat, July 6, 1875 page 8

Judge I. C. Parker.

Affairs in Arkansas---Progress, Money and Crops.

United States District Court—Bad White Men----Projected Railroad, Etc.
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Hon. I. C. Parker, Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, arrived in the city yesterday on his way to St. Joseph, his former home, which has twice honored by an election to Congress, and where he is held in the kindliest remembrance by thousands of his friends, ambitious of his greater pre-eminence in the future. Judge Parker bears the same look of genial dignity that has ever characterized him, wears a head of silver gray hair, with perhaps more silver in it than formerly, and received with his usual urbanity a Globe-Democrat reporter, who called at the hotel to interview him yesterday afternoon.

Rep. 

Well, Judge, how do you find things in Arkansas?

Judge Parker

In reference to affairs in Arkansas, I can tell you some few things that will perhaps be of interest here. Political affairs just now are pretty quiet. People of all political parties have turned their attention to the development of the State and the production of crops. The crops are very fine, particularly the wheat crop. Both corn and cotton promise very well.

Rep.

How about money matters?

Judge Parker

In regard to financial matters, money is very scarce in the State; but when the new crop comes in it will be plenty; and Arkansas bids fair to receive a heavy immigration this coming year. The people are disposed to welcome immigrants to the State, and assist them. The climate of the State being good, the soil productive, and the country rich in minerals, the prospect for Arkansas, taken altogether, is very fine.

Rep.

Tell me something about the United States District Court over which you preside.

Judge Parker

The District Court for the Western District of Arkansas has jurisdiction over a part of the State of Arkansas, and over the whole of the Indian Territory. The principle business of the court is of a criminal nature. Very few criminal offenses come from the State of Arkansas, but they are principally from the Indian country. This being the only United States Court which exercises any jurisdiction over that country, offenders in offenses of all kinds committed there are brought to this court for trial. Affairs in the Indian country are ordinarily quiet, except among the Cherokees. Just now there is a great deal of excitement among the Cherokees over the approaching election of a Chief, which takes place in August. A great deal of bad blood is manifested by the members of the different parties, but it is possible that the election may come off without bloodshed. It is a matter of great difficulty to administer the law in the Western District of Arkansas, because of the great distances witnesses have to travel to get to court, and of the unwillingness of witnesses in many cases to appear and give evidence. Frequently they are under the apprehension that violence will be offered to them by the friends of those against whom they are called on to testify. It is a fact that should be set down to the credit of the Indians that that the great proportion of the criminals tried in my court at the last term were white men. The fact is that the murders and outrages that are committed in that country are committed principally by white desperadoes, refugees from justice from the States of Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, and the other States of the Union. It is true that this court has no jurisdiction over offenses committed by one Indian upon another. This may account for the small proportion of Indians who are brought to my court; yet, from the best information I can gain, the great proportion of crimes are committed by white men. This court is necessarily a very expensive one. Witnesses have to be brought sometimes a distance of four hundred miles, and when arrests are made, prisoners have to be transported that distance, and this involves great expense. I think the main object to be attained, however, is to make life and property secure in the Indian country, regardless of expense, and while it is the duty of every officer of the court to practice the most rigid economy, yet enough expense should be incurred to bring every violator of the law to justice.

Rep.

What do the people down there think about a transcontinental line of railroad along the thirty-fifth parallel?

Judge Parker

The people of Arkansas are very anxious that a railroad should be built along the thirty-fifth parallel. One thing that is the matter with the whole State is the want of railroad facilities. The people experience great difficulty in getting a fair market price for what they produce, because of the distance from any line of railroad which will transport their products to market. A railroad along the 35th parallel would open up a vast region of productive and fertile country, and would be highly beneficial to Arkansas and especially to St. Louis.

Rep.

How do the Indians feel about it?

Judge Parker

I think the Indians would be favorable to the building of any other lines than those that have been projected. These are what is called progressive and non-progressive Indians. The progressives are those under the lead of Colonel Boudinot and are in favor of opening up the country to white settlement. The others are opposed to it, and a great deal of feeling is manifested. A great part of the opposition is due to white refugees from justice, who have taken up with the Indians and married among them, and who are opposed on principle to having any decent people around. Their feelings are also shared by the wilder and more savage Indians. The better classes are in favor of white settlement, if it can be made upon equitable terms to them. However, this questions of railroads and the entire matter of white settlement are among the chief issues in the coming election, which is in that light of great importance to St. Louis and Missouri.

1896 Interview with Judge Parker

Ada Patterson was a female reporter for the St. Louis Republic, and was in Fort Smith to cover the end of the court's Indian Territory jurisdiction on September 1, 1896. This interview, done at the Parker Residence that day, provides some of the judge's most famous quotations.

It is important to note that the article contains some minor factual errors, most especially in regards to the men put to death on the gallows. The numbers are incorrect, as well as many of the names of the condemned.
 

Judge Isaac C. Parker
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AN INTERVIEW WITH THE DISTINGUISHED JURIST BY A ST. LOUIS CORRESPONDENT,
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Who Believes the Indian Territory Has Lost Its Best Friend.
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St. Louis Republic, 6th inst.

The scepter departed from a judicial Judah last Tuesday. With the relinquishment of Judge I.C. Parker's authority over the Indian Territory that torn and bleeding southland lost at once its best friend and its reputed foe.

Congress believed that it acted wisely when, on March 1, 1895, it passed a law providing that after September 1, 1896, the criminal jurisdiction of the United States Court at Fort Smith, Ark., over the Indian country should cease. It is a matter of grave doubt in many minds whether the national legislature did not make a grievous mistake in so doing. Multitudinous memorials and petitions representing that view were sent to congress during the last session, but the labor for the repeal of the law was lost, and the experiment of the administration of justice in the border country by local courts in under way. It was initiated in a portentious manner, the public celebration of the event in McAlester and other settlements of the so-called emancipated land.

"There be some talk of hangin' Judge Parker in effigy over that," said an irate Arkansan. "They'd better be careful or we'll go over and hang a few of them before breakfast." This man shared in the esteem in which the Judge, so much maligned and misunderstood abroad, is held in his home city.

He is the gentlest of men, this alleged sternest of judges. He is courtly of manner and kind of voice and face, the man who has passed the death sentence upon more criminals than has any other judge in the land. The features that have in them the horror of the Medusa to desperadoes are benevolent to all other human-kind.

THE MOST MISREPRESENTED OF MEN.

"I am the most misunderstood and misrepresented of men," said the Judge on the day of the passing of his scepter. "Misrepresented because misunderstood. But not withstanding that, we are proud of the record of the court at Fort Smith. We believe we have checked a flood of crime. We believe, too, that it was suicidal to remove the protection of a strong court from the Indian Territory."

He was supported by pillows on a bed that has been one of pain to him for two months when he talked to me of this passing of his power that day. Even in his pitiable physical weakness it was evident that it was a magnificent constitution with which disease had grappled and upon which she is trying her dreaded tactics of slow "wearing out." Judge Parker's frame is that of a powerful man, one who has rejoiced in a superabundance of vigor, a vitality evidenced in health by sunny spirits and a laugh that is infectious. He has a great breadth of shoulders and a noble chest development. Eight weeks of suffering have not greatly reduced the color that contrasts with his snowy hair and beard makes more pronounced. His blue eyes still have much of the fire of health. It is in the strong, nervous hands that the ravages of illness are shown the most.

"I have not been sick for forty-five years," he told me, and said the physician had told him this visitation of weakness was the result of overwork. "Dropsy and an affection of the heart" is the way the good-natured town gossips describe it.

Judge Parker was born in Belmont county, Ohio, in 1838. In 1859 he came to Missouri and engaged in the practice of law in St. Joseph. The following year he was elected city attorney and in 1864 was chosen as prosecuting attorney of that district. He was president of the first Stephen A. Douglas club organized in this State, but at the opening of the war espoused Republican principles. He was elected a presidential elector in 1864 and assisted in casting the vote of the State for Lincoln. In 1868 he was made Judge of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit of Missouri and in 1870 was elected to congress from the St. Joseph District. He was re-elected to that office in 1872 and during his second term was appointed a member of the Committee on Territories, of which James A. Garfield was chairman. This committee graduated a President of the United States; a Vice-President, William Wheeler; a Postmaster-General, Hale of Maine, who declined that appointment under Grant; Mr. Tyner, who accepted that appointment, and a United States Judge, the man who has made himself loved by the law-abiding and hated by the law-breaking class by his valiant stand for law and order in the ruffian-infested Territory. In 1875 Judge Parker was appointed Chief Justice of Utah and it is probable that his forceful personality would have made a deep impression upon the peculiar passing conditions of the territory beyond the Rockies. But two weeks afterwards President Grant withdrew this appointment and, and at the instance of Senators Dorsey and Clayton, ended the fierce Brooks-Baxter war that made the country side along Arkansas the abode of terror by establishing the strange precedent of appointing a Judge from another State, and his appointee, Kinman of Massachusetts, failing of confirmation by the senate, choosing Judge Parker for that difficult post. It was in May 1875 that he assumed charge of the court that had just been removed from Van Buren to Fort Smith. The man who wielded the chief judicial power of Western Arkansas and the region extending to Colorado was the youngest judge on the bench.

"I did not expect to stay here more than a year or two when I came," said the Judge. "The President had said to me, 'Stay a year or so and get things started,' but I am still here, as you see."

ABOLISH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT - PROVIDED.

"Yes, and it was the greatest mistake of your life," said Mrs. Parker, a dark-eyed, gray-haired matron, still handsome, if no longer young. She leaned above the pillows and waved a palm leaf fan. "It has broken you down," she said to him tenderly, and then to me, "He is only fifty-eight, but he looks like a very old man."

"No, Mary, not a mistake, for we have been enabled to arrest the floodtide of crime here, as we would not have had an opportunity to do elsewhere," said the Judge.

"Under ordinary circumstances I don't believe in capital punishment," said Mrs. Parker, sinking into the big rocking chair and ceasing her loving labor of wielding the fan while she adjusted the rebellious folds of her pretty white wrapper. "The first novel I ever read was Eugene Aram, and that convinced me that as a rule capital punishment is wrong, but my husband has had to deal with extra-ordinary cases and conditions."

Judge Parker turned restively upon his pillows and made a remarkable statement for one who had condemned well-nigh two hundred men to the gallows.

"I favor the abolition of capital punishment, too," and smilingly noting the effect of this surprisingly noting the effect of this surprising statement upon his listeners he continued, "provided, (there was remarkable stress upon the word provided) that there is a certainty of punishment, whatever that punishment may be. In the uncertainty of punishment following crime lies the weakness of our 'halting crime.'"

He grew wonderfully earnest as he talked, and one could see that the ruling passion of his life held sway. He sat erect, spurning the pillows upon which he had lately leaned. His color grew deeper and his kind, blue eyes grew darker and sterner.

THE BENCH INDIFFERENT AND CARELESS.

"The trouble is with the bench," he said, "and behind it a maudlin sentimentality that forgets and condones a crime upon which the blood stains have dried. The bench is indifferent and careless. The avarice, which is the curse of this age, has so poisoned the people that civil law for the protection of property concerns it more than the criminal law which protects life. 'Which is of greater value, your house or your life!' asks the bench, and the people by their attitude in specific instances answers: 'My house.' Small wonder that the bench comes to take the same view and adjudges accordingly.

"The fault does not lie with juries. The persons who constitute them are usually honest men. We have had as fine juries at Fort Smith as could be found in the land. They have never failed me. Juried are willing to do their duty, but they must be led. They must know that the judge wants the enforcement of the law."

I NEVER HUNG A MAN.

"People have said to me 'You are the judge who has hung so many men,' and I always answer: 'It is not I who has hung them. I never hung a man. It is the law.'

"The good ladies who carry flowers and jellies to criminals mean well. There is no doubt of that. But what mistaken goodness! Back of the sentimentality are the motives of sincere pity and charity, sadly misdirected. They see the convict alone, perhaps chained in his cell. They forget the crime he perpetrated and the family he made husbandless and fatherless by his assassin work."

The vehemence of his speech had exhausted the Judge. He sank back upon his pillows and closed his eyes.

A sweet-faced old lady came in at that moment. "My daughter, Susie, sent you these," she said, laying some yellow blossoms on the table, where stood a bowl of red and white roses and sweet geranium leaves and about which were massed other bright-hued flowers, all the gifts of loving hands and hearts. "Bless the child!" said the Judge, with the smile that made his face as pleasing as a lovely woman's. The visitor chatted a moment about the weather, deplored the fact that there had been no rain since May 17 and that the roses were blighted somewhat, water them as they might, was glad to see that the Judge was improving and hurried away.

Judge Parker sat up again, but this time he did not disdain the friendly support of the pillows.

"Crime is fearfully upon the increase," he said. "Do you know that in the past five years 43,900 persons, more than there are in the regular army, have been murdered in this country? Parallel with these have been 723 legal executions and 1,118 lynchings. Think of an average of 7,317 murders a year. Last year, 10,500 persons were killed. That is at the rate of 875 a month, while five years ago there were but 4,200. There is a doubling of the murder rate in five years."

These were appalling statements, but the Judge repeated them with the familiarity with which he would greet an acquaintance.

"This fearful condition does not exist because laws are defective. We have the most magnificent legal system in the world. The bench is not alive to its responsibilities. Courts of justice look to the shadow in the shape of technicalities instead of the substance in the form of crime. Everyone knows, too, that corrupt methods are used to defeat the administration of law.

"This is a dangerous condition. The government cannot survive a demoralized people, swayed and dominated by the man of crime. We must have a remedy. Thinking persons are realizing this, but they are wrongfully looking toward the abolition of the jury system as a relief from these evils. I believe this is wrong. Not a jot or tittle of the dignity of the right of trial by jury should be abated. I told you that juries should be led. They have a right to expect that, and if guided they will render that justice that is the greatest pillar of society."

WOULD REMODEL APPELLATE COURTS.

"I told you I had been misrepresented. The press has put me in the attitude of opposing the courts of appeals. I would remodel them, but I would not dream of destroying them. I would like to see organized in the States and in the nation courts of criminal appeals, made up of judges learned in criminal law and desirous of its speedy enforcement. To these courts I would like to see sent full records of the trials and would have the case passed upon according to its merits as soon as possible. I would have brushed aside all technicalities that do not affect the guilt or innocence of the accused. I would that the law would provide against the reversal of cases unless innocence was manifest. The establishment of such courts would restore the public confidence in the law and its administrators. The party convicted should of course have the right of having his case reviewed upon writ of error, but it should be passed upon according to its merits."

Have you noticed what a metamorphosis a man undergoes when he is talking of that which has a more absorbing interest than anything else in life, more especially if this be an idea? He may talk with a modicum of enthusiasm about his wife, his family or his sweetheart, but they are, in a way, known quantities, and are in reserve, but when he is wedded to that elusive, intangible thing, an idea, and to that extent most men are bigamists, how he glows and flashes and beams with fervor! When he talks of that sacred something he is like one inspired, and, if scoffers do pronounce that something a hobby or a hallucination, he is none the less touched by the divine fire of eloquence when he talks of it. Fortunate is the man whose inspirer of his deepest interest is a dignified aim. Such a man is Judge Parker, and when he had outlined this plan of his one could but be in a glow of admiration for the man and the measure.

"You are two [sic] tired to talk more now, Mr. Parker," said his wife, but he had much more to say, and his eager interest gave him an artificial strength. He toyed unconsciously with the bedspread, and his face was alight with energy as he went on.

"People have said that I am cruel," he said, "but they do not understand how I am situated.

DEMONS IN HUMAN FORM.

"The Territory was set apart for the Indians in 1828. The government at that time promised them protection. That promise has always been ignored. The only protection that has been afforded them is through the courts. To us who have been located on this borderland has fallen the task of acting as protectors. The Territory has always been infested by a class of the refuse of humanity to whom I have given the name of 'criminal intruders.' They are refugees from justice from the States and have left behind them often more tangible records than the mere reputation for vice. They have perpetrated several murders, perhaps, and then come to the new country with a tigerish appetite for blood, whetted by their previous experience. Often they come from a race of criminals, and it is with their foul heredity, as well as their thirst acquired for crime, we have to contend. For many years it was with the ruffians of this immense tract of 74,000 square miles, extending to the Colorado line, I had to cope. Criminals were brought to Fort Smith, where they could be tried by a disinterested jury, which the conditions made impossible in the Territory. They were brutes, or demons rather in human form. Their crimes were deliberately planned and fiendishly executed. Robbery was the chief incentive, and the victims were usually men with whom the murderers traveled on long, lonely rides across the plains.

"Cruel they have said I am, but they forget the utterly hardened character of the men I dealt with. They forget that in my court jurisdiction alone sixty-five deputy marshals were murdered in the discharge of their duty. Wilson, who was connected with the Starr gang, was one of the men whom I sentenced to death. It did not appear to me to be an act of cruelty to sentence that fellow to hang by the neck until he was dead.

"My first term was a portent of what was to follow. Eighteen murder cases came before me for trial. Thirteen were convicted. One of the men I sentenced to death was a half-breed named Sam Foy [sic]. He had murdered and robbed a character known in that region as 'The Barefooted School Teacher.' The young school teacher had been seen to handle a roll of bills, and Foy [sic] shot him and obtained possession of them. He hid the body of the victim in the mountains, and no trace of the young man was discovered till years afterward, when an Indian boy found the skeleton in a secluded spot. There was a fly-leaf of a teacher's manual among the bleaching bones, and on this, strange to say, was still legible the name of the murdered youth.

"Another of those early cases was that of a young physician and his wife from Chattanooga, who began their married life in a little home in the Arbuckle Mountains. Two negroes, who haunted the neighborhood, waylaid the doctor and tied him to a tree, leaving him there to starve. They went to the little home among the fir trees where the young wife was anxiously awaiting the return of her husband, and told her that he had fallen from a boulder high up among the mountains and had broken a leg. They would guide her to him. She went with them and went to her death, for they killed her and threw her into an old well sixty feet deep. Months afterward a searching party found the poor girl's burial place, their attention being attracted by a piece of her dress which had caught upon the rocks in her fall. Her skeleton was found in what had become a den of rattlesnakes. It was a strange chain of circumstances which led to the conviction of one of the murderers. One of them had boasted to his brothers of the double crime and they kept the secret until the fellow was murdered by his partner in the fearful crime. The brothers captured Bully Johnson, the remaining criminal, and he was brought to justice.

"A desperado who murdered a camper and followed the murdered man's little son into the brushwood and killed him even while the little fellow was begging for mercy was one of the men whom I sentenced to death. The half-breed brute told the story himself. 'I killed big white and little white man," he said.

"John Pointer was another. He killed two fellows who had left Eureka Springs with him for a wagon trip across the Territory. With an ax he clove the head of one while he was mixing a pan of dough and the other, who was a lame boy, he struck down in the woods, whither he had pursued him."

INDIAN RACE NOT CRIMINAL.

The sick man was pale and exhausted when the earnest recital came to an end. His wife bent above him and plied the fan steadily and soothingly.

"It is this class of men that has come before him," said she; "What could be done?"

"Nothing less than the Judge has done," I answered.

"Don't understand that what I say about these ruffians is directed against the Indians," Judge Parker said, after a little. "Twenty-one years' experience with them has taught me that they are a religiously inclined, law-abiding, authority-respecting people. The Indian Race is not one of criminals. There have been sporadic cases of crime among them, it is true, but as a people they are good citizens.

"A right administration of justice means the abolition of mob violence, which is the result of neglect by judge or jury. During my twenty-one years there have been but three mobs in my jurisdiction, If people expect justice they prefer that the court should mete it. A man arrested the murderer of his son and brought him four hundred miles to me for trial."

DIFFERENCES WITH THE SUPREME COURT.

Judge Parker smiled when the conversation turned upon his differences with the United States supreme court. "The justices are men from the civil walks," he said, "and it is not surprising that they are liable to err in criminal cases Our chief point of difference was in the case of a man whom I denied bail, and whom the supreme court maintained should be granted bail. Upon my refusal the court declared its intention to issue a writ of mandamus compelling me to give him his temporary liberty. It never did, however. My chief controversy was with the department of justice last winter. That was a stormy one. My letters on the subject were published in The Republic.

"People have generalized in regard to my administration. They have called me a heartless man, a blood-thirsty man, but no one has pointed to a specific case of undue severity. They are given to saying, 'Judge Parker is too rigid,' but they do not point to any one case and say, 'He was too severe in this,' or 'He should have been more lenient in that.'

"I have ever had the single aim of justice in view. No judge who is influenced by any other consideration is fit for the bench. 'Do equal and exact justice,' is my motto, and I have often said to the grand jury, 'Permit no innocent man to be punished, but let no guilty man escape.'"

THE GOVERNMENT'S FEARFUL BLUNDER.

"The government has committed a fearful blunder in depriving the Indian Territory of the moral force of a strong federal court, where disinterested juried remote from the scene of the crime can be secured.."

The Judge has said all he cared to upon the subject so near his heart. He dismissed it with a gracious wave of the hand, and passed from one subject to another, touching each with the ease and charm of a finished conversationalist.

He thinks the disposition of certain judges to engage actively in politics is reprehensible. "In my twenty-one years of judgeship, I attended but one political meeting, and that was when we drifted into a Democratic street meeting," he said. "I have another motto for my court, 'No politics shall enter here.' I resigned judicial position when I became a candidate for congress."

HANNA AND JONES PLAY CRACK LOO.

Referring to the political situation, Judge Parker remarked, dryly, that it reminded him of "a game of crack loo with Jones throwing silver and Hanna gold dollars."

When I bade him good-by, this still vigorous invalid, the judge whose warm heart is controlled by his keen mental vision and unerring sense of justice, he said: "Don't think me too much of a pessimist. I believe better times are coming. The fact that men like Taylor and Duestrow of Missouri and Durrant of San Francisco are being convicted is a good omen."

I tarried a little in the large, cool parlor down stairs before taking my leave. Some neighbors had called to make inquiries about the Judge's welfare, and they lingered to exchange a pleasant word or two with the mistress of the hospitable home. Their son, James, a handsome youth who will leave shortly for his second year at Ann Arbor, stood on the veranda and a patriarchal Newfoundland dog and another that looked as though one of its remote ancestors might have been a setter frolicked about him in clumsy fashion.

The house that has been the home of this just judge and his family for the past fifteen years is a large brick structure with a curiously homelike look about it and is in the heart of a six-lot tract that, while not unkempt, has enough irregularities in its surface and enough variety in shrubbery and trees to make it picturesque in the extreme. There is a mellowed look about everything within and without the house to show that every object has the added charm of association. Charles C. Parker, the older son, is engaged in the practice of law in this city and when he leaves his duties for a few days at the old homestead the family circle if four is complete. Mrs. Parker's maiden name was O'Toole. She comes of a Kentucky family. Her brother, Captain William O'Toole, formerly of the Regular Army, is the Registrar of the Land Office at Seattle. She is related, on the maternal side, to the Hickman family of Columbia, Mo.

HIS WAS A PERPETUAL COURT.

Judge Parker's life at Fort Smith has been a busy one. He has presided over what was practically a perpetual court, for its vacations are hardly more than nominal. The sessions lasted "from 8 a.m. till dark," as an old citizen of Fort Smith assured me.

The official records from 1875 to March, 1895, show that 13,490 criminal cases have been listed on the docket. Of this number 9,454 persons, or about 70 per cent, of those tried, were either convicted by a jury or entered pleas of guilty. There were 344 of these criminals tried for capital offenses and 151 convicted. Of those convicted 76 had been executed, one was killed while attempting to escape, four have died in jail, two were pardoned and the sentences of the remaining 68 were commuted by the President to terms of imprisonment ranging from 10 years to a lifetime.

It was a gruesome array of criminals that passed before Judge Parker in a horrid phantom of more than two decades. Among those who paid the death penalty were David Evans, John Whittington, Edmund Campbell, James Moore, Smoker Mankiller, Samuel Foy, Aaron Wilson, Isham Seeley, Gibson Ishtonbee, Office McGee, Osey Sanders, William Leach, John Nalley, Sinker Wilson, Samuel Peters, John Postoak, James Diggs, William Elliott, Henry Stewart, Geo. W. Padgett, William Brown, Patrick McGowan, Amos Manley, Abler Manley, Edward Folsom, Robert Massey, Wm. H. Finch, Tualisto, Martin Joseph, Thos. L. Thompson, John Davis, Jack Womankiller, James Arcine, William Parchmeal, Joseph Jackson, James Wasson, Calvin James, Kit Ross, Lincoln Sprole, James Lamb, Albert Odell, John T. Echols, Patrick McCarty, John Stephens, Silas Hampton, Seaborn Kalijah, George Moss, Jack Crow, Own D. Hill, Gus Bogle, Richard Smith, Henry W. Miller, James Mills, Malachi Allen, Wm. Walker, Jack Spaniard, George Tobler, Harris Austin, John Billy, Thos. Willes, Sam Goins, Jimmison Burris, Jefferson Jones, John Stansberry, Bood Crumpton, Shepard Busby, John Pointer, Lewis Holder and Crawford Goldsby, alias Cherokee Bill.

Frank Butler, who was under sentence of death, was killed while trying to escape, and Jackson Marshal, William Hamilton, Kyman Hamilton, and Gibson Partridge died in jail.

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As reported in the Fort Smith Elevator, September 18, 1896.

Speeches and Letters

Centennial Oration July 4, 1876

Just over a year after Isaac Parker took the bench in Fort Smith as federal judge, he was the keynote speaker at the city of Fort Smith's commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Unabashedly patriotic, this speech varies greatly from the majority of speeches given by the Judge within the domain of the court. The president referred to at the beginning of the speech was the person who organized the centennial activities in Fort Smith.

Delivered at the Centennial Celebration, at Fort Smith, Arkansas, July 4th, 1876.
 

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. - It was just about this hour one hundred years ago that the Fathers proclaimed the Declaration of American Freedom. What a grand sight it is to see forty millions of people shouting at this hour, All hail, mighty day! All hail to the sister States as they stand with joined hands around our country's altar, placing thereon the oblations of their faith in the government of our common country. Let us, one and all, say forever, all hail, United States of America!
 

Need I tell you that when yonder sun sinks to rest behind the golden ribbed mountains of our Pacific coast there will have closed the grandest cycle of years in the history of the world? Need I remind you that the experiment in behalf of the rights of man of one hundred years ago is to-day, by the whole world, recognized as the greatest achievement of history? That the work of the fathers in bringing into existence a great government, and the work of their children in preserving and perpetuating the principles of right, upon which the same is founded is now by the whole world eulogized in the unmatched eloquence of a grand achievement. Why, at this very hour the poet and the painter, the mechanic and the artisan of the civilized world have placed at the very base of the altar of liberty the fruits of their genius and the productions of their skill as peace-offerings, in recognition of the full fruition of the hopes of those who were the founders of the Republic. To-day the sovereign and the subject, the lord and the peasant of the old world stand beneath the very roof tree of the temple of liberty, and recognize the principle of American freedom and American equality. As to those whose deeds we this day celebrate, whose achievements we here and now commemorate, the world will little note, nor long remember the feeble utterances we this day may make in their praise, but their fame will be as enduring as the great principles they exemplified by their deeds, and by their efforts brought into active existence. Everything in science, art, and nature will be ever tributary to their expanding renown.
 

"The winds shall murmur of their names,
The woods be peopled with their fame;
The meanest rill, the mightiest river,
Roll mingling with their fame forever."
 

We read that after the children of Israel had escaped from the most galling bondage in Egypt, and after the Lord of hosts had triumphed gloriously over those who despised the sentiment "that all men are created free and equal," and the horse and rider had been thrown into the sea, and after right had prevailed over might in the very morning of the world, and those who had escaped from the thralldom of the Egyptian task-masters had sung their songs of joy on the banks of their deliverance, the great law-giver Moses received from the Deity, not only that higher law upon which is based the Christian's faith, but also that higher law upon which all civilized nations have directly, or indirectly recognized as the one by which the world can be governed. It was then that the command which I have read to you, came pure and spotless from the mouth of God and awful thunders of Sinai, commanding him to "hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land, and unto all the inhabitants thereof."
 

We in this age of the world fully recognize the fact that the principle of this command has its seat and center in the mind of the Deity, and its mission is the harmony of the universe, and because it became known of men as being the will of God, you and I, together with the people of this whole land, in obedience to what has become a time honored custom, not only here, but wherever floats the flag of the free, and also in obedience to a sense of patriotic duty, quit the field and the anvil, the workshop and the counter, the busy marts of commerce and the flaming forge, the noise and bustle and heat of the city, as well as the quiet of the country home, to assemble around the altars of American liberty, and place thereon the oblations of our faith in "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people," pledging our troth anew to those eternal rights of man proclaimed by the fathers, when they one hundred years ago to-day hurled in the very face of despotism the immortal declaration.
 

He who does not recognize the finger of God in this work, must most certainly be forgetful of the fact that he alone holds in the hollow of his hand the destiny of nations; marking out and controlling that destiny with the same unerring certainty with which the Star of Bethlehem guided the wise men of the East to the lowly cradle of Him who became as man, that the children might be free.
 

It can truly be said that it is well for us, upon the annual return of this, our National Anniversary, to hang our banner on the outer wall, to forget all political differences for the time being; sink the partisan in the patriot, and join hands around our country's altar. Here we can ponder over the trials and sacrifices endured by the officers and soldiers of the Continental army who achieved our Independence. We can reflect over the terrible dangers which were incurred by the brave, and good men who framed and adopted the Declaration of Independence which brought forth upon this Continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the idea that all men are created equal.
 

Since the treaty of peace between the Colonies and England, the limits of the Republic have been enlarged and fixed by the treaties of cession in 1803 with Napoleon, as first Consul of the French Republic; that of 1819 with Spain; by the admission in 1846 of Texas; by the treaty of limits of that year with Great Britain, fixing the dividing line between the Territory of Oregon and the British Possessions; by the treaties of 1848 and 1853, with Mexico, and the treaty of 1857 with Alexander II, the Emperor of all of the Russias. By these treaties of cession the area of the United States of America has been increased to eight times its original extent, covering nearly 4,000,000 of square miles of territory.
 

The watchword of the people of the older States, and of the old world was,
 

"To the west, to the west, the land of the free,
Where our mighty rivers roll down to the sea;
Where a man is a man, if but willing to toil,
Where he is a freeman, if willing to gather the fruits of the soil."
 

No era of the history of the world presents such evidences of the march of empire; of the material development of a country, and the intellectual, social and moral advancement of its people, as does ours. Truly we have a history that is the very miracle of history. Into our young life, one hundred years long, are crowded a constellation of epochs enough to make resplendent with glory whole centuries of common years. From thirteen States represented by thirteen stars upon our banner, we have increased until the constellation representing the grand sisterhood of States covers the whole of the Heaven-lit blue of that flag. The colonies were weak, and they were looked upon with contempt by the despotism of Europe.
In the success of our fathers, they saw the success of the people, and they knew right well that that success meant their ultimate downfall. But how the scene has changed; there is not a power on earth that does not to-day court the favor of the Government of the United States. We are now known and honored throughout the world. There was a time in the history of Rome, when to say "I am a Roman citizen," insured personal liberty and protection throughout the then civilized world; but he who can now say "I am an American citizen," finds in that sentence a magic power which will protect him all around the globe. Truly we can now say,
 

"Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With freedom's soil beneath our feet and freedom's banner
streaming o'er us."
 

It is useless for me to dwell upon our progress as a nation, because it is written upon every page of our history; it is manifest in everything we see around us. The confines of civilization has step by step moved westward, crossing great rivers and vast prairies and plains, and dense forests, and ascending mighty mountains until it planted the church and school-house, the warp and woof of our American Union, upon the golden sands of the Pacific slope, and sent our messengers of commerce, spreading their white wings on old ocean's bosom bearing our civilization far away to Asia, telling the people of that land that there is a land beyond the sea, where every man is free.

Fifty years ago there was not a railroad in the United States. Now we have more than seventy thousand miles. Now these arteries of commerce penetrate the whole body of the nation, binding it together more closely with bands of iron. Thirty-three years ago, there was not a telegraph line in the United States. But the little thread of wire placed as a timid experiment between Washington City and Baltimore grew and lengthened and multiplied with almost the rapidity of the electric current that darted along its iron nerves, until within our lifetime, continent has been bound unto continent, hemisphere answers through ocean's depths unto hemisphere. Yea, since that time we have spanned old ocean and girdled the whole earth with the tamed lightnings of heaven, thus bringing all nations together, and more directly under the influence of that power which is the grand seat of liberty, the United States of America, and teaching all nations that sentiment in which we believe, which was contained in the declaration thundered forth from amidst Mar's hill by Paul, when he said, "of one blood are all nations created to dwell on the face of the earth forever." Great cities have sprung up everywhere over this bright and beautiful land. Prosperous villages are now dotted over it like the stars in the heavens. Its valleys and mountain slopes are covered with the homes of freemen. Now
 

"Toil swings the ax, and forests bow,
The fields break out in radiant bloom.
Rich harvests smile behind the plow,
And cities cluster round the loom."
 

We have had our troubles as a nation. Our domestic war passed over this fair land, leaving its mark on each brow, its shadow in each household. But, thank God, that is over now. Sweet peace blesses the whole land, and slavery, the cause of the war, is no more a part of the system. Whatever may have been our opinions in the past, we all breathe free and rejoice that it is gone. Yes, we now, one and all, gladly shout forth the grand sentiment, "there treads not a slave on the soil of free America." We could not help it. It came to us as one of the defects of our system. Now, every man, woman and child is raised to the dignity of an American freeman, and we all, from the Kennebec to the Rio Grande, from the Santee to the far off Oregon rejoice that it is so. Yes, we rejoice that yonder banner, from the time that it greets the morning sunlight until it kisses the last rays of the setting sun, protects all alike; that it is the symbol of liberty, the shield and protection of American citizenship. That bright, triumphant banner of liberty now floats proudly over every foot of American soil.
 

The perpetuity of our institutions, if we are true to our ancestry, to ourselves and to posterity, is forever established. Our great rivers, in all their long, majestic course to the sea, will pass through but one country. Our ocean bounds will be but the boundaries of one nation. We are truly one people, one nation, with one government, one system of laws, one and the same country, bound together by a common interest, a common ancestry, and united, as I trust we are to be, when the scars of the war shall have entirely healed, by the silver cords of love and affection for each other. We worship the same God, according to the dictated of our own conscience. We ought to be seeking the one common end - the happiness of our people, and the greatness and glory of our land. The down-trodden of every race have an interest in us. The oppressed of Ireland look upon our flag as they see it streaming from the masthead of some merchantman in their harbors across the sea, and sigh for a home in the bright land of hope that sends forth that banner. The oppressed of England, looking upon it, remember the pilgrim fathers flying from English tyranny to plant that banner beyond blue ocean's wintry waves, and wish the liberty that banner guarantees may be theirs too. The Italian refugee hails it in a foreign port, and breathes a prayer that the flag of Italy may sometime Insure to Italians that liberty which the flag of America guarantees to Americans.
 

The liberty-loving German, loving liberty for himself, and all the world besides, now points to our banner as the fulfilment of his prophecy, that those who fight for liberty will win the battle. The poor Frenchman, when he looks around him and beholds the ruin and desolation of his fair vine-clad France, ruined by that despotism which has hurled its course upon the people from a French throne, remembers Lafayette, looks upon our banner and hopes his France will yet be free. The lovers of liberty in Spain point to our banner, and shout for a government like ours.
 

And the people of Canada, and of Cuba - the queen of the Antilles, standing away out among the dashing waves of the Atlantic, and San Domingo and all the Islands on the American Continent, are even now wishing for the time when they can call our flag their own. And who shall hinder them? Who shall stand in the way of the march of our manifest destiny? Who shall be so unreasonable as to say to these countries and these islands which are even now trembling within the grasps of monarchs or being crushed out by the heel of despotism, you shall not become a part of us? I trust none.
 

One hundred long years have passed since the war of independence in this land waged for the rights of freemen, burst upon the country, and that one hundred years are crowded full of the most glorious memories of a national life, and the most touching, sweetest and saddest memories that our hearts cherish. The patriot fathers are gathered to their long homes. We kneel by their graves and utter a prayer for their spirits fled. We honor their deeds; we worship their memories. We plant above their graves the willow and the laurel, and we feel that blood like this
 

"For liberty shed so holy is
It would not stain the purest rill
That sparkles among the bowers of bliss.
Oh! If there be on this earthly sphere
A boon, an offering Heaven holds dear,
'Tis the last libation liberty draws
From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause."
 

We as citizens of this Republic must not forget that we have duties to perform - solemn, high, imperative duties. We must bear in mind that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. We must remain as faithful sentinels on the watchtower of freedom, guarding well the portals of liberty, ever bearing in mind that
 

"Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won."
 

Soon, very soon, we of this generation will be gathered to the graves of our fathers. Why, there is not one of us here to-day who in the course of nature will be here one hundred years hence. The voices that now shout the praises of those whop gave us this noble heritage will be stilled in death. The hearts that beat with pulsations of pride and patriotic emotion, will be silent forever. Let us, while we are here, do our duty as well as those in the past did theirs. Let us keep manned with a brave and patriotic crew the ship of State, so that when we shall turn it over to another crew there will not be a plank, a sail, a rope, or spar out of place, and the grand old pennon of liberty will be streaming full high at the masthead. That the generations to come after us as they see her moored in the haven of safety, freighted with the dearest rights of man, will greet her with
 

"We know what master laid thy keel,
What workman wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast and sail and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge, in what a heat,
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope."
 

There are even yet dangers which beset our national pathway. They can only be avoided by a correct and faithful performance of our duty; by vigilant and watchful care on the part of all good citizens. Then let us retire from the celebration of this, our one hundredth national birthday with renewed faith in our institutions; with still stronger convictions in favor of the capacity of man for self-government, with a firm determination, and a high and noble resolve on our part that let come what will, that we will ever remain faithful guardians of institutions and laws which protect all alike; which secure liberty to all, no matter whether it be the opulent and powerful, or the poor and lowly. That the mailed hand of power, wielded by the whole American people, will ever protect the government of our common country, and preserve for all coming time our free institutions.
 

Let us resolve to hasten that day when the nations "shall learn war no more;" when the battle flags shall be furled; when the sword shall beaten into the scythe, and the cannon shall become the plowshare; when the universal brotherhood of man shall be proclaimed and recognized everywhere; when peace on earth and goodwill to men shall be the watchword among the nations; when
 

"All crime shall cease and ancient fraud shall fail,
Returning justice lift aloft her scale,
Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white robed innocence from heaven descend."
 

Then let us, as good citizens and patriots, so perform our part, that when we have passed from the stage of action, and the mystic chord of memory shall bring the minds of our posterity back to this period, and to the time when our fathers laid broad and deep the foundations of our free institutions, they can say that we preserved and transmitted to them untarnished and uncorrupted what the fathers gave to us, so that they can with the same emotion, the same truth, the same patriotic pride, and the same devotion say, as we can this day before high Heaven exclaim,
 

Great God, we thank Thee for this home-
This bounteous birth-land of the free;
Where wanderers from afar may come
And breathe the air of liberty.
Still may her flowers untrammeled spring,
Her harvest wave, her cities rise;
And yet, till time shall fold his wing,
Remain earth's loveliest paradise.
 

Originally published in: Saunders, Frederick; editor. Our National Centennial Jubilee: Orations, addresses and poems delivered on the Fourth of July, 1876. In the Several States of the Union. New York: E.B. Treat, 1877. Pages 757-764.

Letter to Attorney General Garland, 1885 (Little Rock Penitentiary)

This letter to Attorney General Agustus Garland details Judge Parker's views on the purpose and ideals of the justice system. The letter also provides a glimpse into the bureaucratic process that the judge was a part of, and some of his opinions expressed here run counter to the 'hanging judge' stereotype.
 

Fort Smith, Ark., MAY 27, 1885.

Hon. A.H. Garland,
Atty. General,

Sir: I have received your letter of Apr. 20, with inclosures relating to sending convicts from my court to the penitentiary at Little Rock, as well as yours of the 19th inst. Bearing on the same subject.
 

I should have answered your letter of the 20th sooner, but pressing business in court caused me to lay it aside. Be assured that my delay is caused by no disrespect to you.
 

I regard the subject of your letter as one of the first importance, because it is one in which is involved the public good, to some extent at least, as well as the great principle of humanity, that by the mandate of duty we must observe toward even the meanest of God's creatures. The whole system of punishment is based on the idea of reform, or it is worse than nothing. More than this, if there is no reform in it it becomes criminal. Courts and governments can view it in no other light.
 

Now, you will permit me to say that having to sentence so many men to imprisonment I, several years ago, quietly but quite thoroughly investigated the different places of imprisonment throughout the country, and to my regret I find that the idea of reform has but little to do with the manner of conducting the most of them. They are run on the purely speculative principle of getting the most dollars and cents out of the transaction by those who conduct them -- be they the States or lessees under the States.
 

In all my investigation I have found but 2 PRISONS in the whole West and South that I regard as fit places to send prisoners to, one at Chester, Illinois, the other (and the best one by all odds,) the House of Correction at Detroit. The Government cannot afford in its consideration of the place of punishment of its prisoners to consider alone the cost of the same. This must not be the primary consideration. First, must be considered the good of the men sentenced, for in this way only, can be cured the diseased member of society.
 

I have, in the last ten years, sentenced to prison hundreds of men, and when I looked in the faces of these men, the impression filled my mind that not one of them, no matter how depraved had entirely lost that better part of human nature which makes a man a good citizen, and a faint spark of which lingers in the nature of the worst and most depraved convict who ever paid the penalty of the law for his crime.

The object of punishment is to revive, that in some cases almost extinct spark; to lift the man up; to stamp out his bad nature and wicked disposition, that his better and God-given traits may assert themselves, and so govern and direct him that he becomes a good citizen, of use to himself and his fellow men. This cannot be done at prisons conducted upon the principle of the one at Little Rock. The government should have its own prisons and be directly responsible for the treatment of its prisoners, but as it does not have them, at every cost it should ascertain the very best State and local institutions of this kind and send its prisoners there, no matter where the prison may be.
 

It is not a matter of State pride or local benefit, but a matter of high solemn duty which has governed me in my investigations in this matter.
 

The House of Correction at Detroit is conducted on humane principles, but the discipline is firm and regular but not too severe. The food is plentiful and healthy; the clothing comfortable and good; the moral influences thrown around the prisoners are the best that can be held out to a man under restraint. Prisoners have the benefit of at least a limited education there. Lectures are delivered to them once or twice a week. Two evenings in the week they have school when they are taught the elements of an education. I have sent there many, many men who could neither read nor write who have come back able to read pretty well, to write a good letter and who have some knowledge of arithmetic. These men have come on their way home by way of Fort Smith to see me as they said, and thank me for having sent them there; that it made men out of them; that they learned there from the teachings of the good men and women who visited them what they never knew before. I have been touched by these examples of apparent sincere reform. I knew at least the men were better than when they went to the House of Correction.

The most of the men sent to prison in my court, are young men or boys, whose character was not yet unformed, whose moral traits had not yet become sufficiently strong to dominate the mind. These men are largely criminals from surrounding circumstances. Hold out to them an inducement to reform -- recognize them as human beings, and there are but few of them who will not avail themselves of sun an opportunity and at least make an effort in the right direction. The want of proper training, ignorance, bad associates and bad advice, in my experience with this kind of people has more to do with making them criminals than natural wickedness or inherited depravity.
 

Among the hundreds whom I have sent to Detroit, there cannot be found one who has ever complained of mistreatment, on the contrary, they all say they have been treated well.
 

Several years ago I used to (under the order of the Atty. General) send prisoners to Little Rock, and I never knew one, and I never heard of one who did not complain of mistreatment. When the penitentiary at Little Rock can present the evidence of efforts at reform that are exerted in behalf of the prisoners at Detroit, I will gladly recommend their imprisonment there. But under the system by which that prison as well as many others in the country is governed, there is not reform in it, but on the contrary, men come from it more hardened and more depraved, and feeling more bitter hatred of society and its laws than when they went there. I say nothing of the men who are conducting it. It is the SYSTEM I write of.
 

Now, a word as to the matter of expense. Under the proposition submitted by the gentlemen who run the Little Rock penitentiary, the only difference in expense between it and Detroit is in the matter of transportation. To enable you to see what this difference is I submit a showing made by the records of my court since Jan. 1st, 1884. From then to the present time I have sent to Detroit 172 prisoners at an average of $42.15 for transporting them. The same prisoners could have been taken to Little Rock at an average expense of $24.26. Additional expense of transportation to Detroit per head $17.59. Total for sending 172 men to Detroit $7250.22. Total for sending the same to Little Rock $4225. Difference &3025.25. It costs more per man in proportion to the distance to take him to Little Rock than to Detroit. This is because of the fact that under the law the marshal gets 10 cents per mile one way for transporting the prisoners to the prison in the State where the court is held. When he takes them to the prison outside the State he does not receive this 10 cents per mile. But this is not the only nor the principal consideration actuating those in authority.
 

Some years ago when I sent men to Little Rock, who were sentenced for not more than one year, while those sentenced for a longer time were sent to Detroit. The dread and horror of the prison at Little Rock became so great among prisoners that they would ask to be permitted to go before the Grand-jury and plead guilty to some other crime, so they could get their punishment for more than one year and go to Detroit. You make the order now for the prisoners to go to Little Rock and I believe the jurors in my court would hesitate long before they would convict, in many cases where they should do so, as the aversion among the people here to the prison at Little Rock is quite as strong as it is among those who are convicted of crime.
 

The order to send to Little Rock cannot be justified on the ground that $3000 per year will be saved thereby. I do not consider that there is anything reformatory in that penitentiary. The only thing it does is to prevent men from committing crime while they are confined there. In behalf of humanity I request that you will let the order stand which designates Detroit as the place of imprisonment for criminals sentenced in my court. I have written at length and with candor, because I feel a deep interest in the matter, as you know a great many men are sentenced by me, and when I am performing this disagreeable duty, I don't want to feel that the men sentenced are to receive no benefit but rather be injured by such sentence.
I am, most truly,
 

Your Obedient Servant,
(signed) I.C. Parker
 

From the collection of the Fort Smith National Historic Site and the Department of Justice records in the National Archives.

Two Letters Requesting Repairs to Chambers, 1886

Judge Parker's chambers were in the former commissary building, less than 100 yards from the courthouse. On April 14, 1886 Parker wrote the Attorney General requesting that needed repairs be made to the chambers. The new building that he refers to is the federal courthouse that was completed in 1890.

Parker wrote the Attorney General again, later that same month, saying that the approved funds for the improvements did not cover all that he requested.


Fort Smith, Ark. April 14 1886
Hon A H Garland
Attorney General

Sir

I write asking that the Marshal of my district be authorized to make the following repairs on the rooms used by me as Chamber to wit repairing the plastering, white washing ceiling, painting walls of the two rooms, furnishing 6 window shades, painting one [ ] 6 windows, three doors two double doors mantle board and base of two rooms. This all to cost not exceeding $50.00. One carpet for our room to cost not exceeding $50.00 and one desk to cost not exceeding $50.00 Total $150.00. My chambers are in an (2nd page) Stone government building and one of the rooms is in very bad condition. So bad it cannot be occupied. The carpet on the floors is one which has been in use for eleven years. I had hoped to get on with these rooms until we could have a new building but that time is probably three years in the future and some repairs will have to be made or chambers will have to be rented. But I think it much cheaper to make these repairs. You will remember the government pays no rent here. Hoping that an order for these repairs will be at once made.

I remain truly yours & c
I c Parker Judge

 

Fort Smith, Ark. April 26, 1886
Hon. A H Garland
Attorney General

Sir

The letter of acting Attorney General _____ _____ by instructs N.N. file no 2657-1886 only gives permission to marshal to make certain improvements in my Chamber, while in my letter to you I asked for permission to the marshal to buy one desk not to cost exceeding $50.00 and carpet for same room not to cost exceeding $50.00. The desk, carpet, and improvements not to cost exceeding $150.00. Please give him authority to buy desk and carpet out of that amount you (2nd page) have named in your letter for improvements. I think express authority to him but before he makes the purchases to ____ all trouble in his account.

Truly yours
I c Parker
Judge

Tribute to Elias C. Boudinot, 1890

Elias C. Boudinot was a Cherokee Indian who served as a leader in the tribe, and appeared as a defense attorney in front of Judge Parker many times. This speech was delivered during a Memorial Service for E.C. Boudinot held in the United States courtroom at Fort Smith, Arkansas on Thursday, October 9, 1890.

 

GENTLEMEN OF THE BAR: On receiving the resolutions offered as a testimonial of his worth by his brethren of the profession to which Colonel Boudinot belonged, I trust it will not be deemed inappropriate for me to add a word to what has been so appropriately, eloquently, and well said by the resolutions offered, and the remarks of the gentlemen who have spoken.
 

Solomon, that wisest man of antiquity, in his Proverbs, said: "Boast not thyself of the morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."
 

How forcibly we are reminded of the truth of this declaration by the death of our friend and legal brother. But a few days ago he was among us in the full vigor of mature manhood. When I saw him, then leaving here on a mission of mercy, on the 9th of last month, the very picture of health and in the most buoyant of spirits, I little thought in twenty days thereafter we would join a long procession of mourning friends to follow his remains to the tomb.
 

Day after day we see our friends falling around us. "The air is full of farewells to the dying and mourning for the dead." In the midst of this grief for the departed ones, let the thought of Longfellow occur to us, because it is consoling -

"There is no death; what seems so is transition.
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call death."

This event, so fruitful of sorrow and grief, has its deep meaning. We have but to reflect to be fully impressed with the fact that no life is ever lived in this world which, when it goes out, does not leave behind it an influence for good or evil, to be felt by all within the circle of its power. A human life, with all that makes it up in its influence, is like a pebble dropped in water as it starts a rippling, circling wave that reaches the farthest shore. So, when a human life has a place in the great ocean of Time, it exerts an influence felt by all around it, and often by those who are yet unborn. That life starts a wave of influence which goes beyond even the shores of Time, and is felt in Eternity.
 

The life of a good man, as an example to be followed, is as useful and cheering to the tempest-tossed soul in this world as the beacon-light of the light-house is to the storm-driven mariner as he is drifted by winds and waves toward the dreadful rock-bound coast. The life of a bad man looms up dark and gloomy before us, as does the rock in mid-ocean to those who go down to the sea in ships. The things which go to make a life a bad one are to be shunned as the mariner shuns the dreadful rock. The useful character of such a life is in teaching us to avoid the shoals and quicksands of folly, vice, crime, and immorality which make it up. So, good or bad, no life is without its influence. We are all sowers of seed in the field of life. These bright or gloomy days of our lives are the seed-times. Every thought of our intellects, every emanation of our hearts, every word of our tongues, every principle we adopt, every act we perform, is a seed whose good or evil fruit will be the bliss or bane of some human life. By our example, we may raise a mortal to the skies, or we may drag even an angel down. To us on this side of the grave, the great lesson of a death is to call attention to the life that has gone out, that we may take it as an example to be followed or shunned.
 

Mr. Dickens, that wonderful pen-painter of human emotions and the nature of man, when writing of the influence on the living of the death of the young, with wonderful beauty and power says:

"For every fragile form from which He lets
The parting spirit free
A hundred virtues rise,
In shapes of mercy, charity, and love,
To walk the world and bless it;
Of every tear
That sorrowing mortals shed on such graves,
Some good is born, some gentler nature comes."

So it is with any death. I have known our departed friend well on to twenty years. I have seen him mingling socially with the great and powerful of our land, and the very talents which God gave him, and which he had improved by cultivation, qualified him to entertain presidents and cabinets, generals and statesmen. The highest and lowest in the land have been entertained, edified, and instructed by his beautiful recitations, and the music of that rich, mellow, sweet voice, as it often brought out the sentiment and beauty of the songs he sung. How often have we all, at social gatherings, listened to him, and by doing so been elevated and made better in thought and purpose. Some part of our better nature was quickened by sentiments uttered by him; some chord of memory he caused to vibrate so as to bring vividly to our minds some sacred recollection of the forgotten past. He touched some sentiment of affection that makes the whole world kin. He could produce the tear of sentiment or sorrow, or the smile of amusement or joy. All his efforts to entertain his fellow-men were lofty grand, and elevating. They would be sometimes amusing, but they were never low, vulgar, or groveling. He was a man of broad, liberal views. He had a heart filled with kindness for all mankind. He had a hand ever ready to do a charitable deed. He had a tongue that never spoke evil of any mortal. He was a man that could not entertain malice. He was a man of such ability that, if he had devoted his time and talents from early manhood to his chosen profession, he would have taken very high rank in it. He was a good thinker, and he possessed the happy faculty of arranging his thoughts so as to present them briefly to a court or jury. His manner in court and before a jury was that of the most affable, gentlemanly, and pleasing character. He was, consequently, a good advocate. Whether at the bar or in the forum, he was an orator.
 

I think he was very much misunderstood by some of his people. They had a belief that he was not true to their interests, and that he was willing to barter away their rights. This was a great mistake. He was as jealous of the rights of the Indian as any of them, and I believe he was ever ready to defend their rights of life, liberty, and property. He was just a little ahead of his people. He wanted them to fall into the ranks of that great column of civilization and progress as it goes marching grandly on to that higher, greater, and nobler goal of the nation. He saw they must accept the civilization of the century as well of the future. To do this, they must look forward, and not backward. Colonel Boudinot believed that the position of the Indian was side by side with his white brother, as a citizen of this great Republic.
 

Colonel Boudinot, like Moses of old, died in the very sight of the "promised land"; for we all now see our red brother will very soon take such a stand affecting his political relations that he can point with pride to the fact that he too is an American citizen, in possession of all the great rights that status brings. Then Colonel Boudinot's position will be fully vindicated, and his having learned "to labor and to wait" will not have been in vain. Then his memory will be held in gratefully remembrance by those of his people who have misunderstood him. This event, so important to the Indian, will come with his full and free consent, in God's own good time; and that time is even now in sight.
 

Our friend was not without his faults. Who is? Echo answers: No one. If we find such a one we must look higher than mortality.
 

But we can truly say that Colonel Boudinot has not lived in vain, for the world is better for his having lived; for he favored and advocated all that is great, noble, and grand in our progress and civilization. We can say, with truth, he has left for good effects "his footprints on the sands of time."

 

Delivered during a Memorial Service for E.C. Boudinot held in the United States courtroom at Fort Smith, Arkansas; Thursday, October 9, 1890.
As reported in the Fort Smith Elevator, October 24, 1890

Later printed in: Adams, John D. Elias Cornelius Boudinot: In Memoriam. Chicago: Rand McNally Company, 1891. Later reprinted in The Chronicles of Oklahoma, V.XLI N.4, pages 400-402.

How to Arrest the Increase of Homicides in America

This article by the Judge appeared in the North American Review in June of 1896. This article reflects the judge's philosophy regarding the appellate court process near the end of his career. This article may have been published in response to the controversy between Judge Parker and the Assistant Attorney General of the United States.

How to Arrest the Increase of Homicides in America
By the Hon. I.C. Parker, Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.

It must be conceded that we are in a peculiar condition in this nation to-day - in such a condition that, in my judgment, one of the greatest problems which have ever presented themselves to the minds of the people is confronting us. That problem is whether crime, and especially crime which destroys innocent human life, shall be triumphant; whether the man of blood, the man of vicious disposition, the man who destroys human life, shall be the despotic ruler, or whether the law of the land shall exert its peaceful sway, and by its protecting power secure all men in their lives under their own roof-tree or wherever they may be. It is a great problem. It is one which is exciting the interest of all good men in the land. We find the great educators of the people, the newspapers of the country, have discovered the evil and are agitating the method of finding a remedy. We find the matter discussed in the law journals of the nation, in the lectures of judges, in statements by professors of colleges, and we find it presented in the most forcible way from the pulpits of the land.

When we go to facts, we find that during the last six years there have been 43,902 homicides in the United States, an average of 7,317 per year. In the same time there have been 723 legal executions and 1,118 lynchings. These startling figures show that crime is rapidly increasing instead of diminishing. In the last year 10,500 persons were killed, or at the rate of 875 per month, whereas in 1890 there were only 4,290, or less than half as many as in 1895. This bloody record shows a fearful increase of the crime which destroys human life. We are all alike anxious for a remedy, but before we can obtain one we must know the cause. We can easily recognize that the greatest evil of any civilized age is confronting us, not only in the shape of crimes committed by individuals, but also of crimes committed by masses of men who are endeavoring by bloody and improper means to seek a remedy - I mean those who band themselves together as mobs to seek that protection which they fail to obtain under the forms of law.

What are the causes of this fearful condition? It can not be because either in the states or nation we have a defective system of laws, because almost every violation of a human right which is serious in its nature is declared a crime and is punished by the laws of the states or the nation. In fact, it may be said that we have the most magnificent system of laws defining crimes.

Judge Elliot Anthony, President of the Illinois State Bar Association, at its Eighteenth Annual Meeting, held January 24, 1895, at Springfield, Ill., when speaking along this line, said:

"There is no subject at the present time before the American people of such transcendent importance as that of the administration of the criminal law. It is as a general rule the least studied and the least understood by our judges of any branches of the law. Many, up to the time of their accession to the bench, never tried a criminal case in a court of record, and, consequently, they have no appreciation whatever of the fine points of the law or what is required by the Supreme Court to sustain a verdict in a case when it has once been obtained, and, what is worse, they do not study to master the subject.

"Our methods of criminal procedure are vicious, and our criminal practice still worse.

"The rights of the defendant are regarded as supreme, while those of the public are almost entirely disregarded and ignored. . .

"The history of crime is interwoven to a greater or less extent with every government, and will always be the most momentous question with which the human race has to deal. It is the great problem of civilization.

"He who has not thought upon it has thought little about humanity, and he who has not paid some attention to the criminal law of his country has not received a liberal education.

"It ought to be administered with intelligence and enlightenment, but it is not. The great effort seems to be to involve every investigation of crime in a network of subtleties, artificial distinctions, and downright quibbles, shut out all the incriminating evidence possible, then decide the case on some technicality.

"There is dissatisfaction everywhere throughout the country in regard to the methods adopted and the course pursued by our courts in dealing with the violators of the law, and it is but little wonder that the people in some of the oldest portions of the Republic have at times become exasperated at the trifling and juggling which are allowed, and have wreaked summary vengeance on thugs and assassins, to the disgrace of civilization and the age in which we live.

"Public rights seem to be held in much lower estimation than private rights, and as between the living and the dead there is no equality what-ever.

The truth about it is, for some reason or another, and the reason to my mind is manifest, the administration of the law affecting the civil rights of the citizen, his property rights growing out of controversies between man and man upon contracts, has come to be regarded as of much more importance than the enforcement of the law which protects the life of the citizen. All can notice that. The criminal law and its administration has rather fallen into disgrace. That is especially true of the large cities of the country. All must agree it is more important to protect a mans life than it is his property. If the mans life is destroyed, if the assassin fires into his house and takes away his life, is that not a greater deprivation than to deprive him of his horse or his cow, or even of all the other property which he possesses? Now, why is this the case? It is largely because of the corrupt methods resorted to defeat the laws administration, and because courts of justice look to the shadow in the shape of technicalities rather than to the substance in the shape of crime.

In 1889 David Dudley Field, in addressing the American Bar Association, of which he was the president, said:

"We are a boastful people; we make no end of saying what great things we have done and are doing; and yet, behind these brilliant shows, there stands a spectre of halting justice, such as is to be seen in no other part of Christendom. So far as I am aware, there is no other country calling itself civilized, where it is so difficult to convict and punish a criminal, and where it takes so many years to get a final decision between man and man. Truly we may say that justice passes through the land on leaden sandals.

"The judges of the Supreme Court have it in their power to establish by their decisions such a body of criminal law as they see fit. They are hampered very little by statutes and none whatever in regard to the determination of the guilt or innocence of the accused. To build up and establish an arbitrary system of rules and regulations is not the true object and aim of an enlightened judiciary.

"What society demands and common sense demands is this: If a man is charged with a crime, then the question should he, is he innocent or guilty? not did the judge err when he told the jury that they must be satisfied of the guilt of the accused, instead of believe him guilty, after a full consideration of all the evidence.

Now, the condition is so serious - and it is growing more so all the time - that there must be some remedy. It is true that the people may live under the government of one party or the other; they may live whether we have a single or double monetary standard; they may live with a high tariff, or low tariff, or no tariff at all; but they cannot live and prosper with crime in the ascendant, and with the man of crime as the despotic ruler. The country cannot survive a demoralized people swayed and dominated by the man of crime. Its people must have some way by which they can secure the blessings, in the shape of protection to life and property, arising alone from the entire supremacy of the civil law of the land. This can be obtained only in the courts of the country where a full, fair, impartial, and rapid vindication of the law by the honest people of the land can be had.

The cause of this condition springs in part from a morbid, diseased public sentiment, which begets undue sympathy for the criminal, and has none whatever for his murdered victim. It grows out of the indifference of the people to the enforcement of the criminal law. It arises from corrupt verdicts begotten by frauds and perjuries. It arises from the undue exercise of influence, either monetary, social, or otherwise, so that juries are carried away from the line of duty. It is often brought into existence by the indifference and negligence of trial courts, for it cannot be said that courts have done their duty when so many murderers escape. To the dereliction of appellate courts this relic of barbarism, the mob, can be largely attributed. To their action, as a rule, may we look for the source of this revolting method of undertaking to secure protection. In fact, the greatest cause of the increase of crime is the action of the appellate courts, which very largely exist in order to consider and act on alleged flaws in the records of the trial tribunals. They make most strenuous efforts, as a rule, to see not when they can affirm but when they can reverse, a case. Their conduct encourages the legal practice that is altogether in the interest of the man of crime.

Some attribute this condition to the jury system, and they therefore advocate its abolition. This, in my judgment, is not a correct conclusion. I would not abate one jot or title of the importance and dignity of this great right of trial by jury, for it is a cherished right which is guaranteed to us by the constitution and laws of the land. It is an historical and essential part of the free institutions of this country. It is the very bulwark of liberty in this land. It naturally springs out of our institutions. It tends to support and perpetuate them. It teaches love of liberty regulated by law. It teaches a reverence for and obedience to the constitution and laws. It is the source of our greatest peace and the foundation of our hopes for the future. The jury represent the great majesty of the people, the mighty power of the law. But to do this they must by their action speak with the voice of truth. To do this they must be guided by courts honest and brave enough to stand by the law and its enforcement. When the juries are thus guided, in a majority of cases they render that justice which is the great standing pillar of civil society. They teach an object lesson of the most important character to the bad, the vicious, and the criminal. They give these to understand that they have the power of the law and its enforcement to overcome if they commit crime. To the good and peaceable and law-abiding they teach that they can depend upon the law for protection and security.

It is manifest that appellate courts can know nothing of the real trial as it did occur, yet they are not deterred from granting new trials and practically co-operating with unscrupulous attorneys for the escape of men guilty of the most wicked murders. Appellate courts too frequently seem to think that superior knowledge of the law is shown not by affirming the action of the trial court, but by standing in antagonism to it, and by criticizing its action. It is like the case of the bold, open critic, who frequently gets credit for superior knowledge by the audacity of his criticism, when in fact he knows nothing of the subject. Appellate courts are very often made up of men wanting in knowledge of the most elementary principles of the criminal law, for they have never either studied or practiced it. With this want of knowledge of the very law they are seeking to administer, they try the case, not on its merits to determine the guilt or innocence of the man, but they try it by some technical rule which has really no relation to the guilt or innocence of the accused.

If we are to seek protection under the law against crime we must fully endorse the sentiment expressed by Mr. Justice Brewer, made recently in a speech by him before the American Bar Association, where he said:

"I say it with reluctance, but the truth is, you may trust the jury to do justice to the accused with more safety than you can the appellate court to secure protection to the public by the speedy punishment of a criminal.

The action of appellate courts upon cases where crimes have been committed is, in my judgment, of all others the most fruitful cause of the increase of crime. It is not so much the severity of punishment as it is its certainty which is effective. Let capture be sure and punishment certain, and crime is in a measure destroyed.

What, then, is the remedy? How can we correct this condition of blood? It must be corrected, for if not the man of crime will soon be in the ascendant. To correct this awful condition the press of the nation must exert its power, the courts and statesmen and the pulpit must all combine to build up a strong, active, aggressive, public sentiment favoring the supremacy under all circumstances of the law, its vigorous and speedy administration, with a view to ascertaining guilt or innocence, and punishing the one tainted with guilt, and protecting the one who is innocent. The rights affected by the man of crime being the most important and the most sacred of all others, this issue of protection to life should be paramount to all other issues, should be the chief one of the hour. A plank should be placed in the platform of the great national parties speaking in unmistakable tones in favor of the vigorous enforcement of the law, the suppression of crime, and the extinction of the mob - this disgrace of our Christianity and our civilization. The people should be awakened, and the drawn sword of justice should be in the hands of every honest citizen whether called to the jury box or only exerting an influence for peace, law, and order as a citizen.

To destroy the greatest of all promoters of crime, I would remodel the appellate court system. I would organize in the states and in the nation courts of criminal appeals, made up of judges learned in the criminal law, and governed by a desire for its speedy and vigorous enforcement. I would have sent to these courts a full record of the trial, and they should be compelled to pass upon the case as soon as possible, according to its merits, and ascertain the guilt or innocence of the accused from the truth and the law of the case manifest on the record. I would brush aside all technicalities that did not affect the guilt or innocence of the accused. I would not permit them to act on a partial record, or on any technical pleas concocted by cunning minds. I would provide by law against the reversal of cases unless upon their merits innocence was manifest. The guilt or innocence of the party should be the guide. I would require prompt action on the part of these courts. By the establishment of courts of this kind public confidence, in a great measure lost at the present time, would be restored, and the people would again be taught to depend upon legal protection against crime, and in this way a vigorous support to the courts and juries would be given by the masses of the people looking toward the laws vindication.

The necessity for a court of criminal appeals for the United States is, in my judgment, of the most urgent character. According to the Attorney-Generals report, last year there were convicted of crimes in the United States 15,430 persons. The crimes mostly affected liberty, but a good many affected life.

Of course, the party convicted should have the right in every case or having his case reviewed upon writ of error. The opportunity for reviews should be made easy for him; even in cases where he could not pay the expense, the privilege should be given him at the cost of the government; but the review should take place at once, and when it comes to be passed upon it should be upon its merits. I would give every man the right to have his case before this court of criminal appeals, but at the same time I would guard the right so as to make it entirely effective to secure the most vigorous enforcement of the law, and at the same time protect the innocence of the accused.

My judgment is that, if the people will turn their attention to this gravest of all questions and build up a public sentiment which will secure a vigorous and pure administration of the law in the trial courts, and then see to it that their law makers provide for the establishment of these courts of criminal appeals where cases can be passed upon by men who are entirely conversant with the criminal law of the land, crime in a large measure will decrease, and mobs will be entirely destroyed; for I believe it to be a cardinal truth that where the law is properly enforced, the people are more than willing to look to the law for security than to any method which is in violation of the law.

I. C. PARKER.

Originally printed in The North American Review, VOL. CLXII.NO. 475 (June 1896). Pages 667-674.

Charge to the Jury

Charge to Grand Jury - May Term, 1875

Judge Parker was appointed to the bench of the Fort Smith court by President Grant in March of 1875. The judge presided over court beginning with the May term of court in 1875. The charge would have been delivered to the members of the grand jury at the beginning of the term, in one of the first official duties performed by the judge.
 

Gentlemen, you have been brought here by the process of the court to constitute for this term a part of the court; for the Grand Jurymen are officers of the Court under its protection, direction, and control, and subject to the contempt of court for improper things done in the Grand Jury room. Your foreman is your presiding officer. His duty it is to preside over your deliberations, to administer oaths; to put all questions to witnesses, unless by his consent or upon his request they are put to vote and to decide when a proposition is carried, or rejected by your body.

Your maximum number is twenty-three; less than sixteen members of your body cannot do business; and any bill of indictment, before it cannot be found and returned a true bill must secure the votes of at least twelve of your number: and every proposition to indict which does not receive the votes of twelve Jurymen is to be rejected as not being a true bill.

You will not examine any cases, unless they have been first examined by a Commissioner, and the parties charged have either been committed to jail or placed under recognizance for their appearance at court; unless it may be a case of a violation of law which may have occurred so recently before your session as to prevent the examination of the same by the Commissioner, or a case which may not have been discovered in time for the party charged to have been arrested and brought before a Commissioner, or a case which is brought before you the District Attorney.

In all cases you are to find indictments upon the testimony of witnesses who are sworn and examined in your presence and no subpoenas will be issued by the Clerk for witnesses to appear before you unless upon the order of the District Attorney; so, when you desire witnesses, you will inform him who they are and for what you desire them, and he, in his discretion will issue a subpoena for the same.

You may indict upon the testimony of any of your number but before doing so it is proper to inform the District Attorney of what knowledge is possessed by any man of your body, so that he may call him as a witness.

I will remark that it is not only proper, but the duty of a member of the Grand Jury, if he knows of any violations of law, which are indictable, to make known the facts to the District Attorney so that the parties violating the law may be proceeded against.

The District Attorney is your law officer. He will give you his opinion on all legal questions, upon which you may desire information. He will attend your sessions, and aid you in the examination of witnesses and give you such assistance and advice as may be necessary to aid you in the performance of your duties, when it is possible for him to do so. He will necessarily be employed much of his time in the court room and it may not be possible for him to be present at all times. He is the officer of the court, one of whose special duties it is to present cases to you for action.

No witnesses will be permitted to go before you to give testimony unless in a case which has been passed upon by the Commissioner, and the witnesses have been recognized to appear and testify in the case, unless with the consent of the District Attorney.

I give you in charge the whole criminal code of the Government of the United States. You have jurisdiction of all offenses against this code, which may have been committed in the district known as the Western District of Arkansas. I will not call your attention to these in detail, but will simply remind you that when you are in doubt about the law of any case all you have to do is to consult the District Attorney, or the court, and either will inform you as to the law.

I call your attention to all of the violations of the revenue law. Taxation, at best, is burdensome; but to relieve it as much as possible of its burdensome character, it is necessary that the laws providing for it should be uniform in their provisions and in their operation, and every evasion or violation of these laws destroys the uniformity of their operation. Whenever the dishonest man evades or disobeys the law, and does not pay his tax when he is liable to pay it, he does so at the expense of the honest man who obeys the law and pays his tax. Therefore in order that this burden may be made as light as possible on the citizen, it should be so distributed as that all who are subject to it should be made to pay their portion of it. This result can be secured by your prompt indictment of every one who may have violated the provisions of the law, and who are subject to indictment under it.

I ask you to specially bear in mind all violations of the laws regulating the Post office department and the carrying and delivering of mails. This is an agency of the government specially created for the convenience and comfort of the people, and if you would make it a safe means of accommodating them, you must make it so secure that all the letters and valuables of the people shall be transmitted in safety to their destination. No part of the Government exerts as much influence in the dissemination of knowledge and for the civilization of the people as the Post office department. Then still further extend this blessing to them by making the transmission of mail matter even more secure than now, by indicting all who may in any way, tamper with the mails.

Beside the ordinary jurisdiction of District Courts, this court has jurisdiction over the Indian Territory. This imposes upon you duties which are in their character the most delicate and responsible of any that are imposed upon any grand jury in the whole United States, duties the correct, fearless, and impartial performance of which, may go far toward determining the welfare and happiness of almost a hundred thousand people who live in that country. These people, as well as all others, if they would be prosperous; if they would enjoy the blessings of civilized life, must render a hearty obedience to that great protecting agent of society, the law; the mission of which is to make every man secure in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If you would assist these people in the race of life, you must diligently inquire and true presentment make of all offenses of which you have jurisdiction, and in this way teach the bad and vicious among them, that as sure as they violate the law, so sure will punishment overtake them. Remember it is the certainty of punishment rather than its severity, which deters men from the commission of crime.

By your action upon cases coming before you, from the Indian Country, teach the good, law abiding and the peaceably disposed among the people who live there, that their only safety lies in seeking protection under that palladium of all: the law of the land and in their willing and ready assistance to the Marshal of this Court and his deputies, in the execution of its process.

Section 2145 of the revised statutes of the United States provides, "that as to crimes the punishment of which is expressly provided for in this title the general laws of the United States as to the punishment of crimes committed in any place within the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States except the District of Columbia shall extend to the Indian country." This statute, gives to the court a jurisdiction which is possessed by none other. It therefore throws upon you, and upon me, and upon every officer of the court the responsibility of seeing to it, that all laws for the protection of that country and its people are so enforced, that the good shall be protected from the bad and that with the aid of Indians through their local laws and by their co-operation with and assistance of the officers of this court, life, liberty, and property shall be as safe as it is possible to make them under the circumstances surrounding them. While no one in that country should be harassed or oppressed, yet every one who had violated the law should be made to feel its power, and every law for the protection of the people there should be executed in good faith, having in view all the time the purpose of the law, to wit: to protect the people.

I trust the people of the Indian Territory will cheerfully and freely co-operate with, and aid the officers of this Court in arresting and bringing to punishment all offenders against the laws and treaties of the United States.

In this course only lies for them safety and security; outside of it, all is uncertainty, doubt, and what is worse yet, insecurity for all that is dear to the people, because no people can live in a state of society without law, and that law is useless unless enforced. The laws were enacted for the purpose of protection. They will be enforced by this court with that purpose alone in view, and with no desire to oppress any one.

The law does not give you the right to indict an Indian for an offense committed by him upon another Indian, nor to indict an Indian who has committed an offense in that country and has been punished for it by the local laws of the tribe; but you have jurisdiction of all offenses of Indians against a white man or a colored man and vice versa of offense committed by those persons against an Indian. Of course those colored men who, under the second article of the treaty with the Creeks approved the 19th of July 1866 have been adopted as citizens and members of said tribe are legally Indians.

I call your attention to all violations of what is known as the laws for the government of the Indian country, and especially to that part of such laws as regulate the introduction into the Indian country of ardent spirits, and the sale or giving away of the same to Indians in that country. While it may not be proper to burden the government with expense as to every trivial violation of this law, yet it is your sworn duty to so far check and restrain this demoralizing influence upon the Indians, as it is possible for you to do, and if the proof is sufficient to lead you to believe that the law has been violated, and that an indictment can be maintained against the party violating it, you duty is plain; you are to present indictments.

When you go to your room and organize, it will be proper for you to select one of your members who is a good penman, as clerk, whose duty it shall be to keep a correct minute of all your proceedings, and of the testimony in each case taken by you, for the use of the District Attorney. The clerk will furnish you a book for this purpose.

You will strictly keep the secrets of your room, and not disclose to any one, except an officer of this Court, who has a right to know, who has been indicted, what was the testimony of any witness, and who appeared as witnesses before you, and how many of your body may have voted on any proposition to indict. In short, whatever transpires in your room you are not to disclose.

You will of course regulate your own hours of meeting and adjournment. I would say in this connection, however, that it is highly important that you should proceed with your work as rapidly as possible, for while it is also your duty to remain in session sufficiently long to fully investigate every case which is brought before you, it is also your duty to do this with the utmost dispatch, that the great expense attendant upon a session of court should be as light as possible. You will meet as early as you can, and work as many hours as possible. The Court will proceed with the business with all due haste, and you should be through and ready to adjourn before the adjournment of the Court.

It will be useless for you to waste your time in investigating cases which have been barred by the statute of limitations, as indictments found by you when the offense is barred will have to be dismissed.

There is no bar to the crime of murder. That may be punished at any time, no matter how long since it may have been committed. Indictments against persons offending against the Revenue laws, must be found in five years after the commission of the offense.

In all other cases which are likely to come before you, the indictment must be found within two years after the offense was committed.

The statute of limitations in the cases I have named shall not extend to persons fleeing from justice, and they are known as fleeing from justice, when they have either secreted themselves or fled the country to avoid the process of the law.

In arranging your work you will take up first, those cases where parties have been committed, and are now in jail; and of these, first examining and passing upon those of a higher grade, then the lesser cases. You will then take up for action those cases where the parties have had an examination before the commissioner, and are under recognizance for their appearance here; passing in this case, as in the one I have referred to before, upon the offences of a higher nature first. Then you will take up, examine and pass upon, all cases which came properly before you where parties have been arrested.

In the discharge of the important trust this day confided in you, strict impartiality should characterize your every act. Friendship and affection, hatred and ill will, should find no place in your hearts; and whenever the evidence warrants it in your judgment you should indict either friend or foe. You are to know no man, yet you are to know every man; your line of demarcation is between the guilty and the innocent. You are the great inquest between the government and the citizen, commissioned on the one hand to see to it, that all the violators of the government shall be in a proper and legal way, presented to the court for punishment, that the dignity and supremacy of the laws of the United States may be upheld, that the good may be protected from the bad, that every person of every station in life shall be made secure in the enjoyment of his life, his liberty and his property. On the other hand you are charged that no innocent man be presented by indictment to this Court. The effect of indicting an innocent man may be of a very serious character. As a consequence of such action he may be restrained of his liberty; he may be put to great expense to defend himself; a stain may be cast upon his reputation, and, in short, he may be injured beyond reparation. You can therefore see, if you would protect all who are under the protection of the law, that you must exercise the same care to shield the innocent from being falsely accused as you would exercise to bring the guilty to justice.

You may as how far you are to go in the investigation of cases - whether you are to examine witnesses on both sides of a case. This is a question which has not been free from difficulty. The correct rule for your guidance on this point is, that while you are not expected to investigate both sides of a case, as fully as it is investigated before a Petit Jury, because your time would not permit you to do this, yet you should so far pursue the investigation of each case which comes before you, as to satisfy your minds beyond a reasonable doubt that the evidence is sufficient under the law to establish a prima facie case, or, in other words, you must be convinced that there is a reasonable probability of the government being able to convict the accused when he is tried by a Petit Jury of his country, and unless you are thus satisfied it is your duty to ignore the bill.

As soon as you have completed the examination of a case, if the party has been indicted, return the indictment to the Court, that steps may be taken to put the party on his trial, and if you fail to find a true bill, return that fact, so that if a party is under arrest he may be at once discharged.

Now, gentlemen, I will say in conclusion that I trust you may find pleasure in the performance of your duty; that you will efficiently render that aid to the regular officers of the Court which is necessary to rendered to them by you before they can enforce the law, that the results of those labors will be to cause bad men to fear the law and good men to respect it - you bearing in mind all the time that under our institutions and laws all the time that under our institutions and laws all men of every creed, color, nationality, or persuasion, are entitled to the full measure of its protection; that none are so high in station as to be above it, and none so low as to be beyond it; that its mailed hand is laid upon every offender for punishment and upon every innocent man for protection; that, as does the light of Heaven, it blesses rich and poor alike, and if enforced without fear, favor or affection, whole communities, no matter how turbulent the character of the same, will soon learn to obey and respect it, and when so obeyed and respected as to render every man secure, and to cause peace to shed the rich sunlight of her rays on every hand, so that every man can feel there is none to molest him, or make him afraid, then you have a government which is loved and revered by the citizen; then you have a government which answers the full purpose for which governments were created; then we can truly say, law has its seat in the breast of Divinity, and its mission in the harmony of society.

As reported in the Fort Smith New Era, May 12, 1875 and the Fort Smith Herald, May 15, 1875.

Furstenheim & Wellford vs. J. Kittay, 1881  (Civil Case)

An often forgotten component of the cases heard in front of Judge Parker are the civil cases. Below is the jury charge in one such case, concerning property and debt.
 

The case of Furstenheim and Wellford vs. J. Kittay, which has occupied the attention of the United States Court for the past week, was brought to a close yesterday afternoon. Judge Rose, of Little Rock, closed the argument for the plaintiffs, and the case went to the jury at 8 o'clock, who returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs for $8,000. Owing to the points of a legal nature involved in the consideration of the case and the array of counsel, it has aroused unusual attention among the members of the bar. It has been hotly contested from the beginning, and the arguments have been profound and replete with learning.

THE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE JURY.

The ground laid in the affidavit as a basis for the attachment against the property of the defendant in this case is, that the defendant has sold, conveyed or disposed of his property or effects, with the fraudulent intent to cheat, hinder or delay his creditors.

The defendant, by his affidavit, has denied this allegation, and thereby raised an issue, the burden of proving which is on the plaintiffs.

That the sale, conveyance or assignment attacked in this case by the plaintiffs, as having been made by the defendant with the fraudulent intent to cheat, hinder or delay creditors, is the one produced in evidence, dated November 8, 1880, and purporting on its face to be an assignment of all the defendant's property for the benefit of creditors, to N.C. Gibson, as assignee. The questions involved in the issue before you are, first, was such an assignment made; and second, the intent with which it was made; that is, whether it was made with the fraudulent intent to cheat, or to delay, or to hinder creditors. In proving this intent, the plaintiffs are not confined to the deed of assignment. 

Without any facts showing the existence of fraud, the law never presumes it, but presumes good faith until the contrary is shown by evidence. The burden of proving that the deed of assignment offered in evidence was made for the purpose of hindering, or delaying, or defrauding creditors is upon the plaintiffs. To authorize a verdict sustaining the cause of attachment, the plaintiffs are required to show, to your satisfaction, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant either sold, conveyed, or otherwise disposed of his property with the fraudulent intent either to cheat or to hinder or to delay his creditors. This fraudulent intent may be shown, like any other fact, either by positive proof or by circumstances of sufficient weight to create a preponderance on the side of the plaintiffs, or to establish it to our satisfaction by such preponderance of evidence. It requires no greater degree of proof to establish it, nor can it be established by any less degree than is required to prove any other fact.

In order to ascertain the existence of a fraudulent intent in this case, the jury are authorized to take into consideration any fact or circumstances offered in evidence which has a tendency to establish it. If the preponderance shows that the defendant purposely inserted, or caused to be inserted, in his deed of assignment false or fictitious debts, which he claimed that he owed to certain preferred creditors named therein, then such deed is fraudulent and void, and you must find for the attaching creditors.

If the evidence shows that the defendant concealed or withheld from his assignee such an amount of his property or effects as to show that such concealment or withholding was purposely and intentionally done, and was not a mere oversight or mistake on his part, but that the same was done that he might receive some benefit thereby, then you will find that the assignment was fraudulent and void, and you will find for the attaching creditors.

If all the debts named in the deed of assignment as being owed by the defendant to the different persons therein named as creditors, were real and actual debts for about the amounts therein named, and the defendant did not conceal or withhold any considerable part of his moneys or assets conveyed by the deed of assignment in order to prevent them from coming to the hands of his assignee, and made such deed in good faith and in order that the whole of his assets should go to his creditors, then the fact that the deed may work the ordinary delay in paying creditors incident to an assignment made in good faith does not make it a conveyance executed to hinder, delay or defraud creditors.

A debtor has a right, under the law, when he makes an assignment for the benefit of creditors, and he may assign the whole of his property for the benefit of one or any number of creditors, provided they are really and in fact creditors for about the amount named in the deed of assignment, and that such deed of assignment is made in good faith to pay them just debts owing from the assignor to them, and in this case, if all the debts named in the deed of assignment as being due from the defendant to the different professed creditors, were really and in good faith debts, and were not false or fictitious claims which the defendant caused to be inserted in the deed of assignment that he might conceal his effects from his real creditors, then he had a right, under the law, to prefer such creditors, and such circumstances would not render the assignment fraudulent and void.

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As reported in the Fort Smith Weekly Herald, October 22, 1881.

U.S. vs. Jack Spaniard, 1889

Jack Spaniard, a Cherokee Indian, was tried in the spring of 1889 for the murder of Deputy Marshal William Erwin. This is one of the very first cases for which a type-written transcript exists. The 59-page transcript includes handwritten notes and corrections by the judge appear throughout. Spaniard was found guilty and put to death on the gallows on August 30, 1889.

On the back of the final page is written a notice:

" The Reporter has made many mistakes in reporting this charge. I have corrected such of them as will enable the sum of the charge to be seen.
I.C. ParkerJudge"

In the District Court of the United States, within and for the Western District of Arkansas.
February Term, 1889

United States
vs.
~~~ Murder
Jack Spaniard

April 12, 1889

JUDGE'S CHARGE
Gentlemen of the Jury -- You are again called upon to solve one of these important problems involved in the charge contained in this indictment which is, that on the 13th day of April, 1886, this defendant together with Frank Palmer took the life of William M. Erwin, a white man and not an Indian, by shooting him to death with a pistol; that it is an act done in such a way and under such circumstances as to show it was done with malice-aforethought. The problem growing out of this charge to be solved by you in the light of the evidence and by the aid of the law given you by the court is the guilt or innocence of this defendant. He is the party on trial. The only way your duty can be performed under your oaths is by a correct solution of that problem as far as it lies in your power. When that has been done to that extent -- correctly solved in contemplation of the law -- the verdict is a just and proper one.The first thing to find upon your part from this testimony is whether Erwin, the gentleman who was killed, was a white man. If the proof shows that this court has jurisdiction to try it.

In regard to the means that are alleged to have been used in this indictment, if the proof shows the use of a pistol or any kindred weapon, that is responsive to the allegation of the means named in the indictment as having been used to produce the result known as the death of Erwin. To a correct solution of the problem you must first find what is necessary to be established in the case, what elements, in other words, enter into this charge. When you have found that, when you have ascertained what the law requires, you then go to the testimony and find what the truth of the case is; then you make an application to the truth, of that principle of the law which is applicable.

Now, it is not deemed necessary by the court in this case to occupy your time for an unusually long period as the propositions are few and comparatively simple. Of course you know you can not find this defendant guilty of killing Erwin unless you first find Erwin is dead. That, then, is the first essential of this charge. It is the first cardinal proposition that must be established.

When we go along reciting these things that are necessary -- and when I am doing that I am doing just exactly as any of you gentlemen on the jury would do should you happen to be carpenters or mechanics when you wished to learn how somebody's house was constructed. The best way to teach an unsophisticated man how a frame house is built is to go and take the house apart and show him just exactly what it takes to make it. That is just what I am doing here. I am taking this charge in this indictment apart, and I am naming the timbers that are entered into the structure, that are required to enter into it by law; trying, of course, to simplify the propositions as much as possible, for I know you have enough responsibility, enough tax upon your minds to remember the facts in the case, and consider these different things that enter into this verdict although they maybe simplified as much as possible. To my conception that is the great reason why justice so often fails in courts, and juried either fail to agree or deliver wrong verdicts, because the court does not take sufficient pains to simplify these propositions so the jurors can understand them. There is no mystery about the law. It is as plain as the A.B.C's of the alphabet when it is properly explained, it is so simple, plain, just, and so wise in its purpose as to meet the admiration and commendation of every honest man. As you go along let your minds drift to the case that you may ascertain whether or not the testimony establishes either one of these propositions.

Does the testimony prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Erwin is dead? If so put that aside as one of the propositions necessary to be established in the case.

The second propositions is, did he die by violence of the kind named in the indictment. Go to the testimony; nobody saw him die in that way. He was dead when they found him, according to the evidence. But you will find (as you already learned if you didn't know it before, and you did, I suppose) that all of these propositions that are essential to the case maybe established by one of either kinds of evidence. There are two kinds. There are two classifications of testimony in the law. One is known as positive evidence, and there is very little of that existing when you come to consider what it is. The other is what is called circumstantial testimony. We can not tell with absolute certainty when we see a man shot with a gun, although we may see him fall immediately after that, whether that shot killed him or not. We believe that it did and we say that it did, still there might be a rare exception; there might be a case where a man would die from the fright and the danger of the situation before the ball struck him. It would be a rarity of course, still it leaves the proposition not as one absolutely certain, but it is certain in the law when we see him fall and die, it is absolutely legally certain that that killed him. We don't always happen to see that, because men bent upon missions of crime, and especially high crimes affecting the life of his fellow man, and especially a high crime that not only robs an individual of his life but strikes a deathblow at the dignity and power of the law, that an officer of that law for the time being represents. I say when men enter upon missions of that kind they do not call in a jury of twelve honest, upright citizens to witness the performance and pass upon it from what they see; nor do they call in witnesses of a like character to see that it is done in a certain way in order that the case may be reproduced before a jury who did not see it. That is not done. It is nonsense to expect that. As a rule it is only these crimes which destroy human life and are the effects of a sudden passion that occur in the presence of individuals who are upright people. They take place a man, perhaps a good man ordinarily, permits his passion to govern him to such an extent as to prompt him to wipe out a real or imaginary wrong. But when he enters upon a mission of assassination, when he like the panther in the jungle, like the wild beast of the forest seeks to slip up on his victim in order to kill him unawares he does not call in witnesses to see it, and the only way we have of getting at the case to have it reproduced is by the things that are left around the occurrence. They are called circumstances. For example in this proposition that you must find whether or not Erwin died by violence of the kind named in the indictment; what evidence have you of it? Is there any proof here that he was found dead? If so were there any marks of violence upon his person? If so what was their character? Did they indicate he had been shot to death? Because that is the effect of this charge. It does not matter what he was shot with, whether it was a pistol or gun or weapon of like character. If he was shot to death the charge that he was killed by being shot by a pistol is satisfied. Have you any evidence of that fact? Was there a bullet hole found in his body? What would be your conclusion as reasonable men outside of the jury box if you saw a man dead in the street, or roads or woods, or anywhere with that sort of evidence of violence upon his person? Whatever you would do, whatever conclusion you would come to in a case like that as a reasonable citizen you have a right to come to from the same facts, from the same testimony in the jury box. Now then, does the proof show it? If so you are authorized to put aside that proposition as established beyond a reasonable doubt, that he died from the effect of a pistol or gunshot wound made upon his person, the shot penetrating his person.

The second proposition to be established by you is, was the violence so inflicted that it was a crime. This proposition involves the consideration of what is in this charge, it is charged to be murder. We must go to the law right here and see what murder is, because we can not find it anywhere else. We all have a general idea of what it is, and we are generally correct about it. You may place a given set of facts, if they are enormous and wicked facts, before any honest mind in the country, a mind that never heard a principle of law enunciated, and that mind will instinctively in the face of such facts come to the conclusion that the case is murder. For example you may show to any mind that Erwin was killed wickedly and wantonly, without any cause, without an offer upon his part of any legal provocation, and that mind will say, that is murder, instinctively say it. But we can not go to persons or to their opinions to ascertain what the crime of murder is. The purpose of the law as you know is protection and security to society so that every man who is innocent, every human-being who has not forfeited his life shall be protected in its enjoyment, shall be made secure in the enjoyment of that inestimable boon. We do not, in the hurry of this life, stop to contemplate -- I was going to say the mighty effect, which depends upon the recognition of this principle of the law in which is wrapped up and upon which depends the safety of society. Did you ever lay down at night and close your eyes with the contemplation that there was nothing but the thin pane of glass between you and a wicked bloody minded man on the outside who might have some trivial and insignificant motive to take your life? Did you ever contemplate that it is not in the power of man when he goes to rest at night to bar his door or close his window so as to keep out the bloody-minded man who might desire to assassinate him? You can not do it, and yet the whole civilized world, millions of upright people go to bed at night and are soon wrapped in slumber with the assurance that there is surrounding them the mighty power that restrains the arm and keeps in check the assassin who might seek to ply his bloody work upon the family or upon the household of the citizen. What is that power? It is the law of the land. Yet when we come to enforce it, when we seek that for the people which is necessary to be done to secure that state of existence it requires courage, it requires firmness, it requires discretion, it requires the highest sense of justice we know. Wrong may be done, because in every case where the law is sought to be enforced a great civic battle is fought; if it be a case where the man charged is guilty of the crime that civic battle is one waged between the man of crime and the one who seeks in the interest of the people to fully and completely assert that great power of the law which secures their protection. Now in order to assert that, in order that it may be fully asserted and completely thrown around the people as a protecting power the great principle which underlies this power of the law is the fact that it is a certainty. If it was an uncertainty it would fail of its purpose from its very uncertainty. It must be certain. That it maybe certain we must ascertain how it defines these crimes. It does define them, everyone of them. There is no crime that can be considered as such unless the law defines it. The law defines this one, and it says: "The killing of every human-being in such a way and under such circumstances as to show that it was done willfully and with malice-aforethought, is murder." It is a high crime known to the law as murder, a crime that strikes at the very vitals of society, strikes at its very existence. It takes away one of the props, and supports; one of the component elements which enters into and composes society, because it is made up of each member. It does not stop by simply saying that willful killing and the killing with malice-aforethought of a human-being is murder, but it defines these terms, it states what is meant by willful as used in this connection. It says that a willful killing is an intentional killing. Every killing that is done intentionally is done willfully, because willful as used in this connection means intentional and not accidental.

Let us see what is meant by accidental killing that we may understand that. If this word killed means intentional and not accidental it means every killing that is not accidental. That is exactly what it means. The word willful has a broader meaning in the law than the meaning that is attached to it ordinarily. What is an accidental killing? In this connection it may be remarked that the law enjoins upon us certain great duties, the highest and greatest of which is that upon which depends the protection of human life. All duties are correlative to the rights we possess. I have a right; I do not have it alone. Every man has it until he forfeits that right. We all stand precisely upon the same plane. We are equal before this law we are seeking to administer. Now then, the law requires of us certain great duties in order that life may be protected. If a man causes human life to be destroyed without observing that care exacted of him by the law he is guilty of a negligent act of such a character as to make it a crime, but if he does observe the duty that the law requires of him and human-life is taken notwithstanding, he is without fault; he is without blame; it is no crime; it is an accidental killing: it is what the law calls a misadventure. The law exacts of him, when we come to talk about that which may affect human-life, the highest possible care that a human-life may not be destroyed. When he does not exert that very highest possible care and death ensues because he did not exert it there arises a state of case which is known to the law as one that has intent connected with it -- legal intent, growing out of the conduct of the party.

Men take human lives in a state of case like I have enumerated, when it is taken carelessly, or they may take them when there is a specific intent to do the act which is known to the party who does it which would naturally or reasonably or probably result in death. Such is an act where a man presents a gun or pistol at another within shooting distance and fires it. The man who does that knows that that acts will ordinarily or reasonably or probably take that man's life, and because he knows that, because he does an act of that kind, and because an act of that kind is one which may destroy life, the law says that from the doing of that act he is held to have done an intentional act, and consequently a willful act, and more than that, because the result is one which usually and probably follows the act he is held to have intended that result. The connection between the act and the result is a usual connection. It is one which by the observation of men may naturally or reasonably or usually occur. The party who does the act knows that also, and when he does an act of that kind he is held to have intended the reasonable and natural and probable consequences of it. It is not only willful as an act but he has produced a result that is a natural result and a willful result. That is upon the principal that every man by the law is held to have intended the necessary, natural and probable results of his act. When I do an act if it, from its nature and the way in which I do it, will probably produce a certain result that result is my result intentionally produced by me, and consequently willfully produced. Now, you take the case that I have put, where a gun is fired at another within shooting distance of him; you are required when a party is put on trial for doing that, and death has ensued, to find that he intended to produce that result, that is to say, there was upon his part a legal intent to produce a result of that character. Let us see what the law says about this matter of intent, about this thing of men doing an act of a certain character, whether we can take that act as done in that way if we find it was done willfully, and we must find it in the case I have put. Take the case where a man is shot say with a gun or a pistol by that gun or pistol being presented at his body. The gun is a mere automaton; it has no will-power; it can not move itself; it can not put itself in the position where the muzzle points toward the victim; it can not pull its own trigger. It is constructed so that the agency that grows out of man's conduct, or his acts, or his will power must operate this automaton, this inanimate cause of death. When we see a gun presented at another we know that gun is not operating itself, and when we hear the report we know it was not fired off of its own volition, of its own will-power because it has none. It is simply an agency when acting under the control of man that will produce certain terrible results. We know that. Therefore when we see a case of that kind occur we naturally conclude that there is will-power behind it, and we find from that state of facts an intentional shooting, and then apply this principle, that every man on earth living in society is held to have intended the natural and probable consequences of his act, or natural and probable result of his act. It is a maxim older than the law of England that: "A man is not guilty unless his mind is guilty." Where he fails to observe the duties enjoined upon him by the law in every case of his mental guilt, whether it grows out of a specific purpose, or whether it grows out of an act of negligence it is wantonly and wickedly done.

[Section missing. Several sentences are crossed out.]

If that state of facts has been produced here whether in a positive character in the shape of a man who says he saw the shooting occur, saw it transpire, or if that does not exist you are not to stop in your inquiries because of a failure of that sort of evidence. If the dead body of Erwin was found; if it had a hole through it we ordinarily as reasonable men would come to the natural and probable conclusion that he was shot to death by a gun or pistol, or some like weapon. If you have not positive evidence alone but you find it in the shape of circumstances alone, as you must find it in the great mass of cases here as you have learned this term, you have evidence in the absence of anything explaining that act -- you have evidence that is sufficiently cogent in its nature, sufficiently probative in its character to authorize you to believe that he was willfully killed, that the killing was willfully done.

You will observe presently when we come to define this other element of the crime of murder that it is absolutely necessary that you should understand correctly and absolutely this word willful because it sometimes cuts a very important figure by the way of showing whether or not an act was done with malice-aforethought. What is this element of murder known as malice-aforethought. It is the taking of human-life in such a way and under such circumstances as to show that it was done by a party who had a heart void of social duty and a mind fatally bent upon mischief. When a man does a wicked and cruel and wanton act without just cause or excuse or in the absence of palliating circumstances, that is, circumstances that reduce the grade of that act to one of less character in its criminal nature, in the absence of this fact or that which justifies you have a state of case which shows from the very act done, the very way in which it is done, the very result produced a heart void of judicial duty -- you have an act which shows it was done by a mind fatally bent upon mischief. The mischief was, a human-life has gone out, a good citizen has lost his life, and in a case of that kind you find one of the elements of this thing known as malice-aforethought, a mind fatally bent upon mischief. What is meant by the other element? I don't think you can understand what is meant by malice-aforethought from this general definition I have given you, but when we come to define the other ingredient that enters into it, that is, that the act was done by a man void of this high social duty that rests upon every citizen, not to destroy life, but to protect it. That is the highest duty that rests upon every one of us, and when we are performing these terrible duties here -- duties I have remarked that require sagacity and discretion and a high sense of justice, and above all the very highest courage possible; courage, I say, in my judgment, greater than that which would carry a man to the cannon's mouth upon the battle-field, because when he is performing these duties he is sitting in the whitelight of criticism. He is confronted by those who may sympathize with crime and who may desire to aid it. He meets that criticism, harsh and brutal criticism; and of these sentimental fools who, as a consequence of their sentimentality, always sympathize with crime and seek to paralyze the law when punishment is likely to overtake the criminal. He has to confront that class of people; then he has to confront another class, another honest and just class, who are friends of the law, just in the conception of their purpose but frequently from a misconception of the case and a wrong opinion consequently harshly and unjustly criticize courts of justice and officers of the law who represent for the time being that power and dignity necessary for the security of us all.

The law requires of every citizen an observance of this high social duty to protect human-life. When we forget it, when we disregard it, when we do not recognize it, when we fail to carry it out by doing everything in our power to protect the life of the innocent and those who are entitled to protection under the law, why we are disregarding this high social duty, and we evidently possess a heart void of it, whether we do that act through special spite or grudge or ill-will, or to accomplish some specific design, or whether it is done, as it is frequently, from gross negligence, from gross recklessness, from a malignant desire to carry out some purpose that would subserve some purpose to liberate a friend, or something of that kind; if we do it for any of these reasons and do it when the party against whom we do it has offered no such provocation that the law will regard as sufficient, we do an act which shows we have a heart void of social duty, we do an act that the law says may grow either out of special spite or grudge or ill-will or general malevolence, and in either case it is murder; in either case it evidences an existence of this trait of the crime of murder known as malice-aforethought. Under the law of the United States it embraces every killing that is not justifiable -- and there is no justification offered in this case for this act, and there is no evidence of the kind offered in this case to show mitigation, either mitigation or justification. If this be a case where the evidence shows either positively or circumstantially in its character that Erwin was found dead with a bullet hole through his body, you have a case that is murder, and I will tell you why. It used to be regarded as a settled principle of the law that the proof of the killing established murder; practically that is correct yet, because the proof of the killing always either shows the means used to produce that result, as in this case the proof offered here shows the death of Erwin, shows a bullet hole through his body, therefore it shows the means in this case, and it always either shows the means used -- the very proof that is offered to show the killing either shows the means used or it shows the adoption of some method to obliterate the evidence of the crime. This is sufficiently conclusive in its character of a preconceived design to do an act as to evidence the existence of malice. Take the case where Webster killed Parkman. That is referred to as a prominent case. On the trial of that case there was no evidence that could be offered to shows the means used by Webster to kill Doctor Parkman because he had taken his body and consumed it in the laboratory of the college. It was all consumed, all except a few small pieces of bone and a block of mineral teeth, and the jury could not arrive at the means used, the evidence was not there; but what existed as coupled with the proof of the killing in lieu of the use of these means by the proof that the body was concealed. The fact that the evidences of the death of Parkman were obliterated -- and in that case evidence was given to the jury of forged letters proven to have been forged by Webster to show that Parkman was seen living on the streets of Boston after he was proven to have been killed -- the forgery of testimony and the concealment of the remains, the obliteration of all the evidence that he had dies by violence were facts that were concomitant with or connected with the killing itself, the proof of the killing, and in that case the proof of the killing showed this fact of concealment or it showed that which evidenced an existence of a preconceived design to kill, as it does in very case, and practically speaking the proposition is a correct one; to say that proof of the killing in the absence of anything else that explains it, when there is no evidence that goes to explain that act, to show that it was one that could be done under the law, the proof of the killing alone is sufficient to show murder, because it either, as I repeat, shows the means used or the obliteration of the evidences of the crime, and acting upon the principle that a man does not obliterate evidence of an act of that character unless there is a consciousness of guilt that prompts the obliteration of it. That is the general rule. It would be more correct to say, it is more explanatory in its nature, it is more satisfactory in its character to say to the jury that the proof of the killing and the means used are sufficient to show the crime of murder, in the absence of anything that justifies or mitigates it.

A while ago I called your attention to the definition and illustration of the meaning of this word willful, and I reminded you that when you come to consider the meaning of this phrase, willful might cut a very important figure in that definition. I say to you that where the proof shows a willful killing by gun-shot or pistol shot, or the using of a kindred weapon such as is charged in the indictment, and there is no evidence going to justify that killing, or to reduce it to manslaughter, that that is murder, and when we have that evidence, and when we have that proof of such a killing it is not necessary for us to stop and inquire into the motive of it. It is not necessary to hunt up the motive because motive for a crime is no essential part of that crime. Motive may exist in an hundred forms; it may be of the most trivial and insignificant character. No good man, no righteous minded man would wantonly and wickedly and without just cause or lawful provocation take the life of any man. The mind of such a man as that is not the mind that goes to hunt through the actions of men to ascertain a motive for the act because the possessor of such a mind knows that a bad and wicked mind would prompt the doing of an act when the motive is trivial, so insignificant that it is frequently overlooked by the good citizen, by the righteous, upright man, but to find this crime we do no have to find motive; that is not an essential part of the crime; it is only an evidence of it, and I repeat it may exist in an hundred forms. It maybe a desire for revenge, it maybe for the purpose of robbery, it may grow out of jealousy, it maybe a desire to liberate ones-self or an other from the power of the law as represented by an officer having him in charge; that maybe the motive. That motive would not be adequate in the estimation of any proper thinking man to take the life of that officer, and when a man does take the life of such an officer in such a way and for such a reason and from the fact that he takes it under such circumstances and for such a purpose evidences the fact that he has a heart void of social duty and a mind fatally bent upon mischief and is consequently guilty of murder.

We need not go to any other field, to any other country to ascertain the comparative motivelessness of acts than this field of blood over here, this land where human-life is so cheap, where, from the records of this court, men have been killed for the most trivial motive, for the purpose of obtaining things of the most insignificant value for the purpose of overpowering officers of the law under circumstances where those who took their lives could not expect at most but the most trivial punishment for the act of which they were charged. We find these facts as matters of common knowledge, and therefore it is a matter that the court has a right to remind the jury of as a thing of which it takes judicial notice, existing here, and to some extent everywhere, that this crime called murder, this crime that deprives society of its members wickedly and wantonly and ruthlessly is committed for the most trivial considerations.

Now that is the principle of the law in regard to murder. Now a word further as to what the law regards as those elements of crime known as malice aforethought.

It presumes it from the nature of the act; if it is an act having a character that implies deliberation. A man prepares poison to administer to another man; he deliberates over it. What is the use of hunting for motive in the face of such evidence as that from his act. Take the case where it is proven to have been done by a particular party, isn't there evidence of deliberation, of a preconceived design to do an act that may probably or naturally or reasonably result in death? In this case it is not a case where death was produced by poison, but if the parties followed Erwin, who was proven in this case to have been an officers, representing the power and dignity of this Government of the United States, having in his hands great official powers to be executed for the benefit and protection of the people of that country and the whole country; and if the parties followed Erwin for the purpose of either rescuing the prisoner or for the purpose as a primary consideration of taking his life or doing him great violence, the fact of pursuit, the fact they followed him shows a deliberately formed design to take his life or do an act which might result in his death as strongly, as conclusively and as satisfactorily as in a case where the proof would show a man procured and administered poison to another. There is evidence of a preconceived design.

Petit Jury at close of August Term 1895

This speech was delivered to the members of the petit jury at the end of the August term of court in 1895. The significant role of the jury in the legal process was stressed by the Judge.
 

Gentlemen, we have been together as a court and as jurymen for over two months. I think it appropriate before discharging you from service as jurymen of this court that I should remind you that one of the greatest propositions confronting us is, whether with our institutions the men of crime can be held in check by the law enforced in the courts by the jurors thereof so the peaceable and law-abiding citizens of the land can have protection for every right, especially the right of life. Our laws are ample for this purpose, if executed. If the terror of certain punishment is held before the criminal minded they will not commit deliberate crimes. We are living in an age when from ignorance of conditions, imbecility in some cases, and in others a desire to cater to a diseased public sentiment, many people, and many courts even, have become practically useless in the enforcement of the criminal laws of the land. This we see almost everywhere. We see so often the spectacle of the people losing confidence in the courts and resorting to mob violence to punish the man of crime. This is a condition that every good man must deplore and combat until certainty of enforcing the laws of the land is secured, for this is necessary for the safety of the people.
 

Gentlemen, without any desire to flatter you, but speaking the words of truth and soberness, I say to you that at this term of court, by your action in the trial of these great cases of crime, you have nobly performed the great duties which rest on American citizens acting as jurors, and you have not only done your duty faithfully and well, but you have wrought much to secure civilization to the Indian country. You have taught an object lesson that may be well observed by all persons in every part of the land. I want to remind you that for twenty years and over this court, by its officers and juries, has labored to suppress crime in the Indian country by the arrest, trial and conviction of criminals. The jurors have been citizens of Arkansas. The enforcement of the law has been vigorous, impartial, just and most effective. I say it without fear of contradiction that no court in all America has done so much to uphold the laws of this land, to protect the innocent by the punishment of the guilty, as has this court. It has done more than all agencies besides to make civilization possible in the Indian country. It has done more to destroy the power of murderers and bandits in that country than all agencies combined, it has destroyed them. Gang after gang has been captured and by the juries of this court have been brought to merited punishment. No court can be found where certainty of arrest and surety of punishment exists as it does here. This has been going on for all these long years. The court and its officers and jurors should be commended for this unflagging and unfaltering course, which has brought such grand results. Yet in this great battle between law, order and civilization on one side, and dark and bloody crimes on the other, many have been found to slander and abuse the court. There are those who, without intending it, and without knowing it even, by insidious influences have been carried to the side of the men of blood, and used unwittingly to aid in the escape from justice of criminals. This is sad, but true.
 

To my mind the terrible mistake has been made of taking away the jurisdiction of this court over high crimes committed in the Indian country. It has been brought about, in my opinion, by a mistake of facts. This change of jurisdiction at this time, when we consider the public interests, is a grave mistake. That country until its autonomy is changed to statehood, for the safety of its innocent and unoffending people, for the protection of the Indians who have rights in that country, needs to have extended over it the strong arm of this court. These Indian people have been largely aided in their preparations for statehood by the action of this court, by its officers and jurors. They have been taught by example to rely upon that great handmaiden of civilization - law, because its mission is peace and order. The railroads and other great public interests in the Indian country need the strong arm of this court to afford them that security necessary to protect them in the transaction of their business against bandits and outlaws. They all need this court, whose jurors can act without fear, favor or affection.
 

Gentlemen, you have at this term of court done your duty faithfully, honestly, ably, and justly. From your body have been chosen juries devoted to duty, above all improper influences, governed alone by the law of the land and the truth as they saw it. By your work you have left a record for honor, integrity and ability which reflects upon you the greatest credit. You, by this action in the line of duty at this court, have taught an object lesson of the highest benefit to the whole country. You have shown that the highest and the lowest before you stand on the same ground.
 

Gentlemen, in the name of the law, and in behalf of the government and the officers of this court, I most sincerely thank you for the fearless and impartial discharge of duty by you. Give me such jurymen as you have proven yourselves to be, and such executive officers to make arrests as we have here, and the necessity of mob law must disappear, crime driven to cover and largely suppressed. I shall ever remember this jury as one of the most able, most honest and most just that has ever been in this court.

Gentlemen, you have never before served as jurymen in any court where during a single term there was the same number of murder cases tried showing the same number of wicked, unprovoked and diabolical murders. In the time I have been judge of this court I have looked into the faces of over five thousand jurymen, and I have never seen a better body of men than those who make up this panel. I have never seen a better body of men in any court of this land, men who have performed their duties more faithfully, more honestly, and more ably. Speaking in the name of law, truly may I say to you, 'Well done, good and faithful servants.'
 

In bidding some of you goodbye, I say, may God bless and protect you and yours.
 

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Reported in the Fort Smith Elevator, October 18, 1895

Grand Jury Charge - August Term, 1895

This speech was delivered to the members of the grand jury at the beginning of the August term of court in 1895. The recent jail escape attempt by Cherokee Bill is mentioned prominently in the Judge's opening remarks.
 

When court opened Monday the court room was pretty well filled. But so far as this matter goes, there is always a good attendance on the opening day of this court. There are some who go through curiosity. Others who are idlers and who find the court room an interesting loafing place, and others still, by no means a small number, go to listen to the opening words of the court and his instructions to the grand jury.

Judge Parker questioned the grand jury carefully upon a number of points, particularly as to their scruples as to capital punishment. His charge was quite lengthy, and we regret that all are unable to publish but a synopsis of it. He said the endeavor of the court had been to let no guilty man escape, and no innocent man to be punished. The duties of jurors were to convict when the proof showed the party accused to be guilty, and to acquit when the proof showed the innocence of the accused party.

"In this country," said Judge Parker, "the laws are made and executed by the people. The will of the people is often defeated by those who are too far from the people, and the circumstances of the case. Although the law is placed in the hands of the people, it must be administered through the courts, and they must not resort to mob violence. One of the first steps in a prosecution is the presentment of an indictment by the grand jury. Until that is done, the court must keep its hands off, however guilty the criminal may be.
 

"The duties of this grand jury are much onerous than those of a federal grand jury usually are. Most federal courts only deal with cases directly affecting their government, but here we have nearly all the Indian Territory attached to this jurisdiction, and the laws of the United States are extended over it, to protect that country which for years has been cursed with criminal refugees. They committed some crime back at their homes, and fled from justice, taking refuge in the land of the Indian, where by their acts and their influence over the young men they have made a hot-bed of crime. The government in its treaties with the Indians, obligated itself to keep all these characters out, to remove them as fast as they moved in, but that promise has never been kept except insofar as the court having jurisdiction over that country has brought these criminals out to punish them. For years, this court stood alone in this work, but of late years the jurisdiction has been divided, and now other courts are exercising the same wholesome influence.
 

"Taken as a whole, the juries have done their duties fairly, honestly and impartially, though some grave mistakes have been made and the cause of justice scandalized. By finding a verdict of guilty where guilt exists, you are doing your duty, and also are teaching one of the greatest object lessons. Judging from the vast volume of crime, which has almost submerged us in a sea of blood, we have gone astray, and are almost at the mercy of the man of crime. The greatest question of the hour is, can we properly enforce the law? Crime is gaining strength, especially those crimes affecting human life. This is not caused entirely by the failure of the people to enforce the laws. There are other causes and sources. One of our leading newspapers, in commenting on the trial of Dr. Buchanan, printed an editorial under the head of 'The Laxity of the Law.' The article went on to say that technical pleas of cunning lawyers often defeated justice; that the appellate courts considered alleged flaws, and encouraged a system of practice of the law entirely in favor of the criminal and against the cause of right; that they never looked to the merits of the case, but seemed to be cooperating with the unscrupulous attorneys whose object was to circumvent the law.
 

In commenting upon this article Judge Parker said: "This is as true as the words of Holy Writ. However honest and fair the trial court may be, it is impossible to bring assassins to merited punishment when appellate courts allow these cases to linger along, and give these murderers the opportunity to take other innocent life in cold blood.
 

"I want you to return indictments in every case wherein it is probable that a murder has been committed, and first, I want you to take up the case of one Crawford Goldsby, alias Cherokee Bill, who has been regularly convicted in this court of a foul murder, but upon which the sentence was set aside by his appeal to the supreme court, which is now pending. He is accused of, while lawfully committed to jail, having secured a pistol and killed Larry Keating, one of the guards, as the result of a conspiracy on the part of the prisoners to escape from custody. I want you to especially give that case your attention, and if you think an indictment should be returned, do so speedily, that he may be put on trial to answer for his crime. There are a large number of murderers confined in the jail, and in the interests of good government, and humanity, you should act promptly. Something must be done to hold these characters in check.
 

"It is not the severity of punishment, but the certainty of it that checks crime nowadays. The criminal always figures on the chance of escape, and if you take that away entirely he stops being criminal. The old adage of the law, 'certainty of punishment brings security,' is as true to-day as it ever was."
 

"Drunkenness is a crime, especially so in the Indian country with its mixed and to some extent reckless population. Congress has seen fit to make that a prohibition country, and it is a violation of the law to either take liquor into that country, or to sell or give it away there. Three fourths of the murders growing out of personal difficulties are due to the surreptitious sale of liquors there. Some man smuggles a few jugs into a neighborhood, then gets some of his strikers to get up a dance, so he may find a ready sale for his stuff. A drunken row springs up, and some one, often two or three, are killed. If you stop this nefarious traffic, you cut down largely this shedding of blood. It is highly important that these laws should be vigorously enforced.
 

"Much criticism has been indulged in regarding our jury system. The jury of the vicinage, is, to-day, the most complete humbug. It was all right when it was originated 500 years ago, but the jury system has been reversed since. Then the jury tried the case on their own knowledge of it; now that knowledge of it would disqualify you. The majority of criminals do not want a trial by a jury of the vicinage. They committed crimes at their former homes and fled because they did not have a good opinion of that law system. All they are entitled to is a fair trial by an impartial jury, and that I am sure they will get here."
 

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As reported in the Fort Smith Elevator, August 9, 1895.

Sentencings

William Jackson Whittington, June 1875

This sentence was handed down at the end of the May term of court in 1875, and is one of the first death sentences handed down by Judge Parker. Far more emotion is shown in this sentence as compared to later sentences handed down by the judge.

John Whittington: you have been indicted by the Grand Jury of this district for the murder of John J. Turner in the Indian country. You have had a fair and impartial trial in which you have been aided by faithful and intelligent counsel who have done all for you during the progress of the trial that would or could have been done under the terrible state of facts which surrounded your case.

After a patient and deliberate investigation of your case by the petit jury which tried you, they have been constrained by their conscience and oaths as honest men and good citizens to pronounce you guilty of a most foul and aggravated murder.

Have you anything to say why the sentence of the law should not now be pronounced against you? The feelings and emotions with which I enter upon the discharge of the serious and important duty which devolves upon the court and which I am now about to perform are too painful to be expressed.

To pronounce the dreadful sentence of the law which is to cut a fellow being off from Society, to deprive him of existence and to send him to the bar of his Creator and his God where his destiny must be fixed for eternity, is at all times and under any circumstances a most painful duty to a court.

But to be compelled in the discharge of my duty to consign to the gallows a young man who but for his crime might have been a useful member of society who has but just entered upon a vigorous manhood standing as you do to others in the delicate relation of husband and father, presses upon my feelings with a weight which I can neither resist nor express. If in the discharge of this most painful duty I should in portraying some of the horrid circumstances of this case make use of strong language to express the enormity of your guilt and the deep depravity which it indicates, I desire you to rest assured it is not with any intention of wounding your feelings nor for the purpose of adding one pang to your afflictions which the righteous hand of an offended God is pressing so heavily upon you but it will be for the purpose if possible of awaking you to a proper sense of your awful situation and to prepare you to meet the certain death which in my opinion awaits you.

It is to endeavor if possible to soften your heart and to produce a reflection in your feelings that by contrition and repentance you may be enabled to shun a punishment infinitely more dreadful than any that can be inflicted upon you by human laws - the eternal and irretrievable ruin of your soul. From the testimony which was given on the trial in your case there is no room to doubt the certainty of your guilt or the aggravated circumstances attending the commission of the bloody deed.

The man you murdered was your friend, you had spent most of the Sabbath day upon which you killed him in his company. In an unsuspecting hour when he no doubt was treating you as a trusted friend you stole upon him unperceived, you aimed the deadly weapon at his head and with the fatal knife you literally hacked his throat to pieces and with these fatal instruments of death you mangled, you murdered your victim.

But your guilt and your depravity did not stop here. Scarcely had you committed the bloody deed before you entered upon the commission of another crime, you converted to your possession as spoils of the murder your victims money.

To the crime of murder, you added that of larceny or at common law robbery.

The punishment of death has been pronounced against the crime of murder not only by the laws of all civilized nations but also by that law which was written by the pen of inspiration under the dedication of the unerring wisdom of the Most High. And as God himself has prescribed the righteous penalty for this offense, so there is a strong reason to believe that very few murders are committed which are not ultimately discovered and the wicked perpetrators finally, if not by the law by some other agency, brought to merited punishment. I must say to you, debased and unfortunate man in vain was this most foul and horrible deed perpetrated where no human eye saw it. In vain did you try to get away from the mangled body of your victim without being discovered.

You forgot that the eye of your God was fixed upon you; the eye of that God who suffers not even a sparrow to fall without His notice.

You forgot that you were in the presence of Him to whom the light of day and the darkness of night are all the same; that He witnessed all your movements, that by His undeniable will it is that this dark and bloody deed has been portrayed to the minds of men. His vengeance has at last overtaken you. The sword of human justice trembles over you and is about to fall upon your guilty head.

It will not be long until you will be compelled to take your leave of this world and enter upon the untried retributions of a never ending eternity.

And I beg of you not to delude yourself with the vain hope of pardon or escape from the sentence of the law.

In my judgment, your destiny in this world is fixed and your fate in inevitable.

Let me therefore entreat you by every motive temporal and eternal to reflect upon your present condition and the certain death that awaits you.

There is but One who can pardon your offenses, there is a Savior whose blood is sufficient to wash from your soul the guilty stain even of a thousand murders.

Let me therefore beg of you to fly to Him for that mercy and that pardon which you cannot expect of mortals.

When you return to the solitude of your prison let me entreat you by all that is still dear to you in time, by all that is dreadful in the retributions of eternity, that you seriously reflect upon the conduct of your past life. Bring to your mind all the aggravated horrors of that dreadful hour when the soul of the murdered Turner was sent unprepared into the presence of its God where you must shortly meet it as an accusing spirit against you. Bring to your recollection the mortal struggles and dying prayers of your murdered victim.

Recollect the horror that seized after you had committed the deed and were getting away from the place where it was committed, when you beheld the son of that victim.Remember the terrible agony of the soul when with the dead father in sight you met a son with a falsehood upon your lips.

Think of the dreadful agony of the unnatural widowhood to which you have reduced the unfortunate partner of bed and board. Think upon the poor orphan child which is now to be left fatherless to the mercy of the world.

And when by such reflections as these your heart shall become softened let me again beseech you before your blood stained hands are raised in supplication before the judgment seat of Christ that you fly for mercy to the arms of the savior and endeavor to seize upon the salvation of His cross.

Listen now to the dreadful sentence of the law and then farewell forever until the court and you and all here today shall meet together in the general resurrection.

The sentence of the law as pronounced by the court against you is that you, John Whittington, for the crime of murder by killing one John J. Turner in the Indian country and within the jurisdiction of this court of which crime you stand convicted by the verdict of the jury in your case be deemed, taken and adjudged guilty of murder and that you therefore for the said crime against the laws of the United States be hanged by the neck until you are dead. That the marshal of this court, the District court for the Western district of Arkansas, by himself or deputy or deputies, on peril of what may befall them, at some convenient place in the Western District of Arkansas cause execution to be done in the premises upon you on Friday, the third day of September, A.D. 1875 next ensuing between the hour of nine o'clock in the forenoon and five o'clock in the afternoon of the same day.

And that now you be taken to the jail from whence you came, there to be closely and securely kept until the day of execution appointed as aforesaid then to be hanged by the neck aforesaid until you are dead.

And may that God, whose laws you have broken and before whose dread tribunal you must then appear have mercy on you.
 

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As reported in the Weekly New Era, June 30, 1875.

Robert Massey, 1883

According to evidence in the trial, Massey killed Clarke, his business partner, on December 1, 1881. The men had driven a herd of cattle from Dodge City, Kansas to the Dakota Territory and were in route to their homes in Texas when they camped on the South Canadian River, 200 miles west of Fort Smith. Massey shot Clarke in the back of the head and buried the body in a hole near the camp site. Clarke's father proved instrumental in the arrest of the suspect, traveling from Texas to investigate his son's disappearance. The chain of evidence linked Massey to the crime and he was apprehended in April of 1882. Convicted in December of 1882, Massey died on the gallows on April 13, 1883. He is buried in Fort Smith's Oak Cemetery.

The law of the United States says: Whoever is convicted of the crime of murder shall suffer death. The court is but giving voice to the law and speaking its commands when it proceeds to pass the sentence upon you. Have you anything to say why the sentence should not now be passed?

Anything the court may say in the performance of this most responsible and disagreeable duty is not said with the intention of wounding your feelings or of adding one pang to your overburdened soul, but in the hope that it may cause serious and solemn reflection by you on your past life, on your present condition, your duty to yourself, your own soul and your God. The crime of which you have after a fair trial and an able defense been convicted by a jury of your countrymen, has been clearly proven against you. Indeed the fact of the killing was admitted by you while upon the stand as a witness, and all the circumstances of the case established as clearly and as fully as a fact can be proven that the killing of Edwin P. Clarke by you was coolly, deliberately, premeditatedly and maliciously done. That the man you killed was your friend, and had been for long, weary days your traveling companion, and when the journey was almost at an end and the young man you killed was but a few days travel from his home and friends, as the evidence strongly shows, in the dead hour of night, while Edwin P. Clarke was wrapt in slumber--it may be dreaming of mother and home--you slew him, concealed his body and endeavored to hide all evidence of the crime and to destroy all traces of your guilt. Dreadful mistake! Fatal delusion! You may have thought no eye saw you, no ear heard you. Such a secret can be safe no where. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it and say it is safe, not to speak of the eye which pierces the darkness of night and beholds everything in the splendor of noon. Such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection even by man. Generally speaking "murder will out." God hath so ordained for the safety of his creatures and He doth so govern things that he who breaks the great law of heaven by shedding man's blood seldom succeeds in avoiding discovery. In your case even the wild animals were used to lay bare the terrible and bloody secret.

The young man was not permitted by you to reach his home. You slew him and went to your home, not with an innocent, light and cheerful heart, rejoicing in the midst of friends and acquaintances on your safe arrival home, but as one with human blood upon his hands and guilt on his soul. You slew him and from that time your mind has not felt one moment's peace. You then commenced to live in a new world, a world of guilt and crime. You have been shut out from that world permeated by the grand and glorious sunlight, and you have from the moment you slew your victim lived beneath the somber, dark and terrible shadows of guilt which overhang the man of crime.

Conscious guilt has hung like the pall of night over you. Go where you would nothing but quiet has stared you in the face. This conscious guilt weights down your soul today. This fearful, terrible reality will not down at your bidding. The only way you can dispel it is by sincere, contrite and heartfelt repentance. You have taken human life. You have sent a human soul unprepared to its maker. You have cut off one in the very bloom of youth, in the very morning of his young life. You have broken a mother's heart. You have brought mourning and agony to the heart of a fond father of an only son. You have cast a shadow of gloom and sadness over the dismembered family circle by the hearthstone, and the shadows will not depart from the friends and kindred of Edwin Clarke.

You have robbed society of one of its members. You have set at defiance God's law which says: "Thou shalt not kill." You have trampled upon the law of your country, which says that human life at all hazards and at any cost must be protected.

Still, there is repentance and consequent mercy for you. There is forgiveness for you. There is eternal salvation for you. But you must seek of Him whose government is so far above ours that He has mercy for all who will in sorrow and with contrition ask it.

Your life now is but a feeble and fitful taper that has burned almost to its socket. But a thin fiber separates you from the hereafter. You will soon pass through that dread gate which never opens outward. You are even now standing on the very brink of time and looking out into eternity. With a full consciousness that I am, in the great hereafter, to be held responsible for every act done and every word spoken, I solemnly and sincerely admonish you to prepare to meet your God. In this supreme moment of your existence realize all the glory and emptiness of this life, the vanity and nothingness of its ephemeral achievements and ambitions, and the immeasurable worth of the fitting preparation for the shadowy and fathomless beyond in which the eternity of life is wrought and perfected. Recognize that crime is crime and its stain must be washed from the guilty soul before it can pass into the threshold of a higher life, filled with the noblest aspirations and enjoyments, heightened and deepened with the ages by an ever increasing glory, such as not even the wildest imagination when laden with the fetters of the flesh can comprehend.

You have not a moment's time to lose. The moments of life to you are more than ever golden. You should improve them.

Call to your aid those who can advise and assist you. Seek to wash your soul of the crime upon it. Ask an all merciful God to forgive you of your great sin. Implore him in sorrow and with a repentant heart to grant you that mercy and forgiveness which we are taught can be obtained by all so that "after life's fitful fever you may sleep well."

Listen now to the sentence of the law as pronounced by the court. And it is that you, Robert Massey, for the crime of murder in killing Edwin P. Clarke in the Indian country and within the jurisdiction of this court, of which crime you stand convicted by the jury in your case, be deemed, taken and adjudged guilty of murder, and that you be, therefore, for said crime against the laws of the United States, hanged by the neck until you are dead; that the marshal of this court, the district court for the western district of Arkansas, by himself or deputy or deputies, do, on peril of what may befall them, at some convenient place within the western district of Arkansas, cause execution to be done in the premises upon you on Friday, the 13th day of April, A.D., 1883, between the hours of 9 o'clock in the forenoon and 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, and that you now be taken to the jail from whence you came, there to be safely and securely kept until the day of execution, and thence on the day of execution appointed as aforesaid, there to be hanged by the neck as aforesaid until you are dead.

And may God, whose laws you have broken and before whose dread tribunal you must then appear, have mercy on your soul.

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From the Fort Smith Elevator, February 9, 1883

Gus Bogles, 1888

The period of 1885 to 1892 represents the height of the operation of the court in Fort Smith, as the number of criminal cases substantially increased. The sentence of Gus Bogles is typical of these later sentences. Gus Bogles was hanged for the crime of murder on July 6, 1888.

"Gus Bogles, the court, in the performance of its duty, is now about to sentence you to death for the crime of murder, have you anything to say why that sentence should not now be pronounced?"

Bogles replied that he had never seen the man he had been convicted of murdering, and knew nothing about the murder except what he had learned from the testimony of the witnesses in his case.

The Judge then continued:

The murder of which you have been properly convicted, and which you and three others, judging from the evidence in your case unquestionably committed, was one of unusual wickedness and brutality.
You and your confederates in crime overpowered your victim, and garroted him to death for a paltry sum of money and a few clothes. The proof in your case makes your crime unquestioned.

You have committed the terrible crime of murder, and in your efforts to escape the consequences, you have added to your crime that of perjury. This, of course, is not to be wondered at, as the nature that will prompt to murder, will much sooner prompt to perjury to escape the consequences of the crime. It is expecting too much of wicked and depraved human nature for us to look for truth from one who has stained his hands with innocent human blood, and seared his conscience with the revolting and wicked crime of deliberate, premeditated murder. Sometimes such persons have succeeded, by their falsehoods, in deceiving juries and in cheating justice. You have not succeeded, and you stand before the bar of this court to have announced to you the sentence which the law attached to murder.


Before pronouncing that sentence, I want to admonish you that it is your duty to prepare for death. You are evidently not in a fit condition to stand before the dread tribunal where you must soon answer for the crimes and wrongs committed for you. You can not appear there with a hope of pardon for these crimes unless you do that which the great God has commanded shall be done. Before mercy and forgiveness is extended there must be penitence and sorrow. You must first come to a knowledge and appreciation of the terrible character of the crime you have committed, and after you have fully appreciated its wickedness you must approach your Maker with a sorrowful mind, and a penitent heart. You must make preparations for death. You have no grounds for any hope of interference with the sentence of the law. It will be executed on you at the time appointed; then prepare for it. Prepare for the hereafter for although you are steeped in crime you may still be forgiven. You may still receive mercy, but not without effort. Not without rolling from your soul that terrible load of crime which blackens and corrodes it. Then do everything in your power to escape the consequences of your act when you stand before a higher tribunal than those of earth.


By the laws of your country, for the sake of protection due members of society you must pay the penalty of your crime with your life. Society is, as yet, so improperly organized that with a due regard to its own safety it can not extend that mercy to the murderer which would exempt him from punishment. He must be punished as an example to others. Screening him from punishment is the greatest cruelty to the members of society, and the murderer must look to a Higher Court, to a Higher Power, to a Higher Law, for mercy, for absolute forgiveness. He can obtain it nowhere else.


Listen now to the sentence of the law as pronounced by the Court, which is that you, Gus Bogles, for the crime of murder, committed by you in willfully and of your malice aforethought, taking the life of William D. Morgan, in the Indian country, and within the jurisdiction of this court, of which crime you have been convicted by a verdict of the jury in your case, be taken and adjudged guilty of murder, and that you be therefore, for the said crime against the laws of the United States, hanged by the neck until you are dead. That the Marshal of this Court, the District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, by himself or deputy, or deputies, at some convenient place in the Western District of Arkansas, cause execution to be done in the premises upon you upon Friday, July 6, 1888, between the hours of 9 o'clock in the forenoon, and 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, and that you now be taken to jail, from whence you came, there to be closely and securely kept until the day of execution appointed as aforesaid, and from thence on the day of execution appointed as aforesaid, there to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may that God whose laws you have broken, and before whose tribunal you must then appear, have mercy on you soul.

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From the Fort Smith Elevator, June 1, 1888

Crumpton and Alexander, 1890

An unusual sentence compared to the majority that Judge Parker delivered, the sentence of Crumpton and Alexander focused much more on Parker's concern for the condemned men's spiritual well-being. Look for a statement regarding the purpose of the death penalty as well.

After a short delay, Bood Crumpton was hanged on the gallows on June 30, 1891. William Alexander was spared the gallows through a Supreme Court reversal and two later mistrials.
 

Bood Crumpton and William Alexander, convicted of murder during the term of court just closed, were on Saturday brought over from the jail, and after overruling the motion of a new trial in both cases, the following sentences were pronounced:

SENTENCE OF BOOD CRUMPTON.

The Court: "Bood Crumpton will stand up." (Prisoner stands up.) "The jury has found you guilty of the crime of murder. A motion for new trial has been filed by your counsel; he has been heard by the court, and it has been overruled. Under the law the time has arrived when that which follows as an effect of the verdict of the jury is to be pronounced upon you, that is, the sentence that the law shall follow the commission of a crime of this kind. Have you anything to say why that sentence shall not be passed?"

The Prisoner: "Yes, sir; I will say simply I am not guilty of the charge against me."

The Court: "The Court regards it as a special duty in cases of this kind in the interest of parties situated as you are, to briefly remind them of their situation, and their duty to themselves - not to the court, not to the country, or people, or to anybody else but themselves; and it does it for your own interest. You stand under the law as the court has remarked, as having been convicted and pronounced guilty of this crime. The probabilities are that the sentence the court is about to pronounce will follow. It behooves you to consider that condition; to make preparation to meet it - not to meet it as men too often do with a spirit of bravado, braggadocio, before men: that amounts to but little; that counts for nothing; but prepare to stand before your Maker, the Great Judge of us all, to answer for the offense that you may have committed against this law. Now, that is a duty and the highest duty that every man owes to himself in this life; it is a great responsibility that every man must discharge, and especially men situated as you are. It remains with you whether you will take this advice, given for your benefit, and in your behalf; or whether you will throw the opportunity away. Your duty to yourself is to make preparation for death, to make preparation to get that forgiveness for the offense you may have committed in life, that we are taught all men can receive by a proper effort by being sorrowful for what you may have done by approaching you Maker with that spirit of penitence and sorrow that we are required to approach Him before He will give out to you that mercy that He has for all if they ask for it in a proper way. I request you, in your own interest, to make efforts in that direction, to call to your assistance persons who can assist you, and give you proper advice, and teach you how to proceed generally.

Generally, men situated as you are have spent but little time in efforts in that direction. You have made but little preparation for even living a correct life here, much less preparing for that sort of life hereafter, or that sort of existence hereafter, that men will have if they seek for it, if they do that which they ought to do. Your duty is to search your own conscience, and by the aid of others, if you feel that you need that assistance, prepare to approach your Maker, and ask Him for forgiveness.

The court will now proceed to sentence you, and you will listen to the sentence of the law as pronounced by the court, which is that you, Bood Crumpton, alias Bood Burris, are pronounced by this court guilty of the crime of murder, because you did in the Indian country take the life of Sam M. Morgan, and that you took it willingly and with malice aforethought under the law, making you guilty of the crime of murder. For that reason, and because the jury have found you guilty of murder, you are adjudged by the court as guilty of that crime, and that you therefore for the said crime against the laws of the United States be hanged by the neck until you are dead; and that the Marshal of this court, the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Arkansas, by himself or deputy or deputies, do, at some convenient place within the Western District of Arkansas, cause execution to be done in the premises upon you on Wednesday, October 1st, 1890, between the hours of 9 o'clock in the forenoon and 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, and that you be now taken to the jail from whence you came, to be there closely and securely kept until the day of execution; from thence on the day of execution as aforesaid you are to be taken to the place of execution, there to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may God, whose laws you have broken and before whose tribunal you must appear, have mercy upon your soul.

SENTENCE OF WILLIAM ALEXANDER.

The Court: William Alexander, you will stand up. (The Prisoner stands up) The jury in your case has found you guilty of murder, and a motion has been filed asking the court to set aside that verdict, and the court has just acted upon it and overruled it. Under the law it now becomes the duty of the court to pronounce sentence. Have you anything to say why that sentence should not now be passed?

The Prisoner: Only what I have said before; that I am not guilty of the charge against me. I am not guilty of it, both before God and man.

The Court: The two cases that are before the court that have been tried here, present a great deal of similarity, both of them depending wholly upon circumstantial evidence, and they are cases, although the evidence sustaining them is purely circumstantial in its character, that to my mind present evidence as strong of guilt as though reliable witnesses had stood by and saw these killings. I have not any manner of doubt from this evidence of the guilt of both of you - not a particle of doubt of it, and I have arrived at that conclusion just the same as the jury arrived at it, from an overwhelming set of circumstances that were inculpatory and accusatory in both cases, and the absolute failure, in both cases to explain away this evidence upon a reasonable theory. Now, there may be accusatory facts, or facts that look accusatory on their face until they are explained away, but if they are not facts of that character why the party, as a rule, has it in his power to explain them away. When there is a failure in that regard, if these facts are strong enough in the minds of reasonable men, they must produce a reasonable conclusion, and I have arrived at that conclusion in these cases from an impartial, dispassionate review of the facts, and from thought upon them since the trial of the cases. Sometimes in listening to the trial of cases, judges and lawyers upon both sides may be misled by the hurry and excitement incident to a trial, but after that passes off, and you take a calm review of the facts, and look at them and review them again, and examine them from every standpoint, why they are more reliable when viewed in that way; and of producing a more reliable conclusion than when taken hastily in the excitement of a trial.

Now, I make the same remarks to you I did to Burris. You owe a great duty to yourself - the greatest duty that has ever devolved upon you in this life now devolves upon you. If you are not guilty of this crime, it is a great misfortune. If you are guilty, you know it, as a matter of course, and you know as a matter of course more keenly and more perceptibly what your duties are, or ought to be under such circumstances. You have a soul like all men, and you must answer, as we are taught, for everything done here. That is not a law that applies to you alone; it applies to all mankind for all acts that are done in this world for which they must answer hereafter, if they seek their own welfare hereafter; they must make preparation for that state; they must do that which we are taught is necessary to be done, in order if they have done wrong, if they have violated the laws of God and man to get forgiveness for that act. We are taught the door is not closed against any man, no matter how high his crime may be. While it may be necessary in this life to resort to the terrible remedy of taking away a man's life to protect the lives of other men, because it is so high, and so perfect, and so under His control, things of that kind do not have to be resorted to. He does not have to annihilate a man's soul, wipe it out of existence eternally, to save His kingdom, to save his Government. Mankind believe they have to do it; that they can not protect society otherwise. Whether that belief is correct or not, it is the law of the land, and those who are sworn to obey and execute that law must observe it. But, I say, that is not the case hereafter. The government, this great power that controls the destiny of all of us is so perfect and so great in its attributes, that He can blend with all He does, that mercy which will enable man to save himself under His government, and under His law.

I ask you to make that effort. This decree of the law that goes forth in the shape of this sentence, is not pronounced from a spirit of malice, or hatred, or ill-will. It is a feeling that ought to prompt everybody to desire that all men should be able to show that they are innocent, and that crime had disappeared from the world. That is not the case; you stand in the presence of crime. When it has been established, the law says in such a case, that for the safety and sake of society this sentence must go, it must be pronounced. I ask you, then, for your own sake, for your own interests, to make these efforts that are necessary to be made in your behalf. Do not be deluded by the idea that something may intervene to change the effect of this sentence. If such a thing should happen, it will not hurt you, anyhow, outside of the situation you are in, and these is nothing lost by it. There is nothing lost if you try to benefit yourself, and improve your moral condition; nothing of the kind is ever lost.

Now you will listen to the sentence of the law…. The Judge then proceeded to pass sentence, same as in Crumpton case.
 

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As reported in the Fort Smith Elevator, August 8, 1890.

Mary Kettenring, 1895

Mary Kettenring was the third woman to be sentenced to death by Judge Parker during his tenure (out of a total of four during his twenty-one years at Fort Smith). Her case attracted a great deal of attention in the local newspapers, including front page articles and the publishing of her death sentence. Mary was spared by the gallows through an appeal to the Supreme Court which led to a later retrial ending in an acquittal after Parker's death.
 

Judge Parker

Mrs. Mary A. Kettenring, you have been by a jury of this court convicted of the crime of murder, for having willfully and with malice aforethought killed your husband, Andrew J. Kettenring, it becomes the duty of this court, under the law, to pass upon you the sentence the law says shall follow a conviction for this crime. Have you anything to say why that sentence shall not be passed?

Mrs. Kettenring 

Yes, sir, I have.

Judge Parker 

What is it?

Mrs. Kettenring

I am innocent of the charge. I still have my honor, my husband's grave and a broken heart.

Judge Parker 

Is that all?

Mrs. Kettenring

Yes, sir.

Judge Parker

No duty can be more onerous or painful to a court than to be called on to pass the death sentence on a woman, but while the duty is a painful one we are not to forget that in the interest of innocent human life the law must be upheld. That it may be upheld courts must have the desire and courage to do their duty. We must also remember that the terror of the punishment of the law to evil doers gives the only safety the innocent and unoffending man or woman has against the contemplated crimes of the vicious and the wicked. The law looks upon men and women as standing on the same plane as to their duty to protect and not destroy human life. Woman in her innocence and weakness is more in need of the law's full protection than man. She cannot obtain this protection without the law's vigorous enforcement against all criminals. From the efforts of those who faithfully enforce the law, men and women have afforded them that measure of safety which the law can give. While woman is entitled to the very fullest measure of the law's protection, and the sympathy of all, to the very highest degree, when she unsexes herself and becomes a criminal, by having recklessly and wantonly and with malice aforethought deprived a fellow being of life, she stands before the law as far as legal liability is concerned, as the equal of man. And for the safety of innocent human life it becomes necessary that the heavy hand of the law should be laid upon her. It is a pleasure to know that this is seldom necessary, as the great and atrocious offences are less frequently committed by her than by men. Because of this, and of her better nature, and of the high regard for her by civilized men, when she does commit a heinous offense all are horrified and shocked, and many are incredulous under any and all circumstances as to her guilt. Because of my duty to the people and to the law I am compelled to speak to you what I believe to be the truth in regard to your case as shown by the evidence in it. Speaking that truth, I must say, In my judgment, the evidence adduced at your trial shows your guilt beyond a question. The proof shows your guilt of the terrible crime which robbed your husband of his life. It not only shows guilt, but it, as well, shows the most wicked guilt, because it was of a most deliberate character. It did not spring from a mere impulse, but from a cool, calculating, deliberate purpose to kill your husband for gain, to get the twenty thousand dollars of insurance on his life. This alone stamps the murder as among the most wicked in the annals of crime, but there is still another badge of wickedness connected with it, and springs from the fact that you caused the other defendants, Washington and Calhoun, and perhaps others, to become participants in this terrible and bloody crime. You were the party to be largely benefited. These men were but instruments in your hands to do your criminal bidding.

The details of the terrible crime are shocking in the extreme. They show such wickedness, such brutality, and such total disregard of human life as to shock and sicken the stoutest heart. These details all point in one direction, and that is towards your guilt, as well as the guilt of your associates. In the interest of your own soul, and for its eternal welfare, I gravely admonish you to first try, if you can, to fully appreciate the enormity of the crime of which you stand convicted, and the deep depravity of your guilt. You must first do this before you can begin to seek that mercy from a just God you so much need. In your own interest I suggest that you endeavor to be forgiven by the God whose law you have most wickedly offended. Ask mercy at His hands. We are taught that you can only obtain it by sorrow and repentance for having taken upon your soul the stain of the terrible crime springing from your having, for gain, most cruelly and most wickedly robbed your husband, Andrew J. Kettenring of his life; of an innocent and unoffending life.

What I have said to you I believe to be the truth as shown by the evidence in your case, and so believing my duty compels me to be thus honest and candid. That I should be so is due to the law, to the cause of justice, to the people, and to you as well.

[This was followed by the formal sentence, setting Tuesday, the first day of October, as the day for execution. The execution was scheduled to take place between 9 o'clock in the morning and 5 o'clock in the afternoon.]

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As reported in the Fort Smith Elevator, July 19, 1895.

Second Death Sentence of Cherokee Bill, 1895

Crawford Goldsby, alias Cherokee Bill, had already been found guilty of murder and sentenced to death when on July 26, 1895, he attempted to escape from the federal jail at Fort Smith. He was not successful, but in his escape attempt he shot and killed a jail guard, Lawrence Keating. Cherokee Bill's second murder trial resulted in a second guilty conviction, and a second death sentence for the murder of Lawrence Keating.

THE SENTENCE

The court: Cherokee Bill, stand up. Crawford Goldsby, alias Cherokee Bill, you have been convicted of the murder of Lawrence Keating. Under the law it becomes the duty of the court to pass upon you the sentence of the law, that sentence which the law says shall follow a conviction of the crime of murder. Have you anything to say why that sentence shall not now be passed?

The prisoner: No, sir.

The court: The crime you have committed is but another evidence, if any were needed, of your wicked, lawless, bloody and murderous disposition. It is another evidence of your total disregard of human life; another evidence that you revel in the destruction of human life. The many murders you have committed, and their reckless and wanton character, show you to be a human monster from whom innocent people can expect no safety. The killing of Lawrence Keating shows three wicked and unprovoked murders that we know you have committed. If reports speak the truth, two or three more innocent human beings have been robbed of their lives by you.

The evidence in this case shows that you most wantonly and wickedly stole the life of a brave and true man; that he died by your murderous hand - a martyr at the post of duty, while bravely guarding you and the desperate criminals in the jail with you. You wickedly slew him in your mad attempt to escape that you might evade the punishment justly due for your many other murders and robberies. It was, no doubt, a concerted movement between you and many of the other murderers in the jail, to affect an escape. You were lawfully confined in the United States jail for murder and robbery. The evidence shows that by some wicked agency - it is difficult to tell what that agency is - you had weeks ago obtained a revolving pistol and many cartridges; that you concealed the same in your mattress awaiting an opportunity to do the deadly act you did do. The time came, to Lawrence Keating the fatal hour struck, and you, without remorse, in cold blood, in the most devilish and wicked way, shot down poor Lawrence Keating, one of the guards at the prison, while he was faithfully discharging the duty in the station he filled, to peace, to order, to the security of human life, to the supremacy of the law, and to his country. He died like a brave soldier. He gave up his life rather than fail to perform his duty. You ordered him to throw up his hands, to surrender to you - a murderer and a bandit! The brave and honest man was no doubt startled. He was shocked. But he never quailed. And because he did not surrender to you that you might escape yourself and lead the host of other criminals to escape judgment, you, with your murderous hand, directed by a mind saturated with crime, while he was gallantly and bravely upholding the laws of his country, shot him to death. He was a minister of peace; you were and are a minister of wickedness, of disorder, of crime, of murder. Lawrence Keating was in the discharge of a great duty when you killed him. Your fatal bullet destroyed the life of a gallant and brave man, who died like a true citizen and faithful officer. He died as gallantly and bravely as if he had given up his life for the flag upon the battlefield. His family deserves as well of his country, and of every lover of peace and order as though he had so died. He died at the hand of an assassin, at the hand of the wicked man of crime.

You have taken the life of a good man, who never harmed you - of a faithful citizen, a kind father, and a true husband. Your wicked act has taken from a home its head, from a family its support. You have made a weeping widow. Your murderous bullet has made four little sorrowing and helpless orphans. But you are the man of crime, and you heed not the wails and shrieks of a sorrowing and mourning wife no more than you do the cries for a dead father of the poor orphans. Surely this is a case where all who are not criminals or sympathizers with crime should approve the swift and certain justice that has overtaken you. All that you have done has been done by you in the interest of crime, in furtherance of a wicked criminal purpose. The jury in your case have properly convicted you; they are to be commended for it, and for the promptness with which they did it. You have had a fair trial, notwithstanding the howls and shrieks to the contrary. There is no doubt of your guilt of a most wicked, foul and unprovoked murder, shocking to every good man and woman in the land. Your case is one where justice should not walk with leaden feet. It should be swift. It should be certain. As far as this court is concerned it shall be, for public justice demands it, and personal security demands it. If Lawrence Keating had thrown up his hands and surrendered to you, he might have lived, but there is no telling how many other innocent and brave human lives would have been taken. He died for others, and a greater death than this no man can die.

I once before sentenced you to death for a horrible and wicked murder committed by you while you were engaged in the crime of robbery. I then appealed to your conscience by reminding you of your duty to your God and your own soul. The appeal reached not your conscience, for you answered it by committing another most foul and dastardly murder. I shall therefore say nothing to you on that line here and now.

You will listen to the sentence of the law, which is, that you, Crawford Goldsby, alias Cherokee Bill, for the crime of murder, committed by you, by your willfully and with malice aforethought taking the life of Lawrence Keating, in the United States jail in Fort Smith, and within the jurisdiction of this court, of which crime you stand convicted by the verdict of the jury in your case, be deemed, taken and adjudged guilty of murder; and that you be therefor for the same crime against the laws of the United States be hanged by the neck until you are dead; and that the marshal of the Western District of Arkansas, by himself or deputy or deputies, cause execution to be done in the premises upon you on Tuesday, September 10th, 1895, between the hours of 9 o'clock in the forenoon and 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the same day. And that you now be taken to the jail from whence you came, to be there closely and securely kept until the day of execution, and from thence on the day of execution, there to be hanged by the neck until you are dead.

May God whose laws you have broken and before whose tribunal you must appear, have mercy on your soul.

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As reported in the Fort Smith Elevator, August 16, 1895

Rufus Buck, 1895

The five members of the Rufus Buck Gang were convicted of rape and sentenced to die in 1895. This initial verdict and sentence was appealed to the Supreme Court. Following their unsuccessful appeal to the Supreme Court, Judge Parker had the opportunity to resentence them to death. The execution of the Rufus Buck Gang on July 1, 1896 was the second to last execution to occur at Fort Smith.
 

I want to say in this case that the jury under the law and the evidence could come to no other conclusion than that which they arrived at. Their verdict is an entirely just one, and one that must be approved by all lovers of virtue. The offense of which you have been convicted is one which shocks all men who are not brutal. It is known to the law as a crime offensive to decency, and as a brutal attack upon the honor and chastity of the weaker sex. It is a violation of the quick sense of honor and the pride of virtue which nature to render the sex amiable has implanted in the female heart; and it has been by the lawmakers of the United States deemed equal in enormity and wickedness to murder because the punishment fixed by the same is that which follows the commission of the crime of murder.

Your crime has been proven beyond question, and the evidence showing the manner of its commission exhibits it as of the most repulsive and abhorrent character. The proof shows that each of you first took part in the robbery of the house of Henry Hassen, and afterwards that each of you in the most revolting and brutal manner in turn outraged his wife, Mrs. Rosetta Hassen. Some of you held the family at bay. Some of you overcome all resistance by armed violence while each of you in turn committed the terrible crime against decency and virtue, and you all exhibited the most horrid and brutal depravity. The acts so aroused the indignation of your own people, the Creek Indians, that they were almost persuaded to take you from the officers and execute upon you summary vengeance. It was only through respect for the law, and the belief that it would be enforced in this court, that induced them to permit the officers to bring you here.

The enormity and great wickedness of your crime leaves no ground for the extension of sympathy to you. You can expect no more sympathy than lovers of virtue and haters of vice can extend to men guilty of one of the most brutal, wicked, repulsive and dastardly crimes known in the annals of crime. Your duty now is to make an honest effort to receive from a just God that mercy and forgiveness you so much need. We are taught that His mercy will wipe out even this horrible crime; but He is just, and His justice decrees punishment unless you are able to make atonement for the revolting crime against His law and against human law that you have committed. This horrible crime now rests upon your souls. Remove it if you can, so the good God of all will extend to you His forgiveness and His mercy.

Listen now to the sentence of the law, which is, that you, Rufus Buck, for the crime of rape, committed by you upon Rosetta Hassen, in the Indian country, and within the jurisdiction of this court, of which crime you stand convicted by the verdict of the jury in your case, be deemed, taken and adjudged guilty of rape; and that you be therefore, for the said crime against the laws of the United States, hanged by the neck until you are dead; that the marshal of the Western District of Arkansas, by himself or deputy, or deputies, cause execution to be done in the premises upon you, on Thursday, the 31st of October, 1895, between the hours of 9 o'clock in the forenoon and 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, and that you be now taken to the jail from whence you came, to be there closely and securely kept until the day of execution, and from thence on the day of execution, as aforesaid, you are to be taken to the place of execution, there to be hanged by the neck until you are dead.

May God, whose laws you have broken, and before whose tribunal you must then appear, have mercy on your soul.

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As reported in the Fort Smith Elevator, September 27, 1895.

George Wilson, alias James Casharego, 1895

George Wilson, alias James Casharego, was tried in 1895, and appealed to the Supreme Court upon being sentenced to death. James Casharego was the last man to die on the gallows at Fort Smith, being hanged on July 30, 1896.

Saturday morning Judge Parker passed sentence of death upon George Wilson, who was convicted of the murder of Zacharia W. Thatch. In reply to the question whether he had anything to say Wilson made quite a talk, saying that he had not been given a fair trial, and that if his witnesses had been allowed he could have established his innocence.

In pronouncing sentence Judge Parker said:

Your case is one like many others tried in this court where murder is the charge - a case where one man hired by another and traveling with him murdered him for his property, I have no doubt you contemplated this terrible and bloody murder long before you committed it, perhaps from the time you first got in company with Zacharia W. Thatch. You murdered your victim for comparatively the smallest plunder. What a blunder you made. What a grievous wrong you committed. Passion for gain sought gratification. This clouded your reason, weakened your judgment, and destroyed your feeble moral nature so you rushed madly and wildly to the commission of one of the most terrible, bloody and wicked crimes known to the record of this court.

The evidence shows you started with Mr. Thatch from a point a few miles from Springdale, in the county of Washington, this state. You traveled with him to the place of the murder in the Creek country, and there, in the darkness of night, no doubt while he was asleep, you in a brutal, wicked and wanton way took his life. You endeavored to conceal the crime by placing the body beneath the waters of Rock Creek, and placed logs on it, but Nature revolted at such wickedness and threw up the body so it was found. You tried to conceal the blood at the place of the killing by building a fire over it, but the earth was parched and cracked open. The blood ran into the cracked earth, and thus escaped the fire, and came here as a terrible witness against you.

You committed this murder for five head of horses, a colt, a wagon and some other property of but little value. Your guilt is established by such a quantity of reliable circumstances as to make it as certain as that the stars looked down on this wicked crime the night you sent the soul of Zacharia W. Thatch without preparation to his God. The wickedness of the act shows that you are a moral pervert. Your moral nature was such that all restraint of reason was gone. You robbed an unoffending man of his life, and you must answer to the laws of your country for it with your life. You must answer to the laws of God. The law affixes to this wicked crime of murder the penalty of death. From the evidence no one can doubt the certainty of your guilt and the wickedness of your crime. The jury in convicting you have done exactly right. To perform their duty they could do nothing else.

Before passing upon you the sentence of the law I desire to admonish you that you now stand in such an attitude that you should at once make your peace with your Creator. You should seek his mercy and his forgiveness for having wickedly and wantonly destroyed the life of your fellow-man. This is now your highest duty to yourself as well as to your God. If I were in your situation I would not for one moment neglect this great duty. Be honest with your God. He knows it all. You can conceal nothing from Him. He saw the horrible crime committed. He saw the guilty perpetrator of it at the time he committed it. You should approach Him with the fact before you that you must make an atonement to the broken law of the land with your life; that you must make an atonement to your God before you can cleanse your guilty soul of the foul crime which now rests upon it. Lose no time to at once seek the only power from which you can expect mercy and forgiveness after death. Seek that power with sorrow and contrition and with a spirit of true repentance.

[This was followed by the formal sentence, setting Thursday, the 30th day of January, 1896, as the day for execution. The execution was scheduled to take place between 9 o'clock in the morning and 5 o'clock in the afternoon.]

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As reported in the Fort Smith Elevator, December 27, 1895.

Rufus Buck Gang, 1896

The five members of the Rufus Buck Gang were convicted of rape and sentenced to death in 1895. Following their unsuccessful appeal to the Supreme Court, Judge Parker had the opportunity to resentence them to death. The execution of the Rufus Buck Gang on July 1, 1896 was the second to last execution to occur at Fort Smith.
 

Rufus Buck, Lewis Davis, Lucky Davis, Sam Sampson and Maoma July -

You have been convicted by a verdict of the jury who tried you of the terrible crime of rape. Judgment was pronounced on that verdict, and this judgment has been affirmed by the supreme court of the United States. The execution of the judgment of this court upon you was suspended pending the case in the supreme court. In now becomes the duty of the court to against pronounce the sentence of the law upon you for the high crime of which you have been convicted.

The court has considered that it was scarcely necessary to say anything at this time except to pronounce the judgment of the law, but upon reflection, and to emphasize the character of this crime, I have concluded to repeat in substance, what I have already said to you before. I do this for the reason that I believe it is in the interest of public justice and the public peace that the people should know the character of these crimes for the commission of which men are condemned in this court.

I want to say in this case that the jury, under the law and the evidence, could come to no other conclusion than that which they arrived at. Their verdict is an entirely just one and one that must be approved by all lovers of virtue. The offense of which you have been convicted is one which shocks all men who are not brutal. It is known to the law as a crime offensive to decency, and a brutal attack upon the honor and chastity of the weaker sex. It is a violation of the quick sense of honor and the pride of virtue which nature, to render the sex amiable, has implanted in the female heart; and it has been by the law makers of the United States deemed equal in enormity and wickedness to murder, because the punishment fixed by the same is that which follows the commission of the crime of murder.

Your crime has been proven beyond question, and the evidence showing the manner of its commission exhibits it as of the most repulsive and abhorrent character. The proof shows that each of you first took part in the robbery of the house of Henry Hassen, and afterwards that each of you, in the most revolting and brutal manner, in turn outraged his wife, Mrs. Rosetta Hassen. Some of you held the family at bay. Some of you overcame all resistance by armed violence while each of you in turn committed this terrible crime against decency and virtue, and you all exhibited the most horrid and brutal depravity. The acts so aroused the indignation of your own people, the Creek Indians, that they were almost persuaded to take you from the officers and execute upon you summary vengeance. It was only through respect for the law, and the belief that it would be enforced in this court, that induced them to permit the officers to bring you here.

The enormity and great wickedness of your crime leaves no ground for the extension of sympathy for you. You can expect no more sympathy than lovers of virtue and haters of vice can extend to men guilty of one of the most brutal, wicked, repulsive and dastardly crimes known in the annals of crime.

Your duty now is to make an honest effort to receive from a just God that mercy and forgiveness you so much need. We are taught that His mercy will wipe out even this horrible crime; but He is just, and His justice decrees punishment unless you are able to make atonement for the revolting crime against His law and against human law that you have committed. This horrible crime now rests upon your souls. Remove it if you can, so the good God of all will extend to you His forgiveness and His mercy.

[This was followed by the formal sentence, setting Wednesday, July 1, 1896, as the day for execution.]

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As reported in the Fort Smith Elevator, May 1, 1896.