2-329-690 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Judge Isaac C Parker, the 'Hanging Judge', in his later years, c1890s (1954). Previously a Missouri congressman, Parker was appointed District Judge for the Western District of Arkansas in 1875 at a time of great lawlessness in the American West. In his 21 years on the bench he tried over 13,000 cases, of which 344 were capital crimes. 160 defendants were sentenced to death by hanging. A print from the Pictorial History of the Wild West, by James D Horan and Paul Sann, Spring Books, London, 1954.