Goodbye, Judge Lynch: THE END OF A LAWLESS ERA IN WYOMING'S BIG HORN BASIN

Goodbye, Judge Lynch THE END OF A LAWLESS ERA IN WYOMING'S BIG HORN BASIN JoAn W. Davis University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2005. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index, xiii + 266 pp. $32.95 cloth.

In Goodbye, Judge Lynch, historian and practicing attorney John W. Davis summarizes the evolution of law and order in Wyoming's Bighorn Basin, focusing on two cases as a means of assessing how criminal justice matured in the early 1900s. In terms of their notoriety and complexity, Davis chose the two cases very well. The first is a 1902 case in which rancher Jim Gorman was charged in the murder of his brother Tom. Apparently, Tom suspected his younger brother of dalliances with his wife, an argument ensued, and Jim killed Tom with a hatchet. In the end, the jury found Jim Gorman guilty of manslaughter. Even though the sentence seemed lenient to most viewers, the defense decided to appeal the conviction.

Gorman must have been stunned at the result of the Second trial. This time the jury found him guilty of firstdegree murder and he was sentenced to hang. While awaiting appeal, he shared a Big Horn County jail cell with Joseph Walters, also awaiting appeal of a murder conviction. To protect the two prisoners from a rumored lynch mob, the sheriff and his deputies decided to move them to a nearby canyon. En route, however, Jim Gorman escaped. Several days later, he was recaptured and returned, with Walters, back to the jail cell in Basin. That evening a mob descended on the jail, killing both Walters and Gorman. A young deputy sheriff also died in the melee.

The second case Davis discusses involved a confrontation in which cowboys raided a sheep camp and killed three sheepmen. In an unprecedented action, the cowboys involved were identified and brought to trial. Remembering the incident six years earlier, the Big Horn sheriff sought National Guard protection, though this time the fear was for jurors' safety. At the conclusion of the trial, all five men were convicted and one was sentenced to be hanged. Some suspected that the cowboys' friends would try to free them, but the vigilantism did not occur. Law had "matured" in the Bighorn Basin in the six years between the two cases.

Davis's book is a fascinating review of criminal law and procedures in the early twentieth century told in a way easily understood by the reader. The facts are drawn from case files, and the author has the background and experience to bring out the nuances in the court record. The author's use of court files significantly reduces the "mythology" that often creeps into stories about early-day vigilantism. Davis also uses his broad experience as a lawyer to explain the trial procedures and the ways in which they differed from modern-day criminal trials.

Previous studies of the evolution of law and order in the Bighorn Basin focused on particular incidents but did not tie them into a broader context as Davis so ably does in this book. The concept of vigilantism giving way to law and order is not new, but here the author makes a convincing case that die Bighorn Basin followed the usual model in die evolution of law enforcement and application ofjustice. Goodbye, Judge Lynch will be fascinating reading for those interested in die "wild West" and the evolution of American justice on a "frontier."

Phil Roberts

University of Wyoming, Laramie

Phil Roberts

University of Wyoming, Laramie

Copyright Montana Historical Society Autumn 2006
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved