Talk:Isaac C. Parker

What this article shouldn't be:

Isaac Parker (1838-1896 was an important figure of the American frontier in the post Civil War period. As a judge he presided over the Western District of Arkansas where he earned the sobrioquet, the 'Hanging Judge.'

Parker was born in a log cabin in rural Ohio on October 15, 1838. He passed the bar in 1859 and moved to St. Joseph, Missouri where he gained a reputation as an honest lawyer and a leader in local politics. In 1868 he was elected a judge of the twelfth Missouri circut. He resigned his judgeship in 1870 to run for the U.S. Senate on the Republican ticket. He was electec and held this position until 1874 when the politics of Missouri shifted away from the republicans.

Parker sought and received the judgeship of the Western District of Arkansas which also gave him jurisdiction over the vast and lawless Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma). The territory was a notorious haven for bandits and other outlaws, and the district had been marred by corruption. From his seat in Fort Smith, Arkansas Parker had the daunting job of supervising the policing of the area.

Parker's term as judge was marked by a reputation for incorruptability and by a strict, even harsh, zeal for law enforcement. In his term he sentenced 75 men and 4 women to execution by hanging. This made him a controversial figure, especially when he had a special gallows built that could hang six people at once. The gallows was first used on September 3, 1875, earning Parker his nickname. George Maledon, the hangman during Parker's long tenure, became known as the "Prince of Hangmen."

Judge Parker continued on as judge over the territory until his death on 1896. He is a powerful symbol of the imposition of law on the "Wild West." He has been portrayed in fiction several times, notably in the film True Grit {1969}with James Westerfield playing Parker. The character played by Pat Hingle in Hang 'em High has a different name, but is clearly meant to be Parker.

Sources: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/AR-IsaacParker.html

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Above text does not add anything significant to biography, is not bias free, and contains many errors. The wiki article itself is currently far better in content and substance.E leonard 02:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge from Issac Parker

There was a separate article on this same judge at Issac Parker. I have merged content from that article into this one, and converted that one to a redirect to this article. I merged only content that seemed to me to possibly add soemthing to the current article, but it may need further editing. The history of the article I merged from can be found here. DES ^(talk) 17:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the Three Guardsmen

Of the vaunted "Three Guardsmen" of Oklahoma:Chris Madsen, Bill Tilghman and Heck Thomas, only Heck Thomas actually worked for the Fort Smith court during the Parker era. A little light reading proves this conclusively; don't trust the excellent fiction of Elmer Kelton and others as fact. Adding Tilghman and Madsen's names to this page is incorrect. E leonard 22:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Bot-created subpage

A temporary subpage at User:Polbot/fjc/Isaac Charles Parker was automatically created by a perl script, based on this article at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges. The subpage should either be merged into this article, or moved and disambiguated. Polbot (talk) 18:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Added link to the Federal Judicial Center biography and will redirect the bot page to this wiki entry. E leonard (talk) 18:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Parker and the Supreme Court (Justice Harlan)

There's a decent article by Professor Kopel discussing Parker's cases, their regular appeal, and changes in the law of self-defense towards the end of the 19th century: https://davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/Self-Defense-Cases.htm . It's probably worth referencing in this article, especially in regards to Judge Parker's reversal rate.98.206.218.218 (talk) 23:15, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Dates of service & successor

I corrected Judge Parker's dates of service in the infobox to be consistent with his FJC bio -- begin March 19, 1875 (confirmed and received commission), end November 17, 1896 (his death); I also added his successor per the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas article. Whoever previously dated the article, and noted no successor, apparently confused his seat as judge with the Western District's jurisdiction. Judge Parker's judicial seat was never specifically over Indian Territory; he was the sole district judge for the Western District, whose jurisdiction included all or part of Indian Territory until September 1, 1896. Congress terminated the Western District's jurisdiction over Indian Territory on that date; but as Federal judges are lifetime appointees, Judge Parker continued as Western District judge until his death, and was succeeded in that seat by John Henry Rogers. (The seat continues in the Western District to this day, and is presently held by Paul K. Holmes III.) --RBBrittain (talk) 07:14, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

I should add that Judge Parker probably did not conduct court in the final months of his life; numerous historical sources confirm he was too ill to attend court when his Indian Territory jurisdiction ended. Nonetheless, since he was appointed as district judge for the Western District (not Indian Territory specifically) and did not resign (senior status was not available then), he remained a judge until his death. --RBBrittain (talk) 07:23, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Isaac Parker/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Wizardman (talk · contribs) 20:49, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

I'll review this shortly. Wizardman 20:49, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Here's what I found:

• There's way more sections in the article than necessary. It fragments the article too much as is; you could cut them by half easily.
• "and is known as "Hanging Judge" of " known as the
• "Parker sentenced 160 people to death, 79 were executed, the others died while incarcerated, were acquitted pardoned or their sentence was commuted." the second half seems unnecessary as redundant.
• The lead doesn't seem to summarize the article much, and could do with expansion.
• "Parker married local woman Mary O'Toole," the 'local woman' part feels superfluous and pointless.
• "City attorney was a part-time position with a one-year term" I feel like that'd be better in the first sentence of the paragraph, here it just feels tacked on.
• "Parker sentenced eight of them to a mandatory death after being convicted of murder.[7] Eight of these men were sentenced on Parker's first court session" So is it the same eight in both sentences? If so that's confusing the way you have it.
• "In an interview Parker gave to the St. Louis Republic on September 1, 1896 he stated that he had no say whether a convict was to be hanged and that he favoured "the abolition of capital punishment"." This is interesting given that it seems to contradict the rest of the article; is there more to that quote?
• "Parker's funeral in Fort Smith had the most number of attendees up to that point" highest number, though i'm not convinced this sentence is necessary.
• To go with the first point there's a good chunk of one and two sentence paragraphs and, by extension, sections that don't flow well together; a restructuring of the article would be helpful.

As written I'm not really a fan of how the article is presented. I'll give it a few days to at least allow for some restructuring then I'll take another look at it, since it seems like the more I read the more questions I had. Wizardman 02:17, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Wizardman: Could you please consider putting the review on hold for a week? I don't have a lot of time at the moment between real life and the ArbCom case I'm drafting. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:37, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I did a bit just then if you could take a look. Regarding the death penalty quote, there wasn't anything more there to give context but it appears that a lot of his death sentences were mandatory (it appears there were more laws in the Indian Territory requiring the death penalty). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:25, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

That's fine; I'll take a look in a week to see where we are. Wizardman 14:07, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Wizardman: I've done a bit of work on it, what do you think? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:34, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

I'll (finally) take another look at this either tonight or tomorrow. Wizardman 00:35, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Here's what I found on a second read-through:

• I made a few further tweaks myself on sentence structure/order. Let me know if you disagree with any. Also, rather than bothering a second time, any comma splices or punctuation things I just fixed myself as well.
• "President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Parker as Chief Justice, Utah Territory to " Just to make it more readable I'd suggest 'as Chief Justive of the Utah Territory'
• "with court prosecutor W. H. H. Clayton. Clayton who remained the United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas for fourteen of Parker's twenty-one years on the court." Remove the second Clayton and just put a comma there instead of a period.
• "and in "Oklahoma Boomer" case " and in the

A lot close to GA than it was before, I'd say. I'll put it on hold and will give it one more read through once everything's fixed. Wizardman 02:39, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Done. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:13, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

One last gripe I have is that I don't really see the purpose of the Representation in Media section. The couple that may actually be significant could be merged into the above section (renaming it death and legacy perhaps) with the rest cut, since to me it mostly doesn't have the significance to belong here. That's my only remaining issue though. Wizardman 01:05, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

@Wizardman: Done, only reason I didn't initially is that it was in the article already when I started working on it. Thanks, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 02:20, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Looks a lot better now. Since everything is resolved, I'll pass the article. Wizardman 13:41, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Date when Parker left his office of the Presiding Judge in the Western Arkansas District

The infobox claims that he left his office of the Presiding Judge on November 25, 1896. However, Parker died on November 17, 1896, due to complications related to Bright's disease/nephritis. Parker was succeeded by John Henry Rogers, who received the recess appointment from President Grover Cleveland on November 27. But Parker probably left his office upon the announcement of his death, not 8 days thereafter.--89.173.227.64 (talk) 06:03, 24 May 2016 (UTC)