Practicing Law in the Mad Hatter's West

Until recently, historians could find few studies that examined development of legal systems in West. John R. Wunder's Inferior Courts, Superior Justice: A History of Justices of Peace on Northwest Frontier, 1853-1889 (1979), highly quantitative in scope, assessed role of justices of peace on far western frontier of Washington Territory. Wunder concluded that crimes of violence to persons were not overriding. The most common court cases involved horse stealing. . . and fugitive debtors (p. 173). The author further observed that the history of frontier legal must be examined in terms of expectations and actual performance. Surprisingly, this history is non-existent (p. 175). In past decade, a series of studies have appeared slowly filling that void. Lawrence M. Friedman and Robert V. Percival's Roots of Justice: Crime and Punishment in Alameda County, California, 1870-1910 (1981) offered a new dimension to understanding California legal system. Althoughbased upon one county, their case study exposed an important slice of life, examining courts, police, and jails-the entire spectrum of criminal justice systemin Alameda County. Their exhaustive study provided researchers with a methodological framework for examination of criminal justice systems. Also highly quantitative, Friedman and Percival verified that serious crime was on decline in Alameda County (p. 310), conforming to U-curve of criminality. They concluded that criminal justice became more professional between 1870 and 1910 (p. 311). Seven years later, David J. Langum's Law and Community on Mexican California Frontier: Expatriates and Clash of Legal Traditions, 1821-1846 explored cultural clash between Anglos and Hispanics in Californio legal arena. In this important study Langum discovered that Anglo-American were unable to adapt well to Mexican California's legal system (p. 268). Even though expatriates disliked a legal

Political science · Archaeology and Natural History · Cuban History and Society · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law

• Vigilance and the Law

  Open Access•David A Johnson•American Quarterly•1981

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