ISAAC PARKER

Isaac Parker

Isaac Parker

Introduction

Isaac Charles Parker was a U.S. judge in the nineteenth century. He oversaw the administration of justice in the alleged Indian Territory. Indian Territory had a serious crime rate at that time. He was popularly known as the "Hanging Judge" by the high number of cases that ended in the death penalty by Hanging.

The famous "hanging judge" of Arkansas, Isaac C. Parker was named to the federal bench in 1875 by President Ulysses S. Grant after serving four years as the Republican congressman from Missouri. During the first session of his court, which lasted eight weeks, he tried 91 defendants, including 18 for murder and of these and the remaining six were sentenced to death. When pronouncing the death sentences, Parker bowed his head and declared: "I do not desire to hang you men. It is the law." Then he started weeping. In time, people came to realize that Judge Parker enjoyed weeping.

The jurisdiction of his court was the Western District of Arkansas, including the crime-ridden Indian Territory. Over the next 21 years, Parker would sentence 172 persons to death, 88 of whom were executed. Parker's will in the remaining cases was frustrated by presidential pardons and by the acts of other judicial officials. His record of imposing the death sentence was unequaled by any other jurist. Those defending Parker have always claimed that his was a rough jurisdiction and, consequently, a rough court. While 88 men were hanged, no less than 65 of his deputy marshals, "the men who rode for Parker," were killed in the performance of their duty. As a judge, Parker leaned more toward the Bible's eye-for-an-eye precept than toward the finer points of American jurisprudence.

He clearly let everyone in his court, especially the jurors, know where he stood during a case. "I have been accused of leading juries," he once remarked. "I tell you a jury should be led! If they are guided, they will render justice. They must know that the judge wants enforcement of the law." Parker's juries certainly knew. The conviction ratio in his court, again a record, was about 8,600 convictions to 1,700 acquittals, or an astonishing 5 to 1.Early Life

He was the last child from the marriage of Jane and Joseph Parker. He grew up on the outskirts of the town of Barnesville in Belmont County, in Ohio. The family lived in a predominantly agricultural area, but the boy did not care about working too much outdoors. The main concern of their parents was to educate their son. In his youth, he worked as a school teacher for higher education and, at seventeen, decided to study law.

After working as an apprentice in the legal field, he passed the test for authorization to become a lawyer in 1859. He went to the city of St. Joseph, Missouri, where he worked in a legal office. He obtained employment in criminal courts and was elected city attorney. With the advent of the civil war, he was enlisted in the 61st Regiment of Missouri ...