Isaac Parker

Isaac Charles Parker (October 15, 1838 – November 17, 1896) served as a U.S. District Court judge presiding over the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas for twenty-one years. He is remembered today as the legitimate "Hanging Judge" of the American Old West (Texas saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace Roy Bean is often incorrectly considered a "Hanging Judge" as well). In 21 years on the bench, Judge Parker tried 13,490 cases, 344 of them were capital crimes. Guilty pleas or convictions were handed down in 9,454 cases. Of the 160 (156 men and 4 women) sentenced to death by hanging, only 79 were actually hanged. The rest died in jail, appealed, or were pardoned.

Early life

Isaac Charles Parker was the youngest son of Jane and Joseph Parker. He was born and raised outside Barnesville, in Belmont County, Ohio. Still on the edge of the frontier in the early 1840s, southeastern Ohio was primarily an agricultural area.

While raised on a farm, Isaac cared little for working out of doors. His mother, Jane Shannon Parker, was the niece of the governor, and figured prominently in raising her son. When not required on the farm, he attended the Breeze Hill primary school. After completing his primary education, he attended the Barnesville Classical Institute, a private school. It was said that he was, "always a hand to get an education;" and in order to pay for his higher education he taught in a country primary school.

At the age of seventeen, Isaac Parker decided to study law. His legal training consisted of a combination of apprenticeship and self directed study. Isaac read law with a Barnesville attorney, passing his bar exam in 1859.

Professional Beginnings

Upon passing the bar, Isaac, now twenty-one years old, travelled west by steamboat to Saint Joseph, Missouri. 'St. Joe' was a bustling Missouri River port town and offered many possibilities for a young lawyer, as the Ninth Missouri Circuit Court was held there. Isaac Parker's uncle D.E. Shannon, operated a legal firm in Saint Joseph with his partner H.B. Banch. In the firm of Shannon and Branch, Isaac began his legal career in earnest.

By 1861, he was operating on his own, working in the municipal and country criminal courts. The local courts afforded Parker not only experience, but community recognition. In April 1861, he won election to the post of city attorney as a Democrat. Just four days after Parker took office as city attorney, the American Civil War began. The war caused Parker to reevaluate his political beliefs, and he broke with the Democrats, enlisting in a home guard unit, the 61st Missouri Emergency Regiment.

Parker married a Saint Joseph girl, Mary O'Toole, on December 12 1861. The couple had two sons, Charles and James. He was reelected as city attorney in 1862 and 1863.

In 1864, Isaac Parker formally split from the Democratic party when he ran for county prosecutor of the Ninth Missouri Judicial District as a Republican. In the fall of 1864, he served as a member of the Electoral College, casting his vote for Abraham Lincoln.

In 1868, Parker sought and won a six-year term as judge of the Twelfth Missouri Circuit. The new judge gained experience and habits in this position that he would put to good use in the years to come.

Political ambition would catapult Parker from a Missouri judgeship to Congress in 1870.

Political career

Parker was nominated as the Republican nominee for the Seventh Congressional District on September 13, 1870. Backed by the Radical faction of the Republican party, Parker resigned his judgeship and devoted his energy to the campaign.

The heated campaign ended with Parker's opponent withdrawing from the race two weeks prior to the election. Parker easily defeated the replacement candidate in the November 8, 1870 election.

The first session of the Forty-second Congress convened on Saturday, March 4, 1871, with Isaac Parker taking his seat as a freshman representative in the chamber. His congressional career was a balance of resolving constituent needs while sponsoring domestic legislation. Representative Parker assisted veterans of his district in securing pensions, and lobbied for the construction of a new federal building in Saint Joseph. He sponsored legislation that would have allowed women the right to vote and hold public office in United States territories. On several occasions Parker sponsored legislation that would have organized the Indian Territory under a formal territorial government.

Representative Parker handily won a second term in November 1872, one local paper saying of him, "Missouri had no more trusted or influential representative in ... Congress during the past two years..." In his second term, Parker gained national attention for speeches delivered in support of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His second term saw his concentrating on Indian policy, and fair treatment of the Tribes residing in the Indian Territory.

By the fall of 1874, the political tide had shifted in Missouri, and as a Republican, Isaac Parker had no chance of reelection to Congress. Like many others, he sought a presidential appointment to public office.

Appointed District Judge

Due to his loyalty to the Republican party during his four years in Congress, Isaac Parker stood a good chance of receiving an appointment to a government office from the President. In early March, 1875, President Grant forwarded Parker's nomination as chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Utah Territory. However, by this time, Parker had submitted a request for appointment as the judge of the federal district court for the Western District of Arkansas, in Fort Smith. On March 18 1875, the President nominated Parker as judge for the Western District of Arkansas.

The federal court for the Western District of Arkansas was initially established in 1851, having jurisdiction over the western counties in Arkansas, and all of the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Until 1871, the court was based in Van Buren, Arkansas. In 1871, Judge Parker's predecessor, William Story was appointed to the bench. The tenure of Judge Story was marred by serious coruption, and in 1874, Judge Story resigned.

The new Judge arrived in Fort Smith on May 4 1875, having travelled aboard the steamboat Ella Hughes. His family stayed behind in Missouri and joined him in Arkansas later. The judge held court for the first time on May 10 1875. In the first term of court, eighteen persons came before him charged with murder and 15 were convicted. Eight of these men qualified for a mandatory death sentence according to federal law. On September 3 1875, six men were executed at once on the Fort Smith gallows; an indication that the once corrupt court was functioning once again. (One of those sentenced to death was killed trying to escape and a second had his sentence commuted to life in prison because of his youth.)

The Western District of Arkansas included the so-called "indian territories" where five civilized Indian tribes had once lived. This vast region was known as the Indian Territory and was located in the area which is now the state of Oklahoma. While the legal systems and governments of the five tribes covered their own citizens, the federal court protected the rights of "American" citizens, those of non-Indian heritage, both White and Black.

The Changing Court

According to Congress, the federal court for the Western District of Arkansas was to meet in four separate terms each year; February, May, August, and November. In reality, the court had such a large case load that the four terms ran together. In an effort to ensure that the court tried as many cases as possible each term, Judge Parker held court six days a week, and often up to ten hours each day. In 1883, Congress changed the jurisdiction of the court, and removed portions of the Indian Territory jurisdiction to federal courts in Texas and Kansas. The decreased size of the jurisdiction provided some relief; however, the continued influx of settlers into the Indian Territory, and the resulting problems, contributed to an increased crime rate.

During these years, the judge began to play an active role in the community of Fort Smith. In 1884, the government gave most of the 300 acre military reservation to the city to fund the public school system, largely at the judge's urging. Parker served on the school board and also served as the first board president of the Saint John's hospital (known today as the Sparks Regional Medical Center). The Parker family was involved in the community as well; Mary participated in many social activities, and their two sons Charles and James went to the public schools their father helped to establish. As a federal judge, his duties occasionally called him to testify in front of Congress, and he also substituted for other federal judges in the area.

Besides the capital offenses, several important civil cases were tried by the court in the 1880s. The most famous of these was against David Payne, an Oklahoma Boomer illegally settling on lands in the Indian Territory.

On February 6, 1889, Congress made a sweeping change to the federal court in Fort Smith, when it stripped the court of its concurrent circuit court authority and allowed the United States Supreme Court to review all capital crimes. This law went into effect on May 1 1889, and would have a drastic effect on Judge Parker's final years.

Career and Life's End

In 1889 and 1890 the judge had the opportunity to take different positions within the federal judiciary; either position would have provided the judge with a reduced caseload. However, the judge had established himself in Fort Smith, and removed his name from consideration for the two positions.

The Courts act of 1889, coming a month after Congress authorized the Supreme Court review, established a federal court system in the Indian Territory, further decreasing the Fort Smith court's jurisdiction.

The restrictions of the court's once vast jurisdiction were a source of frustration, but what bothered the judge the most were the Supreme Court reversals of capital crimes tried in Fort Smith. Fully two-thirds of the cases appealed to the higher court were reversed and sent back to Fort Smith for new trials. In 1894 the judge gained national attention in a dispute with the Supreme court over the case of Lafayette Hudson.

In 1895 a new Courts act was passed which would remove the last remaining Indian Territory jurisdiction of the court effective September 1 1896. Following the escape attempt of Crawford Goldbsy (aka "Cherokee Bill") in the summer of 1895, which resulted in the death of a jail guard ^*, Judge Parker again came into conflict with his superior when he blamed the Justice Department and the Supreme court for the incident (The killer was hanged March 17, 1896). In the spring of 1896 a very public argument was carried on between Judge Parker and the Assistant Attorney General.

When the August term of 1896 began, Judge Parker was at home, too sick to preside over the court. Twenty years of overwork had contributed to a variety of ailments, including Bright's Disease. When the jurisdiction of the court over lands in the Indian Territory came to an end on September 1 1896, the Judge had to be interviewed by reporters at his bedside. Scarcely two months after the jurisdictional change took effect, the Judge died on November 17 1896.

Depictions in fiction

Judge Parker is depicted in the Charles Portis novel True Grit, which spawned two movies starring John Wayne as a marshal for Parker's court. Parker was portrayed by James Westerfield in the first movie and John McIntire in the second. Parker's reputation as the "hanging judge", as well as his ascerbic manner, is referenced in both films. The character played by Pat Hingle in Hang 'em High has a different name, but is clearly meant to be Parker. Hang 'Em High's depiction of the judge character is distinctly different from True Grit, in that the judge is a central character and emphasis is placed on his motivations.

Quotes

"I am the most misunderstood and misrepresented of men. Misrepresented because misunderstood." -September 1, 1896

References

Brodhead, Michael J. Isaac C. Parker: Federal Justice on the Frontier. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.

Burton, Jeffrey. Indian Territory and the United States, 1866-1906: Courts, Government, and the Movement for Oklahoma Statehood. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.

Harman, S.W. Hell on the Border: He Hanged Eighty-Eight Men. Fort Smith: Phoenix, 1898; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.

Harring, Sidney L. Crow Dog's Case: American Indian Sovereignty, Tribal Law and United States Law in the 19th Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Harrington, Fred Harvey. Hanging Judge. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1952; reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.

Tuller, Roger. "'Let No Guilty Man Escape': A Judicial Biography of Isaac C. Parker." Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001.

1838 births | 1896 deaths | History of Arkansas | History of Oklahoma | People from Ohio

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