Frontier justice

Frontier justice (also called vigilante justice^[1] or street justice) 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

United States

• March 20 to April 15, 1882: Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday tracked and killed 4 cowboys said to be responsible for Morgan Earp's death, which would later become known as the Earp Vendetta Ride.^[5]
• 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]

Brazil

• April 1991: José Vicente Anunciação murdered a co-worker during a drunken knife-fight in Salvador, Bahia. Witnesses to the crime were not able to provide evidence in court. Anunciação 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 Paraná prison where Valdecir Ferreira and Altair Gomes were being held for the murder of a taxi-cab driver.^[6]

See also

• Jungle law
• List of feuds in the United States
• Range war
• Ochlocracy
• Rough music
• Vigilante

References

1. Kingseed, Wyatt. "Teddy Roosevelt's Frontier Justice." American History 36 (2002): 22-28.
2. Gonzales-Day, Ken. Lynching in the West: 1850-1935. London: Duke University Press, 2006.
3. Bryant, Wilbur Franklin. The Blood of Abel. Gazette-Journal Company, 1887.
4. Mullins, Jesse. "To Stand Your Ground." American Cowboy, May 1994
5. "Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Posse". History.net. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
6. "Brazil's frontier justice". The Economist, April 27, 1991.