You can’t keep a good man down
by October 15, 2009 9:16 pm 66 views
Judge Parker is still hanging around. (Surely you saw that coming.)
Isaac C. Parker was born Oct. 15, 1838 in Belmont County, Mo. He studied law, passed the bar exam in 1859 and began his legal career in St. Joseph, Mo. Parker was elected United States Congressman from Missouri for two terms (1871-1874), and was appointed Federal Judge for the western District of Arkansas by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1875.
Known as “The Hanging Judge,” Parker began his famous tenure as the Federal Judge in Fort Smith by hanging six men his first year on the bench. He would hold the federal post until his death in 1896.
A birthday party was held for Judge Parker — portrayed by Floyd Robison — Thursday night (Oct. 15) at the Fort Smith Museum of History, with several members of the “Lawbreakers & Peacemakers” re-enactors group attending. This is the first year in recent memory that the museum held a birthday party for Parker.
According to Robis- …, ahem, uhh, Judge Parker, the famous judge tried 13,490 cases in 21 years. He found 1,155 guilty on charges of either rape, murder or manslaughter. Of those, 151 were sentenced to hang — including four women. Only 76 would eventually feel the gallows floor fall beneath them. The others either died in jail, were shot trying to escape or were pardoned. (Link here for more Parker information from the National Park Service.)
Robison said Parker, who was opposed to capital punishment, strictly followed the letter of the law.
“He never watched a hanging,” Robison said. “And he once said, ‘I never hung a man. It is the law.’”
A 31-year employee of Fort Smith-based ABF Freight System, Robison began portraying Parker about one year ago. He recently bleached his hair to make it whiter and more like Parker.
