| Isaac Charles Parker | |
|---|---|
| Painting of Judge Isaac Parker, circa 1896. | |
| U.S. District Judge presiding over the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas | |
| In office May 10, 1875 – September 1, 1896 |
|
| Nominated by | Ulysses S. Grant |
| Preceded by | William Story |
| Succeeded by | None; Specific position disbanded |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri's 7th district |
|
| In office March 4, 1871 – March 4, 1875 |
|
| Preceded by | Joel Funk Asper |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Theodore Crittenden |
| Judge of the 12th Missouri Circuit Court | |
| In office 1868–1870 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | October 15, 1838 Barnesville, Ohio, United States |
| Died | November 17, 1896 (aged 58) Fort Smith, Arkansas, United States |
| Spouse(s) | Mary O'Toole |
Isaac Charles Parker (October 15, 1838 – November 17, 1896) served as a U.S. District Judge presiding over the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas for 21 years and also one-time politician. He served in that capacity during the most dangerous time for law enforcement during the western expansion. He is remembered today as the legitimate "Hanging Judge" of the American Old West.
In 21 years on the bench, Judge Parker tried 13,490 cases, 344 of which were capital crimes. Guilty pleas or convictions were handed down in 9,454 cases. Of the 160 sentenced to death by hanging (156 men and 4 women), 79 were actually hanged. The rest died in jail, appealed, or were pardoned.
Contents |
Parker was the youngest son of Joseph Parker and his wife Jane Shannon. He was raised on the family farm near Barnesville, Ohio. He attended Breeze Hill primary school, followed by the Barnesville Classical Institute, a private school. He taught in a county primary school to pay for his secondary education.
When he was 17, Parker decided to become a lawyer. He combined an apprenticeship with a local lawyer with his own self studies. He passed the bar exam in 1859.
Upon passing the bar at 21 years old, Isaac traveled west by steamboat to St. 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 law firm in Saint Joseph with his partner H.B. Branch. 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 county 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 pro-Union home guard unit, the 61st Missouri Emergency Regiment.
Parker married a Saint Joseph girl, Mary O'Toole, on December 12, 1861. They 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.
Parker was nominated as the Republican candidate 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.
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 accordingly nominated Parker. His first task was to reestablish the court's reputation following the corrupt tenure of his predecessor, William Story.
The new judge arrived in Fort Smith on May 4, 1875, having traveled 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. The court prosecutor was W.H.H. Clayton who President Grant had appointed United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas shortly before appointing Judge Parker. W.H.H. Clayton was the brother of Powell Clayton, who was one of the United States Senators from Arkansas at the time. In the first term of court, eighteen persons came before Judge Parker 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 another was commuted to life in prison because of his youth.
The jurisdiction of the Western District of Arkansas included the Indian Territory, which today composes much of the present-day state of Oklahoma. While the legal systems and governments of the five tribes in the Indian Territory covered their own citizens, the federal court protected the rights of American citizens, those of non-Indian heritage, both white and black. Several famous lawmen served as deputy marshals during the Parker court, including Old West gunman Frank Canton, Zeke Proctor, Frank Eaton, Bass Reeves and Heck Thomas.
One unusual element of the Western District's jurisprudence was the fact that, with respect to the Indian Territory, during this period it was a court of final jurisdiction. From 1875 until 1889, statutory law did not provide for appeals of Indian Territory cases from this court to any court of appeal.
Judge William Story, also appointed by Ulysses S Grant and whom Parker replaced, resigned rather than face impeachment over charges of graft and corruption and later became Lieutenant Governor of Colorado. While it can not be denied Judge Parker went after the run of the mill criminal with a vengeance, it is generally disregarded that the things most likely on the paying side of corruption such as gambling and prostitution continued unabated in Fort Smith for many years after both judges were gone. 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 (1.2 km2) 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 L. Payne, an Oklahoma Boomer illegally settling on lands in the Indian Territory. During his entire tenure as judge he worked with William HH Clayton as prosecutor also appointed by Grant and the brother of a US Senator from Arkansas.
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. Though rarely discussed, this raises the question of whether Congress did this precisely because of Judge Parker's actions.
Because of all of the criminals he hanged Judge Isaac Parker received the nickname "the hanging judge". Although he did obtain this nickname, he was actually against the death penalty. He actually did have a tall fence built to prevent viewing the gallows after the citizens of town began to turn his actions into the weekends festivities. The law of the death penalty for capital crimes was set by Congress, so Parker was forced to carry out the law the same as all the other Federal judges at the time. He was quoted in saying that he never enjoyed hanging people, but that it was the law. He was also quoted as saying, "It's not the severity of punishment but rather the certainty of punishment that deters crime" at some point during the time he sentenced 160 people to death.
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 (a.k.a. "Cherokee Bill") in the summer of 1895, which resulted in the death of a jail guard,[1] Judge Parker again came into conflict with his superiors 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, Judge Parker 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. During his tenure as judge, Isaac Parker tried 13,490 cases, 344 of which were capital crimes. 9,454 resulted in convictions. Judge Parker sentenced 160 people to hang, though only 79 sentences were carried out. As many as 109 deputy marshals were killed in the line of duty during that time.[2]