Civics
8
The Western District of Arkansas had the largest criminal jurisdiction of any federal court at the time and handled an extraordinary number of murder and rape cases. When juries found defendants guilty in these capital cases, federal law mandated the death penalty. In Fort Smith, executions were carried out by hanging on a crude and unsightly gallows. In 1893, a visitor to the city recommended building a new gallows that would evoke the sacredness and majesty of the law, but this was never done, and a year after the last execution Fort Smith destroyed the gallows structure. Judge Isaac C. Parker said, “I do not desire to hang you men. It is the law.”
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Moffett, Oklahoma · United States
