Frontier justice

For the television series, see Frontier Justice (TV series).

Frontier justice (also called vigilante justice^[1]) is extrajudicial punishment that is motivated by the nonexistence of law and order or dissatisfaction with justice.^[2] The phrase can also be used to describe a prejudiced judge.^[3] Lynching^[2] and gunfighting are considered forms of frontier justice.^[4]

Examples

Late 1800s: A group of self-appointed lawmen called "stranglers" lynched around sixty horse and cattle rustlers along southwest North Dakota's Little Missouri River.^[1]
1886: Theodore Roosevelt, who would become President of the United States, captured three alleged horse thieves who had stolen a rowboat from his ranch. Roosevelt delivered the thieves to the nearest authority.^[1]

April 1991: Jose Vicent Anunciacao murdered a coworker during a drunken knife-fight in Salvador. Witnesses to the crime were not able to provide evidence in court. Anunciacao was set free and then dragged from his bed at night by a mob of forty people who beat him to death with bricks and clubs. Previously, a mob of fifteen-hundred people stormed and set fire to the Parana prison where Valdecir Ferreira and Altair Gomes were being held for the murder of a taxi-cab driver.^[5]

^ ^a ^b ^c Kingseed, Wyatt. "Teddy Roosevelt's Frontier Justice." American History 36 (2002): 22-28.
^ ^a ^b Gonzales-Day, Ken. Lynching in the West: 1850-1935. London: Duke University Press, 2006. [1]
^ Bryant, Wilbur Franklin. The Blood of Abel. Gazette-Journal Company, 1887. [2]
^ Mullins, Jesse. "To Stand Your Ground." American Cowboy, May 1994. [3]
^ "Brazil's frontier justice." The Economist, April 27, 1991.